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horrorbutch 's review for:
Flowers for Dead Girls
by Abigail Collins, Abigail Collins
Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC from netgalley in exchange for a review.
I want to preface this review with stating that it will not be spoiler free. Spoilers Ahoy! Particularly the second half of the review is not spoiler free. My spoiler tags do also include some spoilering content, but I mainly used them to flag the parts where I heavily discuss ableism and suicidality. This got incredibly long, but I feel like it is necessary.
Flowers for Dead Girls starts out as a very sweet, sometimes admittedly somewhat repetitive in its depiction of symptoms of OCD and use of certain phrases, but uplifting and interesting story of a girl, who can see ghosts and the teen ghost that asks her for help to finish her anti-bucket list before she can move on. It features a storyline of accepting your mental illness (OCD and what might to outsiders look like schizophrenia/psychosis - due to the seeing ghosts), that I think was really well done. Astra in general has a lovely storyline of accepting the things that make her "weird" (her OCD, her noise & color sensitivity - which read very neurodivergent to me, her general seeing ghost things, the fact that she has to take care of her mother most of the time because she is incapable of doing so herself) as well as dealing with her strained family relationships in ways that felt incredibly interesting and important. The relationship between the two girls is adorable, Isla is an interesting character with so much joy and excitement and it was crystal clear that she was exactly the person Astra needed to meet to be able to grow out of her shell and figure out ways to manage her massive workload of being a student-psychic-caretaker for her mother-making her first real friends without burning out.
But as you can probably tell from my rating unfortunately that's not all there is to it. I'll start out with my minor complaints.
The plot, especially in the first third of the book, is narrated in very repetitive ways at times. Especially the fact that Astra has OCD and gets headaches from noises and bright colors and hears ghosts and gets cold, always cold, just keeps coming up all the time in ways that felt lacking in depth after a while. Yes, she counts things, yes, she has some dangerous numbers and some that comfort her (even if it is a compulsion), but how else does her OCD influence her life? How especially, does it interact with living with a messy mom, who cannot deal with most basic household chores due to her own disability? We don't know. I just really wished for more depth here.
As the main character of the novel Astra got quite a lot of story focus and I think most of her parts (dealing with mental health and familial issues and making friends for the first time) were handled interestingly, especially once the story starts moving, but the world itself was barely fleshed out, sometimes in ways that do not make sense (more on that later though!). I would have liked to be able to imagine the town this is set in better than: There's a school, there's a greenhouse, there's a hospital, there’s a funeral home, there's a library with multiple floors. I just think making it feel more lived in would have been interesting and might have helped alleviate some of my later problems.
And while I liked the mother and Oliver as side characters, I wish Isla as the love interest would have gotten more exploration. She is (understandably for plot & personal reasons) very guarded about her life, but somehow at the same time very social and excited. I would have liked to see her share a bit more about herself to make Astra's investment into her a bit more realistic. We don't really figure out anything about her besides the fact that she loves flowers and has a bucket list until around the 80% mark and I know she's a ghost, but since this is a romance I do not really want the love interest to be the one to haunt the plot in absences.
Now despite my issues up to this point this book was okay. I found the characters sweet, the portrayal of OCD fitting for a YA audience (even if it felt repetitive in its portrayal of counting and number obsessions to the point of sacrificing a more in depth exploration of it at times), was excited to see how this "doomed" relationship was going to be handled, really enjoyed getting to see an anxious teen step out of her shell and the exploration of a mother as loving person, but also quite incompetent as a mother, due to her own (untreated) mental health issues. This story would have most likely been a three star read if the Big Plot Twist at 80% hadn't happened. But now I cannot give it more than 1 star and if less was possible, I’d give it less.
TW for ableism and suicidality from now on as well as a big spoiler warning for the last 20% of this book.
