Ghosted

Author: Rosie Walsh 

One-sentence summary: A woman meets a man with whom she instantly falls in love only to have him completely ghost her, the cause of which she finds out is connected with her tragic past. 

B.A.D. Girls Book Rating: 7 

Our favorite thing about it: The experience of reading this book was fun. 

Our least favorite thing about it: It felt emotionally manipulative and contrived at times. 

Main Topics of Discussion: Love, Guilt, Obsession, Communication, Grief 

Our favorite quote: “I wondered how it was that you could spend weeks, months—years, even—just chugging on, nothing really changing, and then, in the space of a few hours, the script of your life could be completely rewritten.” 

Notes: We all enjoyed reading this book, but we also enjoyed picking it apart when we discussed it! Ha! Some points of discussion: 

1. Sarah didn’t kill Alex, Hannah did. Or at least she was just as culpable. So the main crux of the story was misrepresented. Or at least we felt like it was. This felt like a HUGE plot hole to us. 

2. Also, when that main event of the past happened – they were all kids. As if children – and yes, we include teenagers (especially) in that group – should be made to feel eternally guilty for decisions made in their youth. We didn’t buy it. 

3. We felt little to no connection to Eddie and Sarah at first. We were just supposed to believe they were in love because the author was telling us they were. The way the story was written, that’s where you start and you sort of get glimpses of their short week together that kind of, sort of, may give you more insight. But also, not really. It was a hard sell for them to fall that hard, that fast. 

4. And because of #3, we didn’t really identify with Sarah’s extreme obsession with Eddie. Again, we were just supposed to believe that they were meant to be together but we were not shown that. And here she was making a complete fool out of herself – not to mention being a little intrusive – to find out why he didn’t want to talk to her or see her. Ok. 

5. The one thing we felt was authentic and believable was the different descriptions of grief. Sarah’s grief over “losing” her sister, Alex and Eddie’s mother’s grief and the irrationality and blame that stemmed from it. 

6. The secondary characters could have been better. Their separate story lines just seemed to detract from Sarah and Eddie’s story, which is the only one we’re really convinced to care about. All the side stories about infertility, friends hooking up, etc. were not really fleshed out and so they seemed irrelevant. Half-hearted at best. 

7. The author appears to be obsessed with describing GRASS. Why? We were perplexed by her multiple and extensive descriptions of grass that seemingly had no purpose. We get that Eddie and Sarah shared a love of nature, but this just didn’t seem warranted. Plus, grass is not the only kind of nature. 

8. And finally…the major plot twists just seemed emotionally manipulative and contrived. Also, not believable at times. The only one that semi-worked for us was the big one – where Sarah finds out who Eddie is and why he ghosted her. We still find the plot hole (as described in #1) a big problem, but ok. However, Sarah getting pregnant, keeping it from Eddie, and almost dying from being hit by a truck (or so we’re made to believe) were just ridiculous and laughable for us. We also would have much preferred Sarah and Eddie to work out their substantial issues with their past without the baby to do all the hard work for them. It just seemed too easy and swept everything under the rug that the book had worked so hard to build up. “Oh, we’re having a baby together! Well then I guess we better just forgive each other and move on.” Again…ok. 

Memorable Meeting Moments: We met at Christina’s house for the FIRST time ever! 

What We Ate: Gorgeous and delicious cranberry champagne cocktails, THREE different soups, bread, slider sandwiches, and gingerbread parfait desserts.