Humans Reborn Like a Phoenix Added to "Get Out"

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"I see dead people." That is a famous line from an old movie "Sixth Sense," and that, too, is the basic plot premise for The Taking of Jake Livingston. There are a couple of things he does not like about his Prep School, and it's not the sea of navy blue blazers or the fact that the biggest act of rebellion is popping up the collar of one's shirt or rolling the skirt waistband to make it shorter. Nope; he hates seeing dead people and being the only Black student among a bunch of Joshes, Todds, and Trevors. Despite being a 11th grader, he feels shy and confused by the chaos of phantom activity and lost memories.

Scheduling classes for the first-person narrator means avoiding ground floor classrooms where car ghosts burst through the brick walls over and over and also third floor classrooms where human ghosts jump out of the windows.

Readers will enjoy the vivid description of Jake's outlying county area of Atlanta, a mostly-Black but racially diverse population, with colorful yellow police tape flagging the most recent crime scene and exotic food trucks with dishes from places as far flung as Western-Africa Congo, Eastern-Africa Eritrea, and Vietnam.

The ghostly screams and gory images bother Jake, even though his Medium has taught him that he has nothing to fear since the ghosts can not touch him. However, they do touch his soul- and that's where the story seems to begin.