Off the bat, what I liked about this book was that it challenged me and my pre-conceived notions. Early on in the book, I made some assumptions about the preferences of a character and this book reminded me of the danger of doing so. Beyond that, I really did enjoy this book. It handled big issues (death, family, obligation, hopes, fear, sexuality) in a slightly smart-assy way which is very much me. I found myself very invested in July and her life and watching her post-mortem transformation was encouraging and insightful. As a librarian, I will absolutely get a copy of this book for my high school students. As a reader, I enjoyed my time with July, Dino and the dead. Thank you.

[this review will be up on my blog, acquadimore.wordpress.com, on February 18]

Do you like to read books about messy friendships featuring major character undeath and a lot of grave-digging? The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried is what you’re looking for – and yes, it’s exactly as weird as it sounds.

This is a story about two teens who have very different personalities, which both complement each other and clash a lot. It’s a story about complex situations and teens trying to cope with them, even as they really don’t know what they’re doing.

💀 Dino DeLuca is a seventeen-year-old gay teenager whose parents own a funeral home. He has a boyfriend, Rafi (who is trans and biracial Pakistani), but Dino feels like he’s not good enough for Rafi. He also struggles with the fact that he’s changing, that he doesn’t know who he wants to be – but he knows that the person he wants to be is not who his parents want. He’s confused, doesn’t know how to deal with that, and that’s what leads him to mess up.
💀 July Cooper is a straight teenage girl who just died. Or so everyone thought. Her story isn’t over yet, and if someone was ever going to able to temporarily stop death worldwide, that person was definitely July – while Dino is indecisive, she isn’t at all, and this may be both her biggest strength (she goes for what she wants!) and flaw (…sometimes, thinking through things before doing them helps).

This is a story about a friendship that fell apart, which means that at times Dino and July are hurting each other, and it’s of course a very messy and… foul-smelling situation. I wanted to shake both of them at times, but it was worth it. I loved this book’s message, the way it talked about tragedy without ever losing its sense of humor, the way it made political jokes sometimes and also talked about what actually makes a joke funny (because no, it’s never justa joke, especially if you’re talking about marginalized groups).

Another thing I really liked was that I could picture the setting, which isn’t always the case in American contemporary-set books. I already expected this because I didn’t have the usual “I have no idea how this place looks like” problem while reading the The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza either. I wouldn’t exactly describe this book as atmospheric, but I had just enough details.

What didn’t work for me were small things – this is a really short book, but some of the dialogues felt repetitive anyway. This could be a deliberate choice, because it did feel realistic, but I still felt like I was reading the same conversation over and over at times, which made me momentarily lose interest. Also, for some reason my suspension of disbelief struggled far more with whole funeral-home-family-business than with the undeath part, and I don’t think that should have happened.

I received a Netgalley ARC of Shaun David Hutchinson’s The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried in exchange for an honest review. The novel starts out with Dino, a boy who is semi-mourning the loss of July, his former best friend, when July’s eyes pop open. Finding that July is not quite as dead as she was a moment ago (but also not quite as alive as she was before her brain aneurysm), Dino and July set about to find out the cause of this “miraculous” (or cursed) event. In scenes that reminded me of every teenage night-out/roadtrip movie ever, the two former friends discover the roots of what caused their rift and work toward making peace with one another as well as themselves.

What I loved about the book were the frank, honest discussions about touchy subjects. Hutchinson starts the novel with a discussion of boxes, commenting about the fact that people like to shove others in boxes regardless of whether they fit or not. Each character that emerges in The Past and Other Things… is far from fitting into any traditional box, and readers will leave the book feeling that all of those molds were accepted. While I felt that some of the scenes were a little unrealistic (I had a hard time wrapping my brain around a high school party where one went from making a homophobic joke to listening to discourse on race and identity with an open mind), what was wonderful about these discussion scenes were the words that the characters used; if you’ve ever heard someone making a disparaging joke and think “That’s not appropriate, but I can’t really express why,” Hutchinson has an answer for you. By shining a positive light on so many walks of life while humanizing each character in unique ways, The Past and Other Things That Should Say Buried makes prejudice in any form seem downright ridiculous, and I would imagine that it could give readers new words to express the need for mutual respect.

