The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston

To combat my November reading rut, I ordered a bunch of non-fiction books and romance novels that I got from random lists on the internet that assured me I would love them. The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston was one of these. Was a random list on the internet right?

Florence Day is a ghostwriter for a bestselling author of romance novels. Her new editor, Benji Andor, is super hot and she hates to disappoint him, but she's not going to meet her deadline because she had a bad breakup and now she just can't be fucked to do her job and write a happy ending like a professional writer would do. But then her dad dies and she flies off to deal with that and just doesn't communicate with Ben at all.  Oh, and did I mention that Florence sees ghosts? Things get real weird when she sees Ben's ghost and hears from her roommate in New York that he'd been hit by a car.  Oh, no. Poor Ben.

Interesting characters: Oh, for Pete's sake. We know nothing about Ben except he's a workaholic with a cat named Dolly Purrton who we never even get to meet. Your job is not your personality. It is not until the last twenty pages that we learn anything else about him. And Florence is an irresponsible excuse for a human being and I cannot deal with her. 

Emotional tension: I mean, he's a ghost? So there's tension because they can't touch one another and that's a thing. There's a bit of a power imbalance in that he was her boss (in his pre-ghost life), so they spent some time tiptoeing around that. I was much more invested in Florence fixing her relationship with her sister, to be completely honest with you.

Snappy dialogue: Yes, yes, this is an enjoyable read. The back and forth between Florence and her family members and her roommate in New York is particularly well done.

Happily ever after: The ending was predictable, cheap, and silly.  And we never got to meet the cat.

Turns out that asking the internet to solve your reading problems just doesn't work. 3/5 stars