If you needed to put your phone down after this, please know you're not alone. At this reveal I was quite close to dnf-ing this book. And looking back it would have been better for my mental health if I had. Because it does not get better. But since I didn't, join me as I explore the even more unimaginable ableism that is to follow (oh btw this reveal happens on page 180 of 214 if you want to experience a fraction of the terror I experienced when I got to the reveal, because how the hell do you deal with something like this in 30 pages? If you think you don’t… Yup.). After the reveal Astra's is so shocked that "everything is tilting just a little to the right" (page 180). Not because Isla's earlier admission that she would be okay with dying and the underlying suicidality apparent in her reaction to the news that she will die if she doesn't return to her body, but by the fact that this girl that she met as an active ghost uses a wheelchair in real life. Yikes. Then her thoughts turn to Isla's un-bucket list. "Climbing a tower. Going to a greenhouse that's only accessible by walking through a grassy field and over a gravel pathway. Checking out a book on the third floor of a library without an elevator. Taking a road trip in the front seat of a car. Dancing at prom. All of them, Astra realizes, are things she couldn't have done in a wheelchair. Not without help, at the very least, and Astra knows how much Isla hates asking for help." (page 181). If you clapped your hands together over your head in disbelief at reading this: Thank you. And same. If you do not understand what's wrong with this let me lay it out for you. Climbing a tower is probably the hardest and even though some wheelchair users can rockclimb this may actually be the one thing on this list that's actually impossible. If this stood on its own, I would not complain about it, but it gets worse. Crossing a grassy field or driving over a gravel pathway in a wheelchair? Not fun, with varying levels of difficulty depending on the wheelchair used and needs of the user, but doable. If you have somebody to push you, especially if you're (like Isla) only disabled because your legs are paralyzed and you don't have added issues of heightened pain sensitivity or an electric wheelchair that could be damaged, it's easier. And now moving on from the things that I could have understood as being listed here since they do pose a difficulty, we turn towards things that require very little support (or should require very little). Being unable to check out a book on the third floor of a library without an elevator should legally not be possible in America. Public institutions (libraries included) are required to provide access through elevators as soon as they have three or more floors according to ADA federal law, which has been in effect since 1991. By now in 2024 I think we can all agree that this has been in effect long enough that some renovations have to have taken place and at least a stair elevator should exist (We don't fully know when this story is set, but they can at least send pictures on their phones. So not 1992.). And while some smaller libraries may struggle with being accessible due to size, a library with at least three floors is not small and should have some way of dealing with problems of lacking access, if not an elevator than at least a library staff that offers help. Of course, Isla would still need to ask for some help, but I feel like its a huge red flat that in 5 years she hasn't asked once (after all we know disabled people should never make any fuss and just suffer silently!). Really makes me feel like she has spent literally any time in the past 5 years doing anything but vague disabled suffering (/s). But the last two points enraged me even more. Sitting in the front seat of a car? Absolutely possible. Assisting her in lifting her onto the front seat or enabling her to pull herself up to it is not more work than wheeling her chair into the back of the van with a ramp, especially since we will be shown that she has good upper body control. Should have been easily possible in her life. Dancing at prom? Really? Dancing in a wheelchair is very possible. This just makes it seem as if the author truly cannot imagine a single moment of happiness for a wheelchair user.
Now while I do not blame Astra for not knowing all of these things (particularly the ADA federal law), it shows a big problem with the way disability is portrayed in this book. There are no other disabled people in the story. George is implied to have used a walker in his life, but as a ghost it only shows through the bent over way he walks. And when Astra finds out Isla is disabled she starts crying and then leaves Isla alone racing away in her car. Completely normal way to finding out somebody is disabled (who knows maybe it's catching?!). While Astra explains a few scenes later that she didn’t leave because of what Isla said, the way it is written just sucks as it is so abruptly cut off and only focused on how horrible and tragic and different it is for Isla to be in a wheelchair instead of doing cartwheels and dancing tango with Old Man George the Ghost. Then we get to enjoy the trope of “disabled person saying their person isn’t worth living because they are such a burden to their loved ones”, but it’s fine because Astra finally managed to say that she loves her and this finally convinces Isla that maybe she should in fact try if she can return to her body. Love cures all <3 How romantic! Then we have some amnesia drama (in literally the last 20 pages…). It did not add anything to the story and I think that could have been replaced to deal with the various questions that actually deserve more narrative time than a “Amnesia for aaaaangst. Don’t worry that it happens at the 92% mark of the book (literally 15 pages before the end…), because it will actually change nothing or add anything to the character development or even just have any scenes where Astra tries to reawaken Isla’s memories of their time together by recreating them and showing her that it is possible for her to do at least some of these things (cliché and still filled with abled savior tropes, but at least it would have included Isla and Astra interacting!). Instead it just feels like a convenient excuse to separate the two so we don’t actually have to deal with the recovery of Isla until she is able to leave the hospital and wheel herself (We can’t see somebody who is too disabled after all. That could be someone who is so sick they might not actually deserve to be loved!).
