Sixteen Souls: The "TikTok made me buy it" sensation dubbed Heartstopper with ghosts!

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Interesting enough, but I wasn’t looking to read a legal thriller. For various reasons, I do not particularly like reading legal thrillers. Yet, not everything goes to plan. Unlike some books, where everything just happens to work out, against all the odds, Talbot uses realism to its strength. Not every plan they make is pulled off, not every solution they find is correct, and not every villain they unveil is the right villain. I’ve wanted to start a YA book club for the longest time, and I hope you’ll join me! Each month we’ll read a book with a YouTube live discussion at th I’ve wanted to start a YA book club for the longest time, and I hope you’ll join me! Each month we’ll read a book with a YouTube live discussion at the end. That is until a new seer, Sam, comes into town and expects Charlie to join him on discovering why some of the ghosts in town are disappearing. Sixteen Souls follows Charlie, a seer of spirits living in the city of York, the most haunted city in Europe. All of Charlie’s friends are ghosts, but apart from that Charlie has tried to stay out of the ghostly business and just live his life as well as he can.

I have shared a few of Charlie's life experiences, and he was written with such sensitivity, clarity, and realism that it was easy to connect to him right from the beginning.At the end of the month, join us for a live stream with some of my favourite authors and readers from across social media. These are the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to Leah his daughter; and these she bare unto Jacob, even sixteen souls. These are the children of Zelpha whom Laban gave to Leah his daughter, and she bore these sixteen souls to Yaquuv. I’ve yet to visit York (the setting for Sixteen Souls) myself but Rosie Talbot’s beautifully atmospheric world-building and wonderfully descriptive prose really brought the city and all of its rich, uniquely haunted history to life. Our loveably endearing cast of characters helped with that too. Aside from the obvious villains and a few of the Mouldy Oldies (old spirits who essentially govern the city’s ghost residents) , I pretty much loved them all. Particularly Charlie (our reluctant, ghost seeing MC) and his spectral, ride or die besties Ollie and Heather— as well as the highly amusing George Villiers, who won me over with his rather amusing antics. I also liked fellow seer Sam whose adorably sweet romance with Charlie gave me supernatural Heartstopper vibes that I’m excited to see more of.

I enjoyed this novel, which was fast paced and gripping. I enjoyed it despite the fact that I found some of it totally unbelievable. The rogue district attorney who brings criminal charges against a pilot because he supposedly knew his actions could cause death simply didn’t make sense. If the pilot had done what his bosses had told him to do (as the district attorney insisted he should), it would have killed all 16 people on the smaller plane that was attached to the larger plane’s wing after a collision. These were the sons of Zilpah—whom Laban gave to his daughter Leah—that she bore to Jacob: 16 persons. The Trial, can't believe these pilots have to have a trial, what happened to the word "hero"? This man was truly a hero just like Sully but they had to be dragged into court to prove to people what he did up in the air he did with compassion and only to save who he felt responsible for, which to him was everyone whether in the air or on the ground. A captivating take of loss, friendship and love that had me gripped from first to last.” - Menna van Praag, author of The Sisters Grimm These [are] sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to his daughter Leah, and she bears these to Jacob—sixteen persons.Especially the first half of the book is like that. Charlie gets constantly in trouble and beaten up and I was biting my nails and screaming “Please give this poor boy a rest!” It gets better in the second half of the book. And this is also justified. The first half of the book Charlie is on his own and refuses to let others help him. In the second half he slowly opens up and finds some old and some new friends and things gets better for him. There was so much about the book that was really close to my heart - the gorgeous queerness and fantastic disability representation at the top of the list - and something else I was particularly happy to see was the sheer Britishness - and specifically northernness. It feels like a real triumph for UKYA to read all those Yorkshire colloquialisms and descriptions of narrow ginnels and trip-hazardous cobblestones in a book that feels so accessible and well-placed within the mainstream. Learning so much about York and all the rich history that goes along with it will be fascinating for the uninitiated, and give northern readers a rare chance to see something approaching their lives spotlighted. The synopsis of this book drew me in because of the uniqueness of it, the fuselage of the smaller aircraft is tenuously wedged onto the huge right wing of his Boeing 757. That last sentence I knew I wanted to read this book. I'm glad I did. The only problem I had throughout the book was I felt like the end was told about 25% in. I didn't realize until the end that this was not the case at all. The ending was good.