Format: audiobook ~ Narrator: Nicky Endres
Content: 3.5 stars ~ Narration: 4 stars

Keith is the youngest son of the Chen family. He grew up in a small Taiwanese town. As an adult, Keith moved to Germany. After many years, after serving a sentence in prison for killing his boyfriend, he returns to Taiwan, to his home village. As the story unfolds, we learn the story of Chen’s family, what happened to Keith in Germany, and how he ended up in prison.

Keith’s parents wanted a son, but they first had five daughters in a row. The sixth child, his brother Heith, was a son they were waiting for. Keith was the youngest, the seventh child, and the second son. The parents favored Heith and mistreated his sisters. Keith, as the youngest and the second son, was less favored by his parents.

We learn this story from Multiple POVs, the living and the dead. Ghost town is an interesting story, a sad one. But it eventually becomes quite confusing because of many POVs and sisters’ names - four named with the letter B: Beverly, Betty, Belinda, and Barbie.

This was my second try reading this book. The first try was an ebook. And now I listened to the audiobook. This is one of those novels that is not bad, and I like it, but I like it better in an audiobook form.

Thanks to HighBridge Audio for the advance copy and this opportunity! This is a voluntary review and all opinions are my own.

This multigenerational story is epic in its scope and story telling and most importantly in its descriptions. The way it centered on the same themes all trhoughout the book had me coming back to it every time and enjoying my time with the story.
Unforutnately the time skips and change of perspective I think would be much easier to follow in a physical copy of the book, rather than in the audiobook. I often found myself sort of confused, and missed many details I probably would've been able to appreciate had I read this as a physical book. The narrator did a great job tho.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the copy of the audiobook!

Dark story of a Taiwanese family told by the different family members both dead and alive. The writing was language was so rich and sensory, and the characters unique and vivid. The story itself was hard for me to follow at times with the switch of characters and skipping around in time. At times I felt myself riveted by the story, but other times found myself struggling to keep focused. I would definitely read more by this author.

Audiobook ARC received from NetGalley

This is hard to review, because in terms of enjoyment I want to give this 1 star (I hated every single moment of it), but in terms of writing skill and translation I do think it should get a 4 star? So I'm just going to go for 3.

This is misery porn. Straight up, if you enjoy books where all the characters are morally grey and have terrible things happen to them, you'll like this. If you're someone who wants content warnings for their stories, or like books with likeable characters who have to experience hardship but eventually good things happen to them, this is not a book for you. I can't even give you a full list of content warnings because this book has so many fucked up horrible things happening in it, and while there are some slightly funny moments there's not a single moment of happiness.

I listened to 4 hours of this audiobook in one day, got really uncomfortable and upset by it (around the first rape scene of the story), and decided to DNF it. Then I thought it over and thought nah, maybe I'm just in a bad mood because I was on a hot bus, I'll carry on with this. It then took me a whole week to finish the last 8 hours of the book, as I had to take multiple breaks to listen to other more enjoyable books that didn't make me want to off myself from misery.

Honestly the main reason I kept reading was because I wanted to know why Keith killed his boyfriend, and as the book progressed more and more mysteries came up - I don't think I understood all of them in the end, but that might just be because I was zoning out because the narrator, who had a lovely voice, had a really melodic way of speaking that really just scrambled my concentration. And audiobooks are very difficult to go back and double check information to make sure you understand what's going on.

I am not the target audience for this book. That's all I can really say.

This book was incredibly engaging and so much happened within it I will probably go back and listen to it again a few times to fully absorb it all. It was a little hard to keep up with all the POVs on the audiobook at first, but once I got into the groove of it the story really took on a new life. I generally prefer audiobooks so I'm glad I picked up the audio copy of this amazing book.

What a stunning tapestry of a tale of intergenerational trauma. This could have and did skirt the edges of indulgent trauma porn as you go through the trials and misfortunes of every family member, dead and alive. But every POV serves very specific purposes of adding a little more to the larger picture of life in Taiwan through some turbulent years even as the nation moved towards a picture of modernization and liberalism. Especially the lives of women and queer folks and scholars. It is clearly more than a bit autobiographical, but the lyricism and the vast internal landscapes of very different characters creates something truly visceral, if at times uncomfortable and painful. My main complaints are the ending and the translation choices for names. Without spoilers, the surprise ending feels like ending on the worst kind of cliffhanger, one of re-traumatization at the hands of a common abuser of most of the characters. And the translator's note at the end made me wish the original names, which were intentional were left as is with some footnotes to keep the narrative immersive to an otherwise very immersive tale. But this was an ARC specifically for the audiobook, so I must say the narrator was fantastic and hit very even tones with very nuanced variations for so many characters and such compelling visual imagery throughout. Ultimately it's a tale of the nature of memory, of the times and place that is home and how that home can make or break us and never let's go, no matter how far we go. Not an easy read by any means, but the narrator is a gentle guide if you're willing to follow this homecoming.

Thank you NetGalley and HighBridge Audio for the audiobook ARC of Ghost Town. Nicky Endres does a wonderful job of weaving this story and makes the characters feel like they come alive. They make you as the listener feel like you are right there in the story.

Ghost Town is a story about a family in Taiwan and the generational trauma that is found within this family. The story start with Keith who is one of 6 children who has recently been released from a German prison after killing his husband and is heading back to Taiwan to be with his family. While the story is marketed as being about Keith it truly is about his whole family.

We see the lives of his 4 sisters and brother and how things have gone wrong for them over the years. Many of this is due to the demands that were placed on them by society and most especially their mother. We also get to know the siblings parents and the things they went through that made them who they were as parents. We truly see the impact of trauma across generations especially when nothing is changed.