What I did not love about the book were the gross bits. I understood that the premise of the novel hinged on the fact that July was in fact dead and did only have a limited time, but the repeated references to decomposing smells and skin that wouldn’t stay attached at times made me want to add this to my DNF pile. While I appreciated that the dialogue on acceptance was couched in an action-packed storyline that included plenty of humor, moments like July’s selfies from the casket felt a little too macabre to me and took away from my enjoyment of the novel. Beyond struggling with those moments, a few characters, including July herself, were difficult to picture, and some plot twists, such as the entirety of death being on hold while Dino and July figured things out, felt unnecessary; I would have preferred more backstory and character development than a trip to the hospital where a man continually threw up because his overdose had been stopped mid-stream.

In the end, after truly enjoying some of Hutchinson’s beautiful descriptions of love, truth, and acceptance, I came away from The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried with scenes of skin slipping off of a finger etched in my mind, and this juxtaposition of the high-minded ideals and too-detailed descriptions ultimately took away from my enjoyment of the novel. Recommended for purchase in libraries where other Hutchinson novels are popular or where there are fans of Mary Roach’s Stiff.

First off, I have to confess I sped-read through this book in like three hours, because despite the fact that I had students in my classroom, I didn't want to leave Dino and July. The latest book from Shaun David Hutchinson, an author I hadn't heard of before but am looking forward to reading his back catalog, is a great story especially for fans of Six Feet Under, a series I finished binging on a couple of weeks ago.

Dino DeLuca's parents and sister are the morticians of the family, and they assume Dino's going to follow in their footsteps. Though Dino is skilled at making up the dead, it's not the path he wants to follow. But when his mother asks him to take care of July Cooper, his ex-best friend, who has died from a brain aneurysm, July pops up off the table and their last wild adventure begins.

Hutchinson spins out this story on a funny, engaging route. (I'm especially drawn to it as it takes place in Palm Beach County, one county north of where I live in Florida.) The relationship between Dino and July is argumentative and loving at the same time, and because this story is told in alternating viewpoints (which I normally don't like but this is done VERY WELL), we get to really see both Dino and July wrestle with their demons and leave us with a satisfying ending.

What do you do when your ex-best friend comes back from the dead? That’s the unexpected dilemma Dino and July face in the newest book from Shaun David Hutchinson. And like all of Hutchinson’s books, it’s a great read from start to finish, meshing together a contemporary setting with a surprising speculative storyline. This is also the first SDH book (at least that I’ve read, and I’ve read quite a few) that features dual POVs—a fun development. That said, I did find one of the POV characters (July) fairly obnoxious for a good part of the book. But I think it’s a testament to Hutchinson’s writing that I came around by the end.

Definitely a must-read for fans of We Are the Ants and Shaun David Hutchinson’s other books, though I admit it didn’t steal my heart quite as thoroughly as some of the others.

et another delightful and sad semi-fantastical LGBTQIA romp from SDH. This dude is incapable of writing poorly. His characters are imaginative, the subtle fantasy twist is always a welcome addition to the plot rather than an intrusion, and the endings are always exactly what they need to be, nothing more or less. SDH is a freaking treasure. In this morbid little adventure, the son of a mortician is surprised to find his dead best friend, well, isn't. The incredibly stupidly named (hence the half star removal) Dino and July embark on a quest of relationships, broken dreams, and hurt feelings in an attempt to help her find her final rest. My only issue is that I wish no one else had mentioned that people were failing to die. If it were only between the two mains, it would have made it more mysterious as to whether only Dino could see July. I would have liked that lack of surety. Finally, mad kudos to SDH for having Dino's boyfriend be a trans character and not focusing on that--yes, Rafi is trans, but Rafi is also a handsome and compassionate ballet dancer who loves turtles. Being trans is featured only as heavily as every other trait he has. That is normalization at its finest and I love it!!

Zombies + Shaun’s name = a no brainer for me, but for this I was left wanting.

I liked Dino and July well enough. They’re both so stubborn and even though at the root of all of this, they’re stupidly loyal to each other, their relationship felt a little toxic. I really liked Rafi and his group of friends. And Dino’s family is pretty rad too.

Plot wise, it was okay. There was a lot of arguing, a lot of commentary on current events, a lot of great lines and a lot of love between the groups. Even with all of these great things, it felt boring. I never completely connected to any of these characters and could have easily DNF’d without wondering how it ended.

Overall, it was an interesting idea, yet sadly missed a spark I was hoping for and sort of expecting.

**Huge thanks to Simon Pulse for providing the arc free of charge**

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this novel before its publication date.

This is my first Shaun David Hutchinson book and considering all the praise I've heard about his works in the past I was very excited to get a chance to read this.

