Just Kill Me by Adam Selzer (review)
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Just Kill Me by Adam Selzer
Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-4814-3494-2 $17.99
E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-4814-3496-6 $10.99
Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 9-12
Growing up above her mother’s funeral parlor, sharing her Disney villain slash-fanfic with an online girlfriend, eighteen-year-old Megan Henske has always felt doomed to the life of a lonely freak. When she gets a job working for a Chicago ghost tour company, though, she knows she’s finally found her people. Unfortunately, her dream job soon turns dark: the company’s financial struggles mean boss Cynthia needs help creating new ghosts by assisting elderly people who want to die. Then a tour-guide competitor is found murdered, a troublesome customer disappears mid-tour, and Cynthia starts hinting about Megan’s resemblance to a famous 1920s Chicago resident whose ghost would attract a crowd. From its oddball deadly heroine to its unconventional genre-mixing to its surprising final act, much about this novel is memorable. The narrative employs an entertaining mix of mystery, ghost story, and Chicago history to support what is ultimately a coming of age tale. The creep factor is perfectly executed and, as in any good ghost tour, relies more on storytelling technique than guts and gore. Megan and her coworkers emerge as lovable outsiders, and the novel celebrates their moral ambiguity as they “ghost” the elderly and draw hazy lines about the truth behind their ghost stories. This is a strange yet satisfying story that will please fans of the macabre and leave readers looking for ghosts around every corner, and it may lead readers to the author’s entertaining blog, containing many of the novel’s background stories on weird Chicago history. An author’s note provides some fact behind the fantasy.