The story also focuses on the Ghost Festival which is when the gates of Hell open and spirits of loved ones walk the Earth again. One of my favorite characters happened to be one of these spirits. The spirit is the father of the 6 siblings who is back and watching his children meet for the first time in years. You could truly feel his heartbreak over not having done/said enough when he was alive and is no longer able to help his children.

My one and only issue with the book is it was heavily translated from Taiwanese to English and there were certain things I which had stayed the same like the names of the characters. Overall, this book was heartbreaking and wonderful and is about a family just trying to do it's best.

🧤 BOOK REVIEW 🧤

Synopsis: Chen Tien-Hong, the only and desperately yearned for son of a traditional Taiwanese family with seven daughters, runs away from the oppression of his village to Berlin in the hope of finding acceptance as a young gay man.
The novel begins a decade later, when Chen has just been released from prison for killing his boyfriend. He is about to return to his family’s village, a poor and desolate place. With his parents gone, his sisters married, mad, or dead, there is nothing left for him there. As the story unfurls, we learn what tore this family apart and, more importantly, the truth behind the murder of Chen’s boyfriend.


Review: A book so phenomenal it demands a second read. Told in a myriad of voices, both living and dead, and moving through time with deceptive ease, Ghost Town weaves a mesmerizing web of family secrets and countryside superstitions, the search for identity and clash of cultures.
At times if I didn’t give each word my full attention I could end up completely lost, but I’ll blame that on my ADHD. This book is poignant, lyrical, challenging, and heart-wrenching but I loved every moment. It is giving vibes of ‘Betty’, ‘An American Marriage’, and ‘A Little Life’.

Highly recommend. Thank you to the publisher and @netgalley for the review copy.
5/5 stars

Translation -3.5
Narrator -3.5
Writing -4.5
Overall- 4

This is a great story the characters of this Family Drama, Taiwan History and Murder Case, are so intriguing that you just have to know what’s going to happen with them all! The drawbacks for me in this book were some of the translation choices — especially names of the daughters — I kept getting confused about who was talking but then sucked back into each Chen family members part of the story — I wished the POVs name was clear at the beginning of each chapter —the narration was fine for me — but I had a difficult time distinguishing voicing of male and female characters. But it’s possible this was intentional as there is a blurred line between the living and the dead and family members POV like memory flow in the writing of the characters. Though the subject matter is dark the writing / translation is nicely written prose .

Even though the plot starts with a murder mystery, the heart of the novel is about character Keith Chen coming of age as gay man in a conservative rural town in Taiwan. The Chen family's collective need to reunite as well as their individual stories fuels an exhilarating reading experience. Ghost Town is difficult to put down and you'll be thinking about the Chens long after you finish.

Book: 3*
Audiobook: 1*


Due to my problems with the audiobook (see below), I found it difficult to connect with the story. Unfortunately, it took me quite a while to really get into the story and to identify the characters.

In „Ghost Town“ we get to know the Chen family (both the living and the deceased) and follow the lives of several people over several decades. Every now and then I was confused as to where (in time) we currently were, as the story often jumps between characters and historical events. I can’t say whether this is easier to understand or more obvious when you read the book - but I can imagine it is.

I found the cultural differences (I live in Germany) and the traditions particularly interesting and, from my Western and privileged point of view, frightening. „Ghost Town“ portrays in a raw and honest way how women (daughters) are worth so much less than men (Sons). I was extremely affected by how women are treated and how women treat women (daughters) because they have never learnt otherwise.

The synopsis brings us closer to Chen Tien-Hong and for the fact that he plays such a big role in the synopsis, he was just one of many in the story for me. I would have liked to have gained more insight into his life, especially his time in Germany and the time after his crime.
I would have liked to have learnt more about the consequences - about his thoughts and feelings. All of that was very ... superficial.

English audiobook:
Unfortunately, I didn’t like the audiobook that much.
In any case, it was good that Nicky Endres spoke very clearly and that Endres was easy to understand. There were also no distracting background noises (e.g. loud breathing, slurring etc.), which I always appreciate.
However, Nicky Endres read far too slowly for my liking, it almost felt like slow motion. Endres‘ voice was also extremely monotone, which made it very difficult for me to follow the content and connect with the story and the characters. I quickly became annoyed and listened to the book at 1.5x speed. This made the listening experience just as exhausting, but more enjoyable than at normal speed.


If you want to pick up Ghost Town, I would recommend the book and not the audiobook.

I had heard so many great things about this one and I was ecstatic to get access to the ALC (thank you so much to HighBridge Audio). I'm in awe of everything about this novel. The writing and translation was spectacular. While there are so many POVs the audiobook worked really well. I loved the narrators voice and tone for this one, it encapsulated the heartbreak and the hope wonderfully.

Ghost Town was a great listen. I loved the back and forth timelines as well as different perspectives.

The story of this book is supposed to follow a man named Keith, who is from a small Taiwanese village and moves to Germany after being ostracized in his village for being gay. He marries another man and shortly after ends up in jail for a crime, which is the whole mystery of the book.

Keith's family consists of his parents and five sisters. The book jumps from perspective to perspective to show how each of them goes through life, mostly experiencing loads of trauma.

I listened to this on Audiobook, which probably wasn't the best option because of how often the pov jumps around. It was hard to keep track of each sibling and patch together the timeline of it all. Moreover, Keith is rarely in the story except for at the end when it explains how he got to jail.

Overall, it was a good story explaining the life of each individual and how that appears on the outside, but it felt overwhelming. Again, probably would've made more sense if I read it instead.. But the voice actor, Nicky Endres, was very good and I did like his voice, he kept me interested in the book, but also relaxed.