This was a cute book! The characters are great, and while not as spooky as one might think given the setting, there was plenty of drama to keep me interested.

I gotta be honest, I absolutely loved Pax and his quirky, oddball ways. He was an adorable character.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher/author for this copy of the book.

A super cute book about learning to accept yourself and others and learning how to deal with grief. The relationships between the characters were well done. It was a quick and easy and enjoyable read!

In The Other Ones, Sal just wants to be a normal guy but it's hard when he lives with his mom and sister in a haunted house. He gets a new neighbor, Pax, who is "good with hauntings" This book involves ghost but it's far from horror, and more like a cozy mystery. I really enjoyed this book!

Sal is used to people acting like he’s weird, but he’d rather they keep their distance. It’s why he’s so confused when the new guy in town shows up at his front door. No one comes to the front door. Ever. It turns out that Pax is interested in helping with the ghosts instead of being weirded out by Sal’s family for living in a haunted house. Unfortunately for Pax, the only thing haunting Sal’s home is the ghost of what his family used to be. Sal isn’t sharing that with anyone though, so he’s willing to let Pax try to help with the haunting. He never expected to fall in love along the way.

When I picked up this book, I thought I was about to read a cute paranormal romance. Unfortunately, there isn’t an ounce of paranormality found in this story. However, it is a really cute romance with complex characters, a family that’s falling apart in secret, and a group of relatable characters. I love that Sal and his friends have a sense of found family, showing readers that they can always find the support they need in the family they create for themselves. I really wish it wasn’t marketed as a Halloween read because I would give this the highest rating if it was marketed for what it actually is: a story about grief and healing with a cute romance plot.

We follow Sal as he and his older sister, Asha, try to hold their lives together with a needle and thread. Their family started falling apart the day their dad died because not only did they lose their dad, but also most of their mom. Their mother was physically there, but she was so caught up in the past that she became a ghost of herself. Asha had to become a parent through her entire teen years, and the very thin thread that’s holding everything together is giving out.

I love how well developed and complex the characters are. There’s so many layers that slowly reveal themselves that it made one hell of a read. Sal isn’t exactly the friendly type, but he’s managed to make a best friend despite not even wanting friends. We get to watch him slowly accept that he loves his friends and that they provide as much support as he secretly likes to provide them. It was great to see him slowly open up. I really loved Pax, Elsie, and Dirk as well. Asha was great too, and I loved seeing a different type of realistic sibling dynamic. This was truly an excellent cast of characters all around.

Ultimately, this is a story about grief and healing. Pax and his family grieve the loss of his father as well as how much else they lost in the process. Elsie grieves the loss of the people she thought were her friends, and Pax and his mom deal with the hole that his father inflicted between his homophobia and abandonment. We get to watch these characters in different stages of dealing with these losses, but they also find each other while Sal and Pax find love as they each start to find the light at the end of the tunnel. While it deals with heavy subjects, it also manages to be a feel-good story. It was such a good read, so I hope to check out more of Hart’s work in the future. I also hope that there isn’t any future paranormal marketing unless they’re actually paranormal reads.

Perfect June Read!

This Adorable, cozy MLM book shows going through grief, family and finding yourself. This story revolves around a haunted house, the family that lives there and a ghost! The love story between Pax and Salem was charming and easily lovable. I would recommend this book! Thank you netgalley for the ARC copy

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the chance to read this book and review it. This wasn’t what I expected it to be but almost in the best way. I love Pax so much and would kill for him. Sal is such an interesting character and I feel for him.

Cozy cute read. Good for fall.

This was a cute, cozy queer romance about grief, family, and finding yourself. It would be the perfect read for a cool autumn day at home. The cast of characters was pretty diverse, although I do wish some of the supporting characters were given a bit more depth beyond just what they could do for Sal. I also thought the ending felt a bit rushed. Overall, I think this book would be great for lgbtq+ teens, anyone who enjoys character forward stories, and people looking for emotional but cozy books. 4/5 stars.

Thank you Fran Hart and Scholastic for a NetGalley ARC copy of The Other Ones!

Rating:3/5

This was an adorable MLM romance in a high school setting. I thoroughly enjoyed our "band of misfits" characters and the relationships formed during the months the book takes place. I liked how unique the characters were and thought it captured high school life and drama well.

I did find the description to be a bit misleading, I expected more ghosts, or at least a "haunting presence" hanging over the house. It felt as though the haunted house was a plot point there just to be avoided by our main character repeatedly and left me feeling frustrated by the 200+ page point.

I do understand the haunting turned out to be more of a "figurative haunting" than a "ghostly haunting" and with that being said I thought the book did a decent job of exploring grief and loss of a parent. The ending did feel like a quick fix though and left me wanting a little more.

***
I also noted a ton of kindle formatting issues and I'm not sure if its a kindle issue or a publisher issue. Just about every chapter had the first sentence out of order (the ending first, then the beginning). Also there were multiple words missing spaces between them throughout the book

The Other Ones is a very sweet story about a haunted house, the siblings who live there, and the new, ghost-obsessed boy in the neighborhood. It's a love story between Pax, the new boy, and Salem, one of the siblings; a family story about Sal and his sister Asha's relationship and Pax's relationship with his mom; a story about good friends who stick with you; and a story about grief and death and depression. Pax's interest in the occult provides a gateway for talking about Sal's dad's death, and newspaper articles naming Sal and Asha's house one of the "most haunted" in Britain offers an in into Sal and Asha as individuals and as a team keeping secrets from the world--and their friends. It's a lovely YA book, and perfect for autumn reading.

