If I Have to Be Haunted
Miranda Sun
HarperCollins
Published September 26, 2023
Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads
About If I Have to Be Haunted
Cemetery Boys meets Legendborn in this thrillingly romantic, irresistibly fun YA contemporary fantasy debut following a teenage Chinese American ghost speaker who (reluctantly) makes a deal to raise her nemesis from the dead.
Cara Tang doesn’t want to be haunted.
Look, the dead have issues, and Cara has enough of her own. Her overbearing mother insists she be the “perfect” Chinese American daughter—which means suppressing her ghost-speaking powers—and she keeps getting into fights with Zacharias Coleson, the local golden boy whose smirk makes her want to set things on fire.
Then she stumbles across Zach’s dead body in the woods. He’s even more infuriating as a ghost, but Cara’s the only one who can see him—and save him.
Agreeing to resurrect him puts her at odds with her mother, draws her into a dangerous liminal world of monsters and magic—and worse, leaves her stuck with Zach. Yet as she and Zach grow closer, forced to depend on each other to survive, Cara finds the most terrifying thing is that she might not hate him so much after all.
Maybe this is why her mother warned her about ghosts.
Delightful and compulsively readable, this contemporary fantasy has something for every reader: a snarky voice, a magnetic enemies-to-lovers romance, and a spirited adventure through a magical, unpredictable world hidden within our own.
My Review
I can see why this book is compared to Cemetery Boys. Both have ghosts who need the main character’s help. In both stories, the main character’s family doesn’t support them engaging in their supernatural gifts, though for different reasons. Both feature an enemies-to-lovers romance as a secondary plot.
I liked a lot of things about the story. At one point, Zach and Cara meet Brittany, who helps them navigate the liminal space. I loved her. She gave Cara another person to bounce thoughts and questions off of and someone to call it out when she was not being honest with herself.
In some scenes, I wished there were more setting details. The liminal space was so strange that I had difficulty picturing what was happening at a few points. Despite that, I liked the strangeness of that landscape and how it challenged Cara and Zach’s perceptions of each other.
At the beginning of the story, I really didn’t like Zach as a character. He’s rude, entitled, and kind of a bully. Through the journey he and Cara take together, the story shows how alone Zach is and how his family doesn’t seem to care about him. But I didn’t feel like it addressed the bullying and entitlement. I liked the person that Zach became, though.
A lot of things about the story made me feel like it was meant more for a younger YA audience, such as the descriptions of Cara’s friendships with the girls in her class and her rivalry with Zach. A few things made it seem more appropriate for upper YA, like some of the scarier situations they faced and the kids drinking alcohol at a party near the end.
The writing style reminds me a little bit of Katie Zhao’s books. So readers who enjoyed Dragon Warriors, her middle grade series, and are ready for YA books will probably like this one. Unlike Zhao’s books, the lore in If I Have to Be Haunted isn’t particularly based on Chinese folklore or mythology, but the tenor of the writing reminded me of her books.
Content Notes for If I Have to Be Haunted
Recommended for Ages 13 up.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
Some profanity used infrequently.
Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between two characters. Someone asks if they’ve had sex.
Spiritual Content
Like her grandmother and a few others, Cara can see and speak to ghosts. She journeys with allies to a liminal space, a place between worlds, where she encounters other monsters and spiritual beings.
Violent Content
Situations of peril. References to cannibalism. A snake bites someone. Characters battle ghosts and monsters.
Drug Content
Zach tells a story about how he and a friend tried to sneak into his parent’s liquor cabinet when they were younger. High school students gather at a party where some teens drink alcohol.
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