An incredibly unique story about a dead young woman coming back to her sister in the form of a ghost fish. Whether Alison's grief is overwhelming madness or real, we really can't say. To Alison, it's completely real, her dead sister is now a ghost fish she must care for. As absurd as this premise may sound, I found eyes filling with tears towards the end.

ghost Fish was an excellent read. It really explored grief and loss well, with a speculative twist. I loved how the book progressed and also touched on issues of money and class.

**My thanks to Little, Brown and Company for providing me with an advanced review copy via NetGalley**

3.5 stars

Ghost Fish is a touching parable about grief, which at times meandered but certainly hit the landing.

I waffled on my opinions on the book for its first half, which deal with protagonist Alison’s move to NYC and discovery of her younger sister’s ghost in fish-form. Alison’s half-dazed life adrift in the city certainly put me into her mindscape, but the text didn’t really engage me until about halfway through when the narrative leaned into a connection Alison makes with a friend and coworker as well as deepening and complicating Alison’s relationship with and duty to her sister’s ghost fish.

I’d recommend the book to anyone who feels listless or unsure of what the future holds for them, and anyone for whom years-old grief is still an open wound.

A perfectly-paced, emotionally rich novel about how to keep living, when it feels as though you have been given every reason not to -- when it feels impossible to.

The writing in here was divine. Every book I open is one in which I hope to find exactly what I did within these pages. Gorgeous, fluid writing, characters you can step into and zip yourself up inside, a home in the shape of a novel.

One of the truly rare times in which I would have kept reading this for hundreds of pages, but I also feel completely satisfied with the way it closed. A new favorite!

oh, no. this book made me Feel.

i could not have been rooting harder for our protagonist, alison, who has lived a life of loss and grief and managed to get herself to new york city because she still hopes and yearns and wants more. i wanted that for her so much.

this was a simple lovely sweet EMOTIONAL book, with a little hint of magical realism and a lot of love for the world, which is how i like them. books at large, i mean.

my only complaint is that after all that wanting more for alison, i wanted to see it, too. i'm greedy. it was a sweet ending but i wanted even more of it.

lot of wanting being unveiled here. what a pleasant surprise this book was.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Ghost Fish.

I was intrigued by the premise because:

1. Ghost of a sister as a fish
2. A story about sisters
3. See #1

Sadly, this didn't live up to my expectations because:

1. Alison is a boring, uninteresting character. Like some main characters, she's neither interesting or intriguing. Why should I care about her?

2. Ghost Fish is the title but Alison doesn't interact much with the ghost. I get it, how do you interact with a ghost fish?

I expected the presence of a ghost fish would have supernatural or otherworldly abilities or add a touch of that spiritual and/or existential element to the narrative.

Instead, we get Alison shuffling through life, making friends, drinking, clubbing, all the stuff a young adult does. It's all boring.

3. I understood Alison is lonely and grieving, but her mannerisms and way of speaking made me wonder if she was on the spectrum at first.

After reading reviews from previous readers, now I wonder if parts of the narrative was written by A..I. or the author's distinct writing style?

Food for thought.

4. I enjoy narratives about sibling relationships but I didn't feel the bond between Alison and her sister.

We get flashbacks from their youth as they time together but I never felt their rapport and chemistry.

5. There's not much suspense or urgency since Alison spends most of her time working, hanging out, and worrying about her sister fish.

I wanted interactions between Alison and her sister fish. What does it mean to manifest as a ghost fish?

There's no end date when it comes to sorrow and grief so why does her sister appear now?

I wished Alison was better developed and the narrative focused more on her and her sister fish.

I really enjoyed this poignant novel. Alison is an immediately sympathetic protagonist, and I enjoyed traveling along with her as she finds her way.

Some of the restaurant scenes (she finds work as a hostess) are a bit tiresome/repetitive, particularly around the 40% mark, but the friendship that develops between Alison and Gabrielle is beautiful to watch. Alison's relationship with the ghost fish/her sister is quirky and sweet. Alison is young but we are cheering for her to find her way. The author does a remarkable job of characterization as we get to know the other people who work at the restaurant and whom Alison encounters in the city. My favorite moment was when Alison and Gabrielle are in Key West, and Alison confesses to her about the ghost fish. Gabrielle's reaction is such a beautiful response.

