A Beautiful Take on Found Family, Residual Hauntings
Thank you so much to the publisher via Bookish First for the finished copy in exchange for an honest review! All opinions are my own!
Watch Over Me is a deeeeeply atmospheric young adult contemporary read, with a paranormal/magical realism twist involving ghosts.
Mila becomes too old to remain in foster care, and goes to teach on a farm in northern California where the owners have fostered 40+ children. The interns cook, clean, teach, tend to the farm and children, and everyone lives in a structured environment and seem like one big amazing family.
Then there are the ghosts. Ghosts of children playing in the yard. A dancing ghost that plays the piano. A ghost that re-enacts Mila's past traumas?
The less I think about the ghost element, the more I enjoy the book. It doesn't make a ton of sense to me to bring residual hauntings to life, but I understand it in a symbolic sense. The theme of residual hauntings due to trauma is deep and difficult and handled well by these resilient kids who have been through so much. A symbolic gesture of embracing the lost part of oneself that deserves love and belonging and healing, and Nina Lacour did this beautifully.
I loved Lee, the farm family, and the found family theme in general. The farm atmosphere was so real that I always felt like I was walking in the chilly air next to the characters, or joining them dinner or in the family room.
It's a shorter and quick book that kept me rapt the entire time, and if I had more time it could have easily been read in a day.
Content for gas lighting, housefires, parental abandonment, child abuse, sex overheard and imagined in no explicit detail, two naked girls in a bath tub with nothing sexual occurring, one usage of the word f**k, near drowning, ghosts, and pain related to ghostly encounters
Watch Over Me is a deeeeeply atmospheric young adult contemporary read, with a paranormal/magical realism twist involving ghosts.
Mila becomes too old to remain in foster care, and goes to teach on a farm in northern California where the owners have fostered 40+ children. The interns cook, clean, teach, tend to the farm and children, and everyone lives in a structured environment and seem like one big amazing family.
Then there are the ghosts. Ghosts of children playing in the yard. A dancing ghost that plays the piano. A ghost that re-enacts Mila's past traumas?
The less I think about the ghost element, the more I enjoy the book. It doesn't make a ton of sense to me to bring residual hauntings to life, but I understand it in a symbolic sense. The theme of residual hauntings due to trauma is deep and difficult and handled well by these resilient kids who have been through so much. A symbolic gesture of embracing the lost part of oneself that deserves love and belonging and healing, and Nina Lacour did this beautifully.
I loved Lee, the farm family, and the found family theme in general. The farm atmosphere was so real that I always felt like I was walking in the chilly air next to the characters, or joining them dinner or in the family room.
It's a shorter and quick book that kept me rapt the entire time, and if I had more time it could have easily been read in a day.
Content for gas lighting, housefires, parental abandonment, child abuse, sex overheard and imagined in no explicit detail, two naked girls in a bath tub with nothing sexual occurring, one usage of the word f**k, near drowning, ghosts, and pain related to ghostly encounters