I didn't dislike this book by any means but I think I expected to love it more. As I'm not the best reviewer I find it best to break things down into likes/dislikes:

Likes:
- It is inclusive and diverse. Gay, trans, and plus-size characters are given positive representation. Homophobic and body-shaming comments are challenged and resolved.
- I liked Dino and Rafi's relationship and found it to be one of the more interesting ones in the book.
- The dialogue was funny and most of the time I enjoyed July's snarky nature.

Dislikes:
- While the plot is interesting it is not fleshed out AT ALL. The proof clocks in at just under 300 pages and is just too short to effectively do what I believe it is trying to do.
- While the characters are witty there is honestly not a whole lot of development with the exception of maybe Dino. Dino's family is on the peripheral of the story but I would have loved for them to be a bigger part of the story. They all seemed awesome and deserved more scenes and development.
- Maybe after reading Undead Girl Gang and loving it so, so much I thought I would just be into a "friend coming back from the dead" story better but this one just didnt' click for me. I didn't care much about Dino or July and was more interested in the side characters.

I am definitely still interested in reading more from this author and am grateful for the opportunity to read this early.

Since Dino’s parents own a funeral home, he doesn’t really mind spending time around dead bodies. It’s just a normal fact of life. But when his ex-best friend, July, comes back to life as he’s prepping her body for her funeral, things start to get a little weird. She’s not really dead, but she’s not really alive, and it’s having an effect on death everywhere else.

As they start working on the mystery of July’s current state, July and Dino have to figure out why their friendship really ended. But doing so means exploring some pretty painful things of the past, and realizing that neither of them really had the whole picture.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Net Galley and Simon Pulse in exchange for my honest review. I was so, so happy to get an advanced copy of this book! Shaun David Hutchinson has probably become one of my favorite authors, and so far, my favorite book of his is The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza. The Past and Other Things that Should Stay Buried hasn’t surpassed it to become my favorite, but it was still a masterpiece of its own accord.

One of the things that I love most Hutchinson’s works is the way that they often examine friendships. This book in particular did this best, as July and Dino try to figure out why they stopped being friends. The reality is that it took July’s death in order for them to make amends, which is something that happens all too often in real life. We get the good, the bad, and the ugly of teenage friendships, and everything about July and Dino’s relationship feels real. Well, except for the fact that July is not-dead.

The emotions are also a strong aspect of this book. We feel Dino’s love for Rafi; we feel his anxiety about not being good enough, we feel his frustration with July. And through July’s chapters, we’re able to get the other side of the story. We feel July’s frustration with Dino; her struggles with accepting that she’s died; her sadness at not getting to do the things she wants to do. The emotions are what carry you through the story, and their not emotions that are unique to just teens; they’re emotions that everyone can relate to.

While I related to the emotions in the story, the main reason this wasn’t pushed ahead of Elena Mendoza is because I related to her a bit more. The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried is a bit more subdued than that, but still 100% enjoyable.

Hutchinson’s book will take you on a weird, wild ride that you won’t want to put down until it’s done. And even then, you’ll probably want to go back and read it again.

The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried has a unique plot and an important lesson wrapped up into a hilarious package. Dino finds his ex-best friend not dead and has to grapple with the remnants of their friendship and how to re-kill her. But with a wedding on the horizon and everyone on Earth suddenly NOT dying, the pressure is a lot greater than Dino could've imagined. Oh, and did I mention that his parents own a mortuary?

The characterization in this novel is amazing. I absolutely hated July throughout the beginning of this novel but her character development was amazing. Throughout the beginning, our view of her is tainted by what we've learned about her through Dino and not who she really is. The more we get to see her through her own eyes and actions, the more I liked her. July isn't a good person but she's not as horrible as we think she is at the start. July has to learn that her actions aren't always perceived the way she intended them. Dino didn't trust that July had his best interest at heart and he didn't trust himself enough to tell those around him to tell them how he was really feeling.

I loved the casual queer rep we had in this book. Dino is gay and his boyfriend is trans and there's asexually mentioned on the page as well. There's also an important conversion about jokes and who is allowed to joke about it. I loved that conversation because I think it's so important to have and that a lot of people don't understand why they can't joke about these things when others can. There were a lot of conversations in this book that were done beautifully that everyone needs to hear, from the jokes mentioned above to learning to be honest with those you are dating.

I think this book has it all: a gorgeous cover, an original plot, plenty of laughter, and a lot of serious issues.

*I received a complimentary copy of this book from Simon Pulse through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.*

a fun time but not SDH's best IMO the characters read familiar and the story was really fun but weird love Shaun's work though, so it's good and am excited to continue to read Shaun's work in the future

I love science fiction. I love Shaun David Hutchinson. I love that his books read like realistic/contemporary stories but have sci-fi elements (in this case it's more horror/sci-fi elements).