There are a couple moments toward the end that came across as a little cheesy, especially for what had otherwise been a relatively serious literary novel. But overall this is a charming and memorable novel perfect for fans of literary fiction. I admire the shorter length which fits the story perfectly.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance e-galley; all opinions in my review are 100% my own.

I sat down to write this review multiple times in the past few months. I spent so much time staring at a blank page. I finished this book back in June when I was still being haunted by grief. I wasn’t ready yet to explain how well Ghost Fish captured grief when I myself was still struggling with the loved ones I’ve lost in the past year. The book was healing and just what I needed. But still, I took my time finding how to write this review while being both candid but not sentimental, personal but not oversharing. Writing about grief is difficult and complicated. I give a lot of credit to Stuart Pennebaker for writing about grief in such a real but gentle manner.

[image of book cover]
caption: Thank you to Little, Brown and Company for giving me an ARC (eGalley) to review. Always excited to read new works!

What’s This Book About?
Ghost Fish by Stuart Pennebaker is a first-person novel that follows Alison, a young woman who is haunted by the death of her younger sister. Alison makes the move to New York City to start a new, fresh life, but she is constantly reminded of the loss of her sister. Amid her grief and loneliness, Alison sees a strange shape in the air, a spectral fish. She believes her sister has returned to her as a ghost fish and keeps her in a pickle jar. Alison begins to develop a new life and decides what kind of life she wants for herself. At the same time, she feels the need to spend as much time with her ghost-fish sister before she fades away. A beautiful coming-of-age debut novel focusing on grief, loneliness, and moving forward.

[image of many orange and white fish in a tank]

Themes of Grief and Loneliness
Grief is one of the hardest experiences to capture on paper. Everyone deals with loss differently, meaning there is no standard experience or time frame. I admired how the novel dealt with grief in a way that was both real and gentle.

This novel highlighted how, through grief, you can lose a loved one not just once but multiple times. Alison clings to her ghost-fish sister, often thinking about her when she’s not home and going so far as to take her around the city in a pickle jar. She struggles with knowing she must release her sister into the sea, effectively letting her go. Grief catches you between the present and the past. Alison is caught between her new life, potentially with love interest Gabrielle, and her ghost-fish sister at home. The grief often prevents Alison from living life, but at the same tim,e she doesn’t want to let go of her sister. The portrayal of this struggle, to create a life for yourself while lost loved ones remain forever stagnant, is well done.

Complicated Relationships
A more underrated part of the book is Alison navigating relationships with people other than her ghost-fish sister. I appreciated the relationship between Gabrielle and Alison. The author does not skate around the romantic aspect of their relationship, despite Alison still navigating her sexuality and her feelings towards women. Their relationship is not sickly sweet and never takes away from the coming-of-age journey. And I felt it was important to have a character like Gabrielle whom Alison could eventually confide in and love. Part of Alison’s coming-of-age is realizing who she wants in her close circle and her learning to love and trust those around her.

Gabrielle and Alison’s relationship is not a straightforward “love can fix all things” kind of romance. The two are working together to figure their lives out, how they feel about each other, and what they want. Gabrielle does not solve Alison’s grief but instead supports her even when she may not fully understand. They’re not always on the same page, they fight, and they feel insecure and unsure; all very real things to feel in a blossoming but complex relationship. Alison and Gabrielle’s relationship feels like a realized portrayal of a new partner supporting someone they love in their grief.

[image of a street sign that says "New York" against a blue sky]

The Writing Style and Pacing
I loved Pennebaker’s prose. The writing had a poetic quality without taking away from the story. There is a nice rhythm that comes from the poetic aspect, leading to a nice flow for the story. The images are beautifully sharp. Pennebaker paints a picture of NYC and of Alison’s life that is clear yet specific to Alison and her experience.