And now on to the end, which is supposed to be uplifting and joyful and make me sigh and swoon and cry a little tear about the wonderful support this poor disabled girl receives from her girlfriend and her friends, but it just made me feel like I was reading the most cloying disability porn ever written.
10 pages before the ending they finally meet each other again, kiss and we get two final scenes that try to show that accessibility is possible. The first one is set in Astra’s mother’s store that Astra and Oliver rearranged to make it wheelchair accessible. This scene was fine and more accessibility is always important. Small stores often do not consider it, so I liked that scene and that is something everybody can do to make our society a bit more accessible. But immediately afterwards Astra makes another of Isla’s dreams come true: She literally builds a wooden path for her with her own two hands so she can finally visit the greenhouse again even though she’s in a wheelchair. And when they drive there Astra sits in the back of the car again! (To be honest, I get the feeling she is quite literally stuck in her wheelchair... Like glued to it or something, because that is something that should have been portrayed differently if the author is really trying to show the difference that the priviledge of having interpersonal relationships where somebody cares about your access needs makes.) But we can’t have too much accessibility. Or accessibility that does not solely happen because somebody really likes you. Or accessibility that would mean the state has to do literally anything and change the structural issues that this book decided to portray as solvable by sweet teens with a heart of gold, who make it their goal to fix ableism forever! And frankly I find the portrayal of accessibility as something that interpersonal connections can fix instead of something that is a huge structural problem and that needs to be tackled with more than just “we did a fundraiser and built you a ramp” frankly quite offensive and I would describe it as a form of disability porn, because it is supposed to inspire the able-bodied reader to sigh happily and lean back and say: "Another wheelchair user saved by a rickety wood path. Our libraries do not need elevators and we also do not need to worry about that fact that a child wanted to die because she did not consider her life worth living because she is in a wheelchair. Truly, a wonderful story and a great message to young readers!".
This book's portrayal of physical disabilities made me sick. It made me glad that I completely finished it before recommending it to a disabled friend of mine, who is a wheelchair user, and not simply thought: "Oh, a sweet sapphic ghost story about overcoming some issues and learning to accept and love yourself." Because I hate literally every single aspect of the way physical disabilities are portrayed here. I hate that the fact that Isla is a wheelchair user is treated as a spoiler and a plot twist by not only the book, but most reviews I've seen so far. I hate that this book assumes that there is one type of wheelchair and because we all know what a wheelchair is we do not need any more specific descriptions. We get long descriptions of clothes, but the wheelchair is black. I hate that there are no other disabled people in this town that’s big enough to have a library with three floors. I hate that Isla is not the main character and that the fact. We can and should have stories that focus on how isolating being disabled and chronically sick is! We need stories that show the importance of inclusion and abled solidarity with disabled people. But that is not a topic that can be handled in 40 pages. That is not a topic that should be dealt with swallowly and with ableist abled savior tropes. And with all of these issues I cannot in good faith recommend this book to anybody.
I want to preface this review with stating that it will not be spoiler free. Spoilers Ahoy! Particularly the second half of the review is not spoiler free. My spoiler tags do also include some spoilering content, but I mainly used them to flag the parts where I heavily discuss ableism and suicidality. This got incredibly long, but I feel like it is necessary.
Flowers for Dead Girls starts out as a very sweet, sometimes admittedly somewhat repetitive in its depiction of symptoms of OCD and use of certain phrases, but uplifting and interesting story of a girl, who can see ghosts and the teen ghost that asks her for help to finish her anti-bucket list before she can move on. It features a storyline of accepting your mental illness (OCD and what might to outsiders look like schizophrenia/psychosis - due to the seeing ghosts), that I think was really well done. Astra in general has a lovely storyline of accepting the things that make her "weird" (her OCD, her noise & color sensitivity - which read very neurodivergent to me, her general seeing ghost things, the fact that she has to take care of her mother most of the time because she is incapable of doing so herself) as well as dealing with her strained family relationships in ways that felt incredibly interesting and important. The relationship between the two girls is adorable, Isla is an interesting character with so much joy and excitement and it was crystal clear that she was exactly the person Astra needed to meet to be able to grow out of her shell and figure out ways to manage her massive workload of being a student-psychic-caretaker for her mother-making her first real friends without burning out.
