I liked a lot of things about this. The subjects of death, grief, family/found family and self worth are all touched on. The characters were colorful and diverse. The cozy tea shop setting was welcoming. I am not sure I liked the ending, I feel like it maybe undercut some of the other messages in the story.

I feel like bringing Wallace back to life is hard to justify, and conflicts with a lot of the conversations about the meaning of life and death. If The Manager can just bring people back, then death doesn't have the finality and weight that it should. Also, if any future ghosts/husks found out about Wallace it could completely ruin their own acceptance of death. The epilogue with Hugo's grandfather and dog going through the door was one of the most powerful parts of the book for me. I do think it made sense for Wallace to stay behind to help Hugo in place of Nelson, but I think it would have made more sense for him to do so as a ghost.

My biggest complaint is that I found a lot of the dialogue kind of cringe and I felt like conversations went on for too long or were redundant. This book probably could have been 50 pages shorter with lots of dialogue cuts and the themes and messages might have had more emphasis.