My only issue with this novel is the slow pacing. A little too much time was spent in NYC. The pace does pick up again once Alison visits Florida. The pacing could have been a little faster and gotten more to the heart of the novel. While the reader needs some patience for this one, the content is worth the slow pace.

Pennebaker has such a clear writing voice that I often forgot this was a debut. I’m excited to read future books by her! I will certainly be keeping an eye out for more novels by Pennebaker.

My Final Ruling
I would recommend Ghost Fish to those looking for:

A unique concept - I was originally drawn to this novel because of the concept of handling grief with a ghost-fish sister!

A coming-of-age novel touching on grief, loneliness, and moving forward

An amazing debut

A patient reader who loves literature

I really hope people give this a read!

You can purchase this book through Books Are Magic (pickup on location), Bookshop.org, or Barnes and Noble.

4/5 stars

(FYI, I'm a reviewer and this review appeared on my site, ringreads.com. I don't typically do author interviews, but I do typically promote on socials.)

It takes real skill to write a doorstop of a book that stays compelling from start to finish. It takes just as much, and maybe even more, to write a book that contains an impossibly rich story in a short span of pages. Ghost Fish, the debut from Stuart Pennebaker, is a great example of the latter.

At twenty-three, Alison has had enough loss and dead-ends for a lifetime. She leaves her late grandmother's dark and empty house and sets off for New York. Squeezed into a small apartment with too many roommates, Alison initially clings to Jen, a friend from back home and the only person she knows in the city, and quickly draws closer to Jen's hot friend Noah. But the shine from that could-be relationship quickly dims—especially after a strange, ghostly fish appears in her apartment that Alison instantly knows is her sister who died five years before.

This ghost fish can't say much from the water-filled pickle jar Alison keeps it in, but her sister's meaning is clear in every wave of her fin and blink of her fishy eyes. Soon, Alison is racing back to her little room every chance she gets, turning down hang-outs with Noah and leaving the second she clocks out from her new job as a hostess at a pretentious hotel restaurant. Despite this, she finds herself developing unexpected connections with her new coworkers, and even her roommates. It doesn't take long to realize she can't build a life for herself and tend to this echo of her sister floating in a jar on her windowsill.

The real triumph of Ghost Fish is how immersive it is. Opening up this slim novel gives the feeling of unknowingly sinking into cool, deep water; closing brings you back to the surface, gasping for air. Pennebaker skillfully blends small details with the towering landscape of New York or the lapping water of Key West to make the background feel as lifelike as its characters. Jen, Alison's only friend in New York, is both a ride-or-die friend and a school-days pal whose relationship has run its course. Her roommates are an odd and insular group, but maybe less insular than Alison initially gives them credit for. It would be easy to make them one-note characters, but Pennebaker respects them, and us, too much for that. Alison herself gives us observations are at once keen and distant, to the extent I wasn't sure how aware she was of a crush growing so obviously to the rest of us. She doesn't seem to see herself as the hero of her own story, but her imperfect view of herself is one that makes us feel for her, even if it's against her will.

Ghost Fish is a story of grief, but it's also a story of identity and starting over. Remembering a walk she took along the beach with her mother and sister—both dead and gone now—and seeing hundreds of dead horseshoe crabs. "My body was here, like the horseshoes on the beach, but if [my sister] couldn't be anything, I would be nothing, too," she says, even as she tries to make a new start for herself. The more she starts getting a tenuous hold on that new start, the better she can see how much she depends on her sister, and how that dependence might not be good for either her or her sister. Then again, knowing that and actually letting go are two very different things.

That tension is very relatable, even if you've never kept the fish ghost of your sister in a pickle jar on your windowsill. Ghost Fish is about grief, and about finding out who you are, and where you can be that purest version of yourself. It's a brief and strange but beautiful story that is more than worth your time.

Wow. Nothing tickles my fancy more than a book that’s premise seems odd and silly yet it completely cuts you to your core. It’s no secret this book is about grief. It’s raw, vulnerable and feels so incredibly real. Alison is alone and lost in her new reality and new town. We go along with her, as does the ghost fish, as she navigates how she fits into this new world. It’s not smooth sailing, I’ll leave it at that. I’m shocked that this is a debut because it was written succinctly yet beautifully. It’s full of heartbreak and hope from beginning to end. Navigating grief is a universal event, yet it’s always such a personal and individualized journey. Pennebaker did a fantastic job at capturing that essence. I cannot wait to see what he writes next.