But as you can probably tell from my rating unfortunately that's not all there is to it. I'll start out with my minor complaints.
The plot, especially in the first third of the book, is narrated in very repetitive ways at times. Especially the fact that Astra has OCD and gets headaches from noises and bright colors and hears ghosts and gets cold, always cold, just keeps coming up all the time in ways that felt lacking in depth after a while. Yes, she counts things, yes, she has some dangerous numbers and some that comfort her (even if it is a compulsion), but how else does her OCD influence her life? How especially, does it interact with living with a messy mom, who cannot deal with most basic household chores due to her own disability? We don't know. I just really wished for more depth here.
As the main character of the novel Astra got quite a lot of story focus and I think most of her parts (dealing with mental health and familial issues and making friends for the first time) were handled interestingly, especially once the story starts moving, but the world itself was barely fleshed out, sometimes in ways that do not make sense (more on that later though!). I would have liked to be able to imagine the town this is set in better than: There's a school, there's a greenhouse, there's a hospital, there’s a funeral home, there's a library with multiple floors. I just think making it feel more lived in would have been interesting and might have helped alleviate some of my later problems.
And while I liked the mother and Oliver as side characters, I wish Isla as the love interest would have gotten more exploration. She is (understandably for plot & personal reasons) very guarded about her life, but somehow at the same time very social and excited. I would have liked to see her share a bit more about herself to make Astra's investment into her a bit more realistic. We don't really figure out anything about her besides the fact that she loves flowers and has a bucket list until around the 80% mark and I know she's a ghost, but since this is a romance I do not really want the love interest to be the one to haunt the plot in absences.
Now despite my issues up to this point this book was okay. I found the characters sweet, the portrayal of OCD fitting for a YA audience (even if it felt repetitive in its portrayal of counting and number obsessions to the point of sacrificing a more in depth exploration of it at times), was excited to see how this "doomed" relationship was going to be handled, really enjoyed getting to see an anxious teen step out of her shell and the exploration of a mother as loving person, but also quite incompetent as a mother, due to her own (untreated) mental health issues. This story would have most likely been a three star read if the Big Plot Twist at 80% hadn't happened. But now I cannot give it more than 1 star and if less was possible, I’d give it less.
TW for ableism and suicidality from now on as well as a big spoiler warning for the last 20% of this book.
Spoiler
Now if you've read the summary you will have noticed that Isla has a secret and that this secret influences her wish to stay. If you've ever consumed any form of ghost media, there often is the idea that ghosts cannot remain on earth forever without suffering a form of identity loss or going mad. This is the case in this story as well and is used to add some urgency to the plot at first. However, Isla is different. Because we find out that she is not dead. (One of the twists I’m okay with in this book.) Instead, she's in the hospital in a coma after a mysterious infection and somehow managed to still manifest as a ghost visible only to Astra and her mom. (Do we know why they can see her if she’s not a ghost? No. What even is a ghost? Nobody knows. Does it get explained? Also no. But a small plot hole likt that is the least of this book’s concerns). And just after Astra prepares to confess her feelings for Isla and decides to tick another thing of Isla's un-bucket list (going to prom), she is informed that Isla's brainfunction has declined and the doctors at the hospital do not believe she will ever recover and they prepare to take her off life support. When she tells Isla, Isla reacts completely different than Astra expected. Instead of being shocked or upset she simply says: "I'm ready to go. I am. I want to" (page 180). To Astra's confession that she likes her “as more than a friend” she simply replies "You wouldn't if you really knew me" (page 180), continuing her persistent self-devaluation and claims that she does not deserve the care and affection she receives. Now what could make a 16-year-old feel like that? What could make a girl who knows her family misses her, who just had another girl confess her love to her say something that borders on passive suicidality like this? How horrible must her secret be? Finally, the shocking, terrible, truly unimaginable horror will be revealed! Because *drumroll, shocked