This book is beautiful. It's genre-defying in such a fantastic way - a near future where magic use has polluted our environment, tied into themes of social justice and the oppression of Native Americans. There are ghosts, vampires, fairies and wizards but they're portrayed in such a sophisticated way.

Ellie (Elatsoe) is a Lipan Apache girl who has learned the family secret of communicating with ghosts. Her loyal ghost dog Kirby is often at her side. She dreams of her cousin, Trevor, telling her who murdered him and asking her to protect his family, just before learning that he has died in a "car accident". She travels to the town of Willowbee where Trevor lived to try to solve the mystery, but there may be more danger than she realizes.

There's so much to love about this book: the way Ellie's heritage is woven throughout the story, her lovely (platonic) friendship with Jay (who is also a cheerleader). The friendship and support characters show for one another. The creepiness of the underworld.

For LGBTQ rep: Ellie is asexual (ace). Throughout, she mentions not wanting to get married and not being interested in relationships, and at one point later in the novel, it's explicitly mentioned.

My only critique is that sometimes the ages felt off. Ellie and Jay often read like they're 13 or 14, but then they'll talk about going off to college next year, and Ellie drives (they're actually 17). The way this reads, I think middle schoolers would enjoy it (there's some cussing, death and violence) but I categorize it was YA because of the ages of the MC.

I liked the way that the magic felt natural and it wasn't over-explained. The mystery was interesting and unexpected. Elatsoe, nickname Ellie, was very compelling and determined. Her relationship with her ghost dog Kirby was very sweet. There were parts of the story that didn't flow as well, but overall a really enjoyable read.

This book is SO BIG. For a cute kids' story, it does so many things so right. And it's really an engaging plot. I had a hard time putting it down.

I wanted to love this! It has so many elements that I truly thought were amazing, but the dialogue about did me in. Not to mention the fact that the main character seemed about 12 instead of 17. Not sure why this was marketed as YA.