Ghost Fish is one of those books that sneaks up on you. It's an engaging read, but you're not turning pages as quickly as you can just to see what happens next. You're just *being* there (as opposed to moving through). Alison, the central character, is a bit adrift. Her mother died when Alison was a child; her sister died when Alison was in her teens; and now Alison's last living relative, her grandmother, has died. Alison doesn't know exactly what she wants, but she knows she needs change—so she moves to New York City, rents a "room" (it used to be a bit of hallway) in a four-person household, and gets a job as a hostess at a hotel restaurant.

There are plenty of solid directionless-but-getting-by-in-New-York-City novels. What makes this book surprising is that Alison finds someone who gives her purpose: an invisible fish, an invisble ghost fish only she can see and who she is convinced is her sister returned to her. Now Alison has someone to talk to, to come home to, to care for.

But there are problems—
• Even in NYC you can stick out if you take a jar of water for walks in the park.
• The conversations are one sided: Alison can tell her ghost fish/sister anything; sister can only blow bubbles, bob up and down, and wave her fins.
• Alison finds she would rather sit in her room with her ghost fish/sister than meet her actual apartment mates.

Pennebaker never invites us to question this odd situation. Alison is sane and solid, living life as she experiences it. And, while there's a great deal going on, the pace of the novel remains relatively gentle. We're not here to question Alison's choices or see her the way others may see her. We're here to spend some time walking alongside her.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.

I featured Ghost Fish in my August 2025 new releases video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq3pme6mIno&t=858s and though I have not read it yet, I am so excited to and expect 5 stars! I will update here when I post a follow up review or vlog.

Oh. My heart. I cried at least 5 times and smiled just as many. By the end I was a sobbing mess and could barely see the page. You know, crybaby things.

What's interesting to me about Ghost Fish (besides the ghost fish) is how Pennebaker is able to create such a rich, emotional character with such little space. Alison is so relatable to not only those who have experienced grief, but those who have experienced profound loneliness. Though Ghost Fish is about overcoming grief, it's also a story about the experience of young adulthood; finding your own identity, learning to trust, setting boundaries, being vulnerable.

I loved how the beginning of the book has an almost rote mechanical feel. Alison is so stuck in her own mind that she exists on autopilot, going through the motions of work, coming home, avoiding people. The dissociative feeling of the narration gives us such an insight into Alison's state of mind that juxtaposes with how she feels during her time with her sister's ghost fish, and how she feels at the end of the novel. You can feel the shift in Alison's inner world, not in a disorienting way, but in a way that mirrors how it feels to learn to trust, open up, and be alive.

Alison's experience of young adulthood really hit me in the heart. Your early twenties are messy, confusing, fun, scary, lonely, overwhelming... Pennebaker captures all of that and more.

It's a testament to Pennebaker's writing skill that the relationship between Alison and her sister feels whole and real, even though we never once meet her sister in human form. The writing is sneaky in the best possible way. She evokes emotion and memory in a way that creeps up on you, hidden in lines that are deceptively simple but hit emotionally after you've already moved past it. There were times I would read a line, process what it said after I'd already moved on, then go back and reread it to really take in the emotional weight of it.

Pennebaker's writing is subtly poetic in all the right places, never veering into flowery or purple. In just one line, she can set the tone, give an insight into Alison's current headspace, show a budding friendship, and provide energy to a scene that would otherwise feel stagnant. The imagery she uses is so intentional and evocative and makes the book, and Alison's inner world, feel truly alive.

Though the plot itself is rather predictable, the journey to get there is stunning. Though Alison's experience of grief is emotionally sad, there's also an overtone of hope, of finding the light again, of learning to be okay even when it hurts. The latter half of the book is poignantly bittersweet and depicts such a real, human experience of healing. This book isn't about plot beats or neat endings, it's about feeling the full emotional weight of Alison's experience, and Pennebaker absolutely nails it.

