Book Review: Ghost Eaters

GHOST EATERS | Clay McLeod Chapman
09.20.2022 | Quirk Books
Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Erin hasn’t been able to set a single boundary with her charismatic but reckless college ex-boyfriend, Silas. When he asks her to bail him out of rehab—again—she knows she needs to cut him off. But days after he gets out, Silas turns up dead of an overdose in their hometown of Richmond, Virginia, and Erin’s world falls apart. Then a friend tells her about Ghost, a new drug that allows users to see the dead. Wanna get haunted? he asks. Grieving and desperate for closure with Silas, Erin agrees to a pill-popping “séance.” But the drug has unfathomable side effects—and once you take it, you can never go back.

GHOST EATERS is my first book from Chapman and based on the synopsis I thought I knew what I was signing up for, but what I ended up with was a much wilder ride than I was expecting. The story starts out harmless enough as we get to know Erin, whose world is slowly falling apart. The descent into grief is excellently portrayed within the pages of this story, as is the topic of addiction and its impact on not only the individual, but those in their lives. 

The pacing was a bit slower than I was expecting and I felt the story lag in the middle. Chapman delivers a wild ending that got points added back onto my overall rating. I wasn’t expecting the weird turn that things took at all and while it worked for me, I’m not sure how others will feel. I still have a lot of questions about the how/why of this story and there are several things I wish would have been expanded on more. 

If you’re looking for a claustrophobic, eerie and weird story, I definitely recommend giving this one a try!

A huge thank you to Quirk Books for my gifted copy!