If there’s one thing you should take away from this book, it is ABSOLUTELY the themes and message surrounding death and grief.
The Other Ones is a great tale for teens who are struggling with the complexities that come along with a loss of any kind. Salem and Asha’s characters portray the anger, emptiness, confusion, self-sufficiency, and joy that come with processing and dealing with loss magnificently. There was a delicate balance of being stuck within yourself and letting the passage of time take you throughout The Other Ones that I felt drove the overall theme home.
After reading a few reviews (on Goodreads), this seems to come up as a point of contention with the book, but I for one enjoyed the guise of the paranormal, feeling it to be an apt cover up for what was really going on beneath the surface. It didn’t feel like I was being “lead on” by this book and what story it wanted to tell, mainly because it’s kinda obvious this isn’t a genuine “haunting” and more so the aftermath of a family who has gone through an unresolved death. (Also employing the use of the paranormal as a means of telling this story was an excellent choice, as it can truly feel like you’re “haunted” after a loss.)
I do wish we got a little more with the side characters and their developments as friends, Sal’s discovering his sexuality, and generally a bit more “meat” at the end of the book. The ending felt conclusitory enough, it just left me wanting a little bit more.
Despite that, let me gush about Sal and Pax and the coziness of this book for just a moment. This was such a pleasant, casually queer read! I absolutely adored every minute of Sal and Pax’s relationship and how it developed. (Pax had the coziest room I’ve ever read and I am JEALOUS!) They were so so cute!!!
I’m so excited to see where Fran Hart goes with her writing career because DAMN was this a great debut book.
All in all, loved The Other Ones and I will be picking up a physical copy upon release.
(Can’t believe I read this in less than 48 hours…)
4/5

The Other Ones turned out to be a very easy read. I felt that all the characters were well written, and had distinct, realistic personalities and reactions; they helped make the story feel like a real high school experience. Sal’s narrative was increasingly interesting to follow, and I had a hard time putting the book down once I'd started. There was subtle comedy that the author cleverly placed throughout the book, which created a distinct and engaging narration.

My issues with the book would be that by the end of the story I felt like something was missing, or more so left out. It seemed as though we hadn't learned much about the other characters, and that some piece of the story was left unresolved, yet I can't pinpoint exactly what. A lot of these characters aspects could’ve been utilized more, and at some points it felt like the story wasn’t getting anywhere. Pax in particular should have been expanded upon more, he was a wonderfully written character and played a huge role in the narrative, and yet I feel like he didn't get nearly enough attention as he should have. I was expecting to learn about him more deeply as I read on, but not much was expressed, and by the end his character didn't feel resolved or complete. There were minor grammatical errors that stuck out that should be looked over by editors. Otherwise, this was a well crafted piece that accurately portrayed what it is like for a family to grieve, and what the experience would be like in the mind of a teenager.

I really enjoyed this book. It was super sweet and I just wanted to take Pax and put him in my pocket and carry his sweetness everywhere. It was not some profound literary work, but a refreshing story between 2 kids finding their way through a new relationship and dealing with their own issues at the same time. I read a lot of dark things and this was the perfect book to shake things up and make me smile.

This was a great book, it just felt too short! I’d love this to be come a series, it really had potential to do well as one, especially in the era of Heartbreaker. It was written well, the characters were fun and enjoyable, and the author told a very cohesive story. This would also be a great graphic novel! So many options with a story as great as this one.

I really enjoyed this. A fun read! Really cute but I wish it was a little bit spookier. Very easy to read quickly because you won’t want to put it down!

This is one of those books I review where I am genuinely so excited to pass this on to younger readers, despite maybe me not enjoying it as much. But this is the kind of fun paranormal little book, with the kind of quirky yet relatable cast, that I would have eaten up as a kid. I will be recommending it wholeheartedly!

I requested for the cover and queer vibes and wasn't let down! It was a fun read and I found it entertaining from beginning to end. I enjoyed the characters and the plot.

Thank you Chicken House and NetGalley for the eArc!

This was a quick and cute read. Salem like most teens is haunted by much more than just what everyone in town believes is haunting him. The misfit bunch of friends fits together so nicely, I truly couldn’t dislike a single one of them. I think all of us can relate to the struggles of wanting to fit in, loss, and figuring out who we are. My only complaint would be that I wished it was longer so there could be more elaboration in some parts.

A spooky and sweet LGBTQIA YA paranormal over about ghosts, facing fears, and finding somewhere you belong

Such a fast read! Love the writing! I’m in love with the characters-Pax is my baby lol. I wish this was a bit longer and I did wish it had a tad more haunted/halloween vibes

This totally wasn’t what I thought it was going to be and it totally smashed any expectations I had! I simply think it’s so perfect. It was written beautifully and I enjoyed everything about it!