Bookworm in the City

This is a fluffy read about death and ghosts. Strange as that may seem, it works.
Florence Day is in her late twenties and working as a ghost writer for a successful romance novelist. She lives in New York with roommate Rose, whose sassy and go-getter attitude are the opposite of Florence’s insecure and angsty nature. Rose is the one out partying, and Florence is moping around the apartment with writer’s block.
Florence’s lack of ‘tude and inspiration stems from a terrible relationship she was smart enough to walk away from. See, Florence can see dead people. And she sees them all the time, on the subway, in shops, they’re everywhere. I didn’t think a big city would be the place to go if you suffer from this quirk, but it’s still a step up when you consider the fact that back in small-town North-Carolina, her family runs a funeral business. The business has been in the family for generations, and every generation has at least one person who can see the ghosts. Florence is the only one of her generation that can.
After she helped a ghost solve his own murder when she was just thirteen, it opened up a can of worms and she was basically run out of town (not literally, just the worst way: via social media). A death in the family brings her back, and it’s not easy. Especially, when Benji, her new editor, and recent make-out partner, shows up at her door, freshly dead. He gives a whole new meaning to “ghosting someone”.
In between hanging out at the local cemetary at midnight, Florence is dealing with a lot of family drama: she and her sister haven’t really talked in a long time and so things are uncomfortable as can be while they process the death of a beloved family member. Florence isn’t making things easier by insisting on staying at the B&B down the street, so of course, she keeps missing out on things. Not sure why she’s surprised about that, but not coming home for ten years is a long time, and there are a lot of unsolved issues there. Most of which could have been resolved by at least putting in a phone call every now and then, and asking each other “what’s up?”.
This is a predictable story, up to the end, and a chapter too long. But, Benji and Florence have great chemistry, and they gleefully share puns. Florence and her family also have a wonderful sense of dark humour, and puns and jokes relating to death are all around.
The puns and jokes are what made this book a fun read for me, landing it as a middle-of-the-pack palette cleanser, with bonus points for the chapter titles.