gasps from the audience, high pitched horror movie screams* "You know that wheelchair, in my hospital room?" [...] It's mine. I-I can't walk. I haven't been able to walk on my own since I was eleven." (page 180). GASP! THE HORROR! THE ABSOLUTE ABJECT TERROR FLOODING MY ENTIRE BODY RIGHT NOW- Huh, wait a minute. What? The big reveal, the reason why Isla is fine existing as a ghost, unable to touch real people or interact with anyone beside Astra, why she's fine knowing there is a literal deadline waiting for her, the reason for her entire un-bucket list is... she's a wheelchair user. (Side note: Using disability as a spoilery plot point? A shameful secret? Shitty!)If you needed to put your phone down after this, please know you're not alone. At this reveal I was quite close to dnf-ing this book. And looking back it would have been better for my mental health if I had. Because it does not get better. But since I didn't, join me as I explore the even more unimaginable ableism that is to follow (oh btw this reveal happens on page 180 of 214 if you want to experience a fraction of the terror I experienced when I got to the reveal, because how the hell do you deal with something like this in 30 pages? If you think you don’t… Yup.). After the reveal Astra's is so shocked that "everything is tilting just a little to the right" (page 180). Not because Isla's earlier admission that she would be okay with dying and the underlying suicidality apparent in her reaction to the news that she will die if she doesn't return to her body, but by the fact that this girl that she met as an active ghost uses a wheelchair in real life. Yikes. Then her thoughts turn to Isla's un-bucket list. "Climbing a tower. Going to a greenhouse that's only accessible by walking through a grassy field and over a gravel pathway. Checking out a book on the third floor of a library without an elevator. Taking a road trip in the front seat of a car. Dancing at prom. All of them, Astra realizes, are things she couldn't have done in a wheelchair. Not without help, at the very least, and Astra knows how much Isla hates asking for help." (page 181). If you clapped your hands together over your head in disbelief at reading this: Thank you. And same. If you do not understand what's wrong with this let me lay it out for you. Climbing a tower is probably the hardest and even though some wheelchair users can rockclimb this may actually be the one thing on this list that's actually impossible. If this stood on its own, I would not complain about it, but it gets worse. Crossing a grassy field or driving over a gravel pathway in a wheelchair? Not fun, with varying levels of difficulty depending on the wheelchair used and needs of the user, but doable. If you have somebody to push you, especially if you're (like Isla) only disabled because your legs are paralyzed and you don't have added issues of heightened pain sensitivity or an electric wheelchair that could be damaged, it's easier. And now moving on from the things that I could have understood as being listed here since they do pose a difficulty, we turn towards things that require very little support (or should require very little). Being unable to check out a book on the third floor of a library without an elevator should legally not be possible in America. Public institutions (libraries included) are required to provide access through elevators as soon as they have three or more floors according to ADA federal law, which has been in effect since 1991. By now in 2024 I think we can all agree that this has been in effect long enough that some renovations have to have taken place and at least a stair elevator should exist (We don't fully know when this story is set, but they can at least send pictures on their phones. So not 1992.). And while some smaller libraries may struggle with being accessible due to size, a library with at least three floors is not small and should have some way of dealing with problems of lacking access, if not an elevator than at least a library staff that offers help. Of course, Isla would still need to ask for some help, but I feel like its a huge red flat that in 5 years she hasn't asked once (after all we know disabled people should never make any fuss and just suffer silently!). Really makes me feel like she has spent literally any time in the past 5 years doing anything but vague disabled suffering (/s). But the last two points enraged me even more. Sitting in the front seat of a car? Absolutely possible. Assisting her in lifting her onto the front seat or enabling her to pull herself up to it is not more work than wheeling her chair into the back of the van with a ramp, especially since we will be shown that she has good upper body control. Should have been easily possible in her life. Dancing at prom? Really? Dancing in a wheelchair is very possible. This just makes it seem as if the author truly cannot imagine a single moment of happiness for a wheelchair user.
