Ghost Station

The Book in 1 Sentence

The ghost in your memories have a much more physical representation that you have to confront.

Brief Review

This book was a crazy ride of knowing there was more to the story, but learning about it feels natural for the characters as well as the readers. With a crescendo of action, this book does a great job of pulling you in and encouraging you to continue (reference to the book intended).

Why I Read this book

While looking for a book for my wife, I asked for a creepy book that fit the season that isn't too bad and this was the recommendation. Sounded good enough to read myself.

In-Depth Review (Favorite Quotes)

It isn't very often where environmental story telling in a book doesn't take up 90% of the book and does such a good job of playing continual benefits throughout the book. The double play on the space suit being found early on and then how it "sits" around later is excellent. There are so many instances of this in the book and it is so good.

The protagonist is so well written. Honestly there is such good lingering feeling of something that needs to be explained, but you are annoyed or left feeling that you are missing something. It is just a mystery. Then this mystery is so well presented that there is great pay off. What really bothered me about the writing is here. At times, I would swear it is in first person and others it is for sure third person. So it is this weird 2nd person? I know that is a thing, but it just feels weird. Because of where this book goes, I am not sure if it was intentional to feel off. The rest of the characters are interesting in their own right. I am not mad at any of the weaving that is done to tie characters together as it works and doesn't take a forefront of the story.

For this being a sci-fi book, I would 100% recommend it to anyone. The futuristic portions of the book really take a back seat, and you don't need to understand any additional physics or understand additional technologies. I know that my wife has a hard time getting into stories that require a lot of explanation as for her, it takes away from what she is reading or if there is a unusual mythology. We tried listening to a book during a long drive called "The Bone Orchard" and that is a book that requires a lot of reading to understand before you can pay attention to what is going on. This book doesn't do that. You get a quick snapshot of what it is, and then it takes a ride in the background. Great way to present information.

I am pretty critical of books that use foreshadowing as a major plot device and give neon billboards to what is going to happen. This book is subtle about it. While my predictions were pretty accurate, I never once thought "Of course you are going there." Most of the time is "I wonder if this is going to happen" which is how books should do it. I will say that what almost made me mad was a similar plot point to Children of Ruin, which would have pissed me off as it was an annoying part in that book, but the epilogue fixes it. However, that epilogue does feel a bit light for the weight that it is lifting.

Rating

I was so interested into this book from very early on. The pacing, the environmental story telling, the story itself were so good. What hurts this book is some of the perspective language that is used and the heavy lift of the ending to fill in the blanks. However, even with these complaints, this book is still a 9 that I enjoyed mainly because I couldn't predict the ending and the story was so well written. This will probably my favorite book of the year in non-fiction.

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