Unlike more traditional science fiction where you are immersed in a new world where anything goes and nothing feels out-of-place, books like this require you to suspend disbelief. In this case, the fact that a teenage girl rises from the dead and runs around town with her former best friend trying to figure out why she just won't stay dead. (I said it was weird, right?) But there's so much more here than maybe-zombie-girls and their mortician friends...it's about friendship and grief and being true to yourself. July is not an extremely likable character (sometimes I just wished she would die again already), but Dino is an adorable mess--and Rafi is perfection (MORE RAFI, PLEASE).

I didn't love this one to the degree I loved Hutchinson's We Are the Ants (which ranks among my all-time favorites), but it was still amazing and quirky and funny. It's also weird and annoying and gross. So...you know, fairly realistic. Except for that whole best-friend-rises-from-the-dead thing.

Oof, this one got to me. IT'S VERY RUDE to read lines like, "it's not that I feel I have nothing to say, it's that what I have to say rarely feels valuable" and the conversations about grief, because of how uncanny it was that they resembled my feelings and life. But also this was such a bittersweet story focused on the friendship between the two main characters, Dino and July. It showed how complicated those relationships can be, but how full of joy and love they are. The two of them made many mistakes, fought when they should've been there to support and understand, but had this deeply-felt bond that not even death could destroy. July was actually a pretty unlikable person, but I felt for her, and I definitely think her tendency toward refusing to give people the real her was well-done, and she grew a lot in that short time. I thought this book was gonna get weirder, so I was pleasantly surprised with how the author dealt with July coming back to life. I also really liked all of the secondary characters, and if there's one thing I wished for, it was more of THEM. (But I get why it wasn't). And I liked how this didn't just revolve around fixing July's not-death, but about trying to figure out who you are and what you want out of life, and learning what it means to let go of someone you love. Super enjoyed!!

I have been a fan of Shaun David Hutchinson’s since The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley hit the shelves back in 2015. I’ve followed him through We Are the Ants (2016), At The Edge of the Universe (2017), and The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza (2018). I was incredibly excited when I was approved for The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried that will be released THIS TUESDAY!
The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried follows Dino, a boy destined to run the family funeral home, as he is working through the grief of his best friend’s, July, death. But, lo and behold, as Dino is preparing her body for burial, July wakes up!? The two then spend their time hiding, discussing the past, and determining why July has come back from the dead.
Hutchinson brings back his typical dark humor for this book; this isn’t surprising considering there’s an animated corpse running around town. He also brings back his talent for writing complex relationships. Dino and July have a complicated past to work through and, currently, have a second chance to do so. This leads to Hutchinson’s usual discussions centered around subjects (e.g. death, depression) that are typically difficult to discuss. He does with with ease, as always, filling his work with metaphors and awkward situations that help readers digest the content.
This review probably seems short, but I don’t have tons to say other than I very much enjoyed jumping back into one of Hutchinson’s works. He’s always writes weird, quirky topics with a dark humor and zeal that speak to me on a very specific level. I would definitely recommend you get out there to grab a copy of this book today. It’s receiving 4 out of 5 Awesome Austin Points! :)

'A good friend will bury your body, a best friend will dig you back up.'  How could you not want to read this book after a line like that?  I needed to know why July came back.

I had a love/hate relationship with these characters.  At times, I loathed both of them - especially July, as she comes across as extremely self-centered and incredibly selfish.  A couple of moments I warmed to her, after the reason behind some of her actions came to light.  Deep down, both Dino and July have some heavy self-esteem issues, but deal with them in different ways. 

The friendship between these two is puzzling.  They appear to care deeply about each other, but make hurtful, biting comments (especially July), and then a couple of paragraphs later, are friends again.  It's true those you love the most can inflict the deepest wounds.  Towards the end, Dino and July's conversations are more heartfelt and honest, and a couple hit close to home for me.  

It's hard to classify this story.  It's made up of laugh-out-loud funny lines and situations, bittersweet conversations, deep character introspection - and I learned far more about how morticians prep bodies than I wanted to.  Things I'll never be able to forget.  An unusual, darkly amusing portrayal of death, and a sometimes too honest, but deeply loving friendship.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Okay, here we go. I have some conflicting feelings about this book and I'm going to try to figure out how to describe them.

Shaun David Hutchinson is one of my favorite YA authors. I absolutely loved We Are the Ants (it was an easy five stars for me) and I thought that The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley was pretty amazing too (four stars). It's possible that my expectations were a little bit too high because, while I feel like the writing was good, overall, I was pretty disappointed.