Incredible debut, I can't believe this is Pennebaker's first published work. I'm a forever fan and can't wait to see what she does next.

What a beautiful sweet story about grief and finding yourself and making a life for yourself all alone.

This book is light, sweet, quirky and fun for majority of it dealing with heavy grief. You have your FMC whose entire life is revolved around all the loss she has in her life.

She finally decides to switch her life up and makes a move to the big city of New York getting a job and renting a room in east Village.

You are with her as she navigates her social life while a ghost fish version of her sister also appears and she navigates how to keep this secret and what it means but also build her own life.

A blend of holding on while also moving on. Its a beautiful dance.
The friendship between her and Gabrielle is beautiful full of respect, peace, support and understanding

"Ghost Fish" follows Alison, a 23-year-old orphan, and not just in the literal sense, having lost her mother at a young age and every other immediate family member since, but also emotionally, as someone completely, achingly alone. Stuart Pennebaker’s writing captures her loneliness and isolation with striking clarity. From a small Southern town, Alison relocates to New York City, where she encounters the ghost of her deceased sister; reincarnated, unexpectedly, as a fish.

This novel uses magical realism as a powerful lens through which to explore grief, longing, and the search for meaning after profound loss. I’ve read many books about grief, but none have resonated with me quite like this one. As someone who has also lost all of my immediate family, I felt deeply seen by Alison’s story. The sensation of floating unmoored in the world with no clear “home” left is captured here with raw honesty and beauty.

I wanted to reach into the pages to comfort Alison, to tell her she wasn’t alone. But Pennebaker allows her to find her own way, and I felt honored to walk that journey alongside her and her ethereal sister-fish. This novel is tender, strange, and deeply moving. A beautiful, unforgettable read. I'm really looking forward to whatever Pennebaker does next.

It took quite a while for me to get into Ghost Fish, but I'm glad I kept with it - the payoff was well worth it! I'm not going to lie; sometimes this book was a gut punch, and you just really wanted to pull Alison out of the book to give her a warm hug. It was, at times, a difficult read as it deals with loss and loneliness as well as the depression that often goes hand in hand. But it's also about coping with these difficult emotions, sometimes in unique ways, and allowing yourself the grace to find friendship and support in the midst of that turmoil. Ghost Fish is also about finding the courage to realize that letting go and truly living your life is not forgetting or lessening your loss but honoring it.

I would definitely encourage readers to try this book and stick with it; I'm still surprised at how much it resonated with me.

I really loved the concept of this novel, which was a quirky way of dealing with grief - the protagonist's sister reappears to her as a fish she carries around in a jar as she moves to New York City and tries to find her footing in the wake of her sister's death. It seemed like it was going to be a weird book, which are my favourites, yet it was surprisingly somehow not as weird as I hoped/wanted it to be. This is a quiet book and I don't mean that as a negative - it was a relatively quick read and at the end, I felt both the character's grief and closure. I wanted more and got less, and yet less somehow worked in this scenario.

tender, well done, effective story about coping with grief, recovering from loss, and becoming yourself. 5 stars. tysm for the arc.

Ghost Fish was surprisingly grounded for how fantastical the concept. Such a moving portrayal of grief and finding your place in the world. Our main character, Alison, reminding me so much of myself when I was young. In another review recently I spoke of moving alone to a big city and how scary that can be. But in Alison’s case, she doesn’t even really know if moving was what she wants because she doesn’t know how to live for herself anymore.

Watching her grow over the course of this short and sweet novel brought me to tears more than once. Never did I think I would sob over an empty pickle jar!

I was not prepared to tear up over an empty pickle jar.

This was a captivating and heavy story of grief. I was overwhelmed by its portrayal of how we cope and who we confide in. It centers so heavily around the loneliness we feel when we've lost someone we love, and the things we'll do to bring ourselves comfort. I don't think I relate much to Alison's character, but anyone can empathize with the weight of loss. And then I cried over a pickle jar.