I have been very fortunate in my YA book choices lately and I Am the Ghost in Your House is yet another delightful new release that I will be reading again in the future. (I love to revisit favorites a few years down the road if I have time.) Though this is definitely marketed towards young adults and teens, I found the story very compelling and was honestly sad to see the book come to an end.

Pie is your typical teen: emotional, lonely, misunderstood. She longs for friendship and connection, yet knows that she can never have a real, true friend. The one major thing that differentiates Pie and her mother from other people is that they happen to be invisible and may be the only invisible people that exist. They can see each other but no one can see them. Unlike a typical mother and daughter, Pie and her mother don’t have a home. They don’t really need one though, because they can usually find a bit of extra space in a house or a train to catch some shut eye. And during their waking hours they’re well-rehearsed in moving silently and staying invisible; their survival depends on it.

One day Pie realizes that something is strange with her mom; she is disappearing from even Pie herself. Breaking all of the rules that keep her safe, Pie risks her anonymity when she returns to the town her secret crush Tess lives in and begins making questionable decisions that her mom would never approve of. But what if her mom never comes back?

With a little bit of magical realism, some ghostly happenings, a dash of romance and some life lessons, Maria Romasco Moore has written a haunting and strange book that I enjoyed immensely!

Review of an advance digital reading copy from Random House Children’s Books

Content analysis:

Profanity/Language: 12 religious exclamations; 36 mild obscenities; 4 religious profanities; 2 derogatory names; 55 scatological words; 5 anatomical terms; 32 F-Word derivatives.

Violence/Gore: A woman is mentioned to have given birth without any medical attention and to have stolen painkillers from someone to help with the pain; a minor is reported to hit her mother in the shoulder in an attempt to get her attention; a minor is reported to have broken her ankle in the past; a minor recalls a brief scene where she and her mother were being shot at, described as terrifying; a minor scratches up her hands and some blood is mentioned; a minor makes verbal threats against another minor; an exorcism is briefly mentioned; a minor accidentally nicks her finger with a sharp knife in a brief scene, some blood is mentioned; a minor implies that she believes her mother may have been responsible for someone’s death in the past; a brief scene occurs where a minor recalls how her mother comforted a woman that was dying.

Sex/Nudity: A girl catches a glimpse of some nude body parts and she thinks it’s real, then realizes it’s just a mannequin; a girl spies on another girl and mentions seeing her in her bra and underwear when she changes her clothes though she tries to turn away to give her privacy most of the time; minors hold hands and two girls kiss in a brief scene; kissing is referred to; a minor mentions that she was once watching a couple when they began to have sex; a minor sees a couple touching each other and kissing in one brief scene; a woman accuses their significant other of having an affair.

Mature Subject Matter:

Abandonment; mental illness; sexual identity; shoplifting; possible abuse.

Drugs/Alcohol Use:

Smoking cigarettes is mentioned; a minor notices racks of wine in a house; minors are mentioned to drink at a party; a minor is described to pour herself a drink at a party; a reference is made to being high; cocaine is mentioned; a reference is made to getting stoned; drugs are offered to a woman in a brief scene.