The biggest thing for me was that I felt no connection to either of the main characters.

I should have loved Dino. He's just lost his best friend. He was fighting with her when she died, so he's heartbroken. He's in this new relationship with a great guy and he doesn't quite know how to process all of his emotions. His father is pushing him into the family business when he really has no interest in it. These are all things that should have made me love him and want to protect him from everything bad in the world. Instead, I just felt like I was watching everything that happened to him from a distance.

July... she really could have gone either way for me. She's prickly, she's offensive (sometimes on purpose, sometimes on accident), and she doesn't really care about whether she makes a good impression. That's a love-it-or-hate-it kind of character. But I never felt anything much for her, like or dislike, except for when she'd make an inappropriate joke and I'd just be kind of annoyed. I didn't care about her and I didn't care about her feud with Dino.

The death aspect is interesting, but was it particularly well-executed? I don't know. I feel like there was supposed to be some kind of point to it, but we kind of danced around it and then the book just ended. I'm making this book sound like it's terrible and I promise it's not. I'm just very disappointed because I expect such great things from this author.

I still have a couple backlist books by Hutchinson that I'm really looking forward to reading. I'm just hoping that they'll be more in line with what I've read from him previously.

I didn't like this nearly as much as Hutchinson's others, unfortunately. Mostly that's because July made me absolutely crazy. She was such a horrible person and everything about her made me wish for the end to get here as fast as possible since it would likely mean she'd die permanently. I don't need to read about only likeable characters; flawed, even awful characters can be realistic and fun to read. But July was next-level awful to Dino, and it actually made me hate the reading experience.

Positives: overweight lead character, trans representation, frank discussions of sex

When friendships end it’s hard to move on, even more so when the past refuses to be buried.

“The Past and Other Things that should Stay Buried” follows Dino who is struggling to come to terms with the death of his ex best friend July and his conflicting feelings of the words they left unsaid when his final goodbye is interrupted by her coming back to life and venting out some issues of her own and if they don’t work to mend things quickly they’ll have more than just one undead body to hide.

This book speaks a lot to friendship and how we as people can hold on to certain things for a lot longer than we should and in this case that manifested into something bigger than just an old feud. Both Dino and July are flawed people who have a history of hurting each other and making up before repeating the cycle and it’s only through her death that the idea of reconciling for real becomes a possibility even if the circumstances leave a lot to be desired.

I really enjoyed their back and forth as they dealt with their pasts and how they each were able to express how they felt and how the others actions affected them even if some of those moments where shouting matches and the others were quiet I think it really showed the ups and downs of relationships and how we tend to stand in our own way when it comes to getting what we want and sometimes you need the harsh truths to get you on the path to peace and happiness.

This is an interesting read that definitely doesn’t shy away from the goriness of death but pairs it with two people who need each other in order to move forward in both life and death and I think it’s something a lot of people will enjoy.

**special thanks to the publishers and netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for a fair and honest review**

Hello, I will be posting this review to my Instagram, blog, and goodreads on January 21st, 2019. Review will also be posted to Amazon and Barnes & Noble (if applicable) on the book's publication date. Links will be added for reviews once they are public, thank you.

Title: The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried
Author: Shaun David Hutchinson
Publication Date: February 19th, 2019
Rating: 2 stars
eARC provided by publisher through NetGalley

The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried follows Dino who's family owns a funeral home and as a result he has to take care of an ex-best friend named July who died recently. Although she is supposed to be dead, weird things begin to happen and now that she is up and moving no one is dying like they should.

The cover and synopsis pulled me in but the story fell short. Although the plot was interesting and unique, the characters were flat and the friendship between Dino and July didn't really seem like much since they hadn't been friends for awhile and seemed to have moved on before her death. I am sure the author had a point in a lot of the death talk since their was a significant scene but it was lost since I felt no connection towards the characters.

The book is also filled with a lot of fart jokes, rotting flesh smells, and just weird disgusting things decaying bodies do. I am sure others would find these things to be hilarious but I am not one of those people.

It may have fallen short in numerous areas but the relationship between Rafi and Dino was cute even if their characters lacked a bit of development. Overall, it just wasn't for me but I am sure others will love what this book offers.

I enjoyed this book far more than I expected to! It was weird and slightly gross, but somehow made me both cry and laugh along the way. Any young adult looking for a read that explores the nature of friendship, and isn't afraid of a little weird, should definitely check this book out.