Now while I do not blame Astra for not knowing all of these things (particularly the ADA federal law), it shows a big problem with the way disability is portrayed in this book. There are no other disabled people in the story. George is implied to have used a walker in his life, but as a ghost it only shows through the bent over way he walks. And when Astra finds out Isla is disabled she starts crying and then leaves Isla alone racing away in her car. Completely normal way to finding out somebody is disabled (who knows maybe it's catching?!). While Astra explains a few scenes later that she didn’t leave because of what Isla said, the way it is written just sucks as it is so abruptly cut off and only focused on how horrible and tragic and different it is for Isla to be in a wheelchair instead of doing cartwheels and dancing tango with Old Man George the Ghost. Then we get to enjoy the trope of “disabled person saying their person isn’t worth living because they are such a burden to their loved ones”, but it’s fine because Astra finally managed to say that she loves her and this finally convinces Isla that maybe she should in fact try if she can return to her body. Love cures all <3 How romantic! Then we have some amnesia drama (in literally the last 20 pages…). It did not add anything to the story and I think that could have been replaced to deal with the various questions that actually deserve more narrative time than a “Amnesia for aaaaangst. Don’t worry that it happens at the 92% mark of the book (literally 15 pages before the end…), because it will actually change nothing or add anything to the character development or even just have any scenes where Astra tries to reawaken Isla’s memories of their time together by recreating them and showing her that it is possible for her to do at least some of these things (cliché and still filled with abled savior tropes, but at least it would have included Isla and Astra interacting!). Instead it just feels like a convenient excuse to separate the two so we don’t actually have to deal with the recovery of Isla until she is able to leave the hospital and wheel herself (We can’t see somebody who is too disabled after all. That could be someone who is so sick they might not actually deserve to be loved!).
And now on to the end, which is supposed to be uplifting and joyful and make me sigh and swoon and cry a little tear about the wonderful support this poor disabled girl receives from her girlfriend and her friends, but it just made me feel like I was reading the most cloying disability porn ever written.
10 pages before the ending they finally meet each other again, kiss and we get two final scenes that try to show that accessibility is possible. The first one is set in Astra’s mother’s store that Astra and Oliver rearranged to make it wheelchair accessible. This scene was fine and more accessibility is always important. Small stores often do not consider it, so I liked that scene and that is something everybody can do to make our society a bit more accessible. But immediately afterwards Astra makes another of Isla’s dreams come true: She literally builds a wooden path for her with her own two hands so she can finally visit the greenhouse again even though she’s in a wheelchair. And when they drive there Astra sits in the back of the car again! (To be honest, I get the feeling she is quite literally stuck in her wheelchair... Like glued to it or something, because that is something that should have been portrayed differently if the author is really trying to show the difference that the priviledge of having interpersonal relationships where somebody cares about your access needs makes.) But we can’t have too much accessibility. Or accessibility that does not solely happen because somebody really likes you. Or accessibility that would mean the state has to do literally anything and change the structural issues that this book decided to portray as solvable by sweet teens with a heart of gold, who make it their goal to fix ableism forever! And frankly I find the portrayal of accessibility as something that interpersonal connections can fix instead of something that is a huge structural problem and that needs to be tackled with more than just “we did a fundraiser and built you a ramp” frankly quite offensive and I would describe it as a form of disability porn, because it is supposed to inspire the able-bodied reader to sigh happily and lean back and say: "Another wheelchair user saved by a rickety wood path. Our libraries do not need elevators and we also do not need to worry about that fact that a child wanted to die because she did not consider her life worth living because she is in a wheelchair. Truly, a wonderful story and a great message to young readers!"
This book's portrayal of physical disabilities made me sick. It made me glad that I completely finished it before recommending it to a disabled friend of mine, who is a wheelchair user, and not simply thought: "Oh, a sweet sapphic ghost story about overcoming some issues and learning to accept and love yourself." Because I hate literally every single aspect of the way physical disabilities are portrayed here. I hate that the fact that Isla is a wheelchair user is treated as a spoiler and a plot twist by not only the book, but most reviews I've seen so far. I hate that this book assumes that there is one type of wheelchair and because we all know what a wheelchair is we do not need any more specific descriptions. We get long descriptions of clothes, but the wheelchair is black. I hate that there are no other disabled people in this town that’s big enough to have a library with three floors. I hate that Isla is not the main character and that the fact