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Cons: little emotional connection, too much telling rather than showing
When Amelia Bates lands her dream job working at an old library, she's dismayed to discover it's haunted by 3 ghosts. Her ability to see ghosts has always caused problems, so she created rules to never interact with them. But the library is in danger because the ghosts are unable to move on, so she has to overcome her preconceptions and befriend them.
I really liked Amelia. She had a rough childhood and ghosts contributed to that, so having her at odds with the ghosts in the library makes sense. I loved her snarky inner voice, and how she addressed different parts of herself, like 'hysterical Amelia' and 'rational Amelia'.
The library was great and I'd love to visit and spend some time there perusing the books.
I thought the beginning of the book did a good job of setting the scene and showing how Amelia wanted to improve her skills. She had trouble talking to library patrons despite her desire, and was befriended by both Simon and Rosalinda. But as the book went on, it seemed like everything began to focus on the ghosts to the exclusion of continuing to depict those human relationships. There's a scene where Amelia overhears Simon and Rosalinda talking about how she helped some library patrons, but those scenes should have been shown so the reader could see how she's grown as a person. This telling rather than showing came up more towards the end, where we're told that Amelia has gotten closer to the ghosts by doing various activities with them. But those descriptions didn't show me any emotional connection between the characters to the extent that I didn't feel any emotional kick by the ending. Instead of being told she watched a movie with Bradon, I wanted a scene where the two discuss the film afterwards. There were a few early scenes of Amelia having tea with Rosalinda, but then we're just told it was important to her. After being told that Amelia's customer service abilities have been improved, we're finally given a scene right at the end where she rudely cuts short a conversation with one patron so she can talk to the patron she's wanted to help the whole book.
I was shocked that Amelia never asked people around her for help. Rosalinda believed in the supernatural, so why not confide in her about the ghosts, or at least ask her about Minnie's case? Similarly, why not ask the sailor ghost outside why he's telling people not to go in the building? Does he have a sense of what's going on? I also thought the explanation of why the book kept disappearing unsatisfying given how important the knowledge it held was.
I liked Amelia, but I found the book on the whole didn't give me any emotional connection to characters beyond her. I didn't get to see her grow as a person the way I wanted. I felt her journey was hampered by too much telling rather than showing, especially towards the end of the book.
