A review by saylaurmoon
The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston

5.0

↠ 5 stars ⭐︎

Re-read Review (March 2024)

I reread this because I needed a comfort read after recently losing my grandpa, and this really hit the spot. Everything that I originally said still holds true. Ashley Poston's prose is so comfortable yet emotional, and I adore it. I love how she navigates grief in such a raw and realistic way.

And I simply love Florence and Benji. They are precious.

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Original Review (March 2023)

“Because ghost stories were just love stories about here and then and now and when, about pockets of happiness and moments that resonated in places long after their era. They were stories that taught you that love was never a matter of time, but a matter of timing.”


Florence is a ghostwriter for an incredibly popular romance author. However, following a bad break-up, she no longer believes in love, which results in a struggle to finish her final manuscript for the author. Even worse, her new editor, Benji, won’t grant her an extension. As if it’s not bad enough, she then receives unfortunate news from home: her father has passed, and she must return to her small hometown that she’s avoided for ten years. Not to mention her family also runs the funeral parlor, and Florence and her father share a unique ability to see ghosts. While home for her father’s funeral, she’s surprised to spot a ghost who is none other than her strikingly handsome editor—who is now apparently dead. Throughout the week of funeral preparations, Benji continues to visit Florence, and the two start to learn more and more about one another and themselves. Could romance really be dead?

WOW. I enjoyed this book exceedingly more than I anticipated because it was not at all what I was expecting. Thinking back, I have no idea what I was expecting, but The Dead Romantics absolutely exceeded whatever expectations I had. The story was incredibly original. It was a story of hope and self-discovery. It was a story of love, all different versions of it. It was a story of grief, exploring it in a beautifully honest and raw way, all while also being lighthearted and funny in between. I laughed. I cried. Sometimes within the same page. It was such a tender and touching story, with a number of twists I didn’t see coming. Immaculate, through and through.

And I’m not kidding about how this story was such a beautifully written depiction of grief. I think this quote perfectly encapsulates what grief truly is:

“I’d always written how grief was hollow. How it was a vast cavern of nothing. But I was wrong. Grief was the exact opposite. It was full and heavy and drowning because it wasn’t the absence of everything you lost—it was the culmination of it all, your love, your happiness, your bittersweets, wound tight like a knotted ball of yarn.”


I absolutely loved both Florence and Benji. They are wonderfully written, three-dimensional characters, and I found Florence especially relatable. I was attached to her from the beginning. And oh my god, I adored their relationship too. Their banter was delightfully precious and hilarious, and I loved how their romance developed authentically throughout the story,
Spoilereven though Benji liked her from the moment he saw her which was absolutely precious and my heart utterly melted
. Alexa, play “invisible string” by Taylor Swift.

Anyway, I give The Dead Romantics easily 5 stars. An absolute delight to read and I highly, highly recommend it!

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