The Foggy Ghost*****
Andrea Maxand paints a Skater Girl's So-Called Life
Andrea Maxand’s special talent is for using colloquial, late-Millennial-Gen-Z-gets-it language to paint interesting, edgy, and very likable girl characters. These girls aren’t popular. They aren’t in sororities. They definitely don’t have trust funds. They support themselves. On the surface, they might seem blah, average, perhaps ordinary, but it doesn’t take much digging to realize that they think fairly deeply about things and might even have a demon or two. Generationally, there’s nothing either cliche or rigid. The characters are thoroughly modern, but there are throwback elements. Case in point, the boombox at the heroine’s workplace.
In The Foggy Ghost, Sadie takes us back to 2013. I’m not ashamed to admit that I experienced a wee bit of nostalgia on reading about Sadie joining an internet chat room on an indie rock fan site. By this point, it feels like the indie rock star in question, named Jacob Nevin, might very well turn out to be in the promised love triangle. (I’m a little suspicious about the fan site’s webmaster, “Evil Kevin,” since that rhymes with Nevin, and Sadie already suspects “Evil Kevin” of knowing too much about Nevin to be a random internet stranger.) As for the love triangle, there’s Hot Rock Star Guy; there’s the gallant Vaughan, a true Sir Galahad who works with Sadie; and then there’s too-cool-for-school Sam, her evasive roommate.
The author describes the story as being a fit for the “New Adult” genre, which is a new concept for me. I’m guessing “New Adult” is the successor of the “Young Adult” group. Sadie, the heroine, is, after all, in transition from college life to so-called “real life.” She’s a bit of a lost girl, but with her good grades, hard work, and responsible life choices, she’s doing better than most, it seems, at least as far as paying the bills and avoiding a grueling life of indentured servitude under FAFSA’s terms and conditions.
The author’s description also teases a paranormal aspect to the plot. The title certainly has a paranormal ring to it, but there’s another hint near the close of the third episode. The Bible-thumping Christian and quasi-villain of the story, nicknamed John the Baptist, creeps Sadie out with his vague premonition of ill tidings about her upcoming trip to Nashville—something she’s otherwise excited about, since it’s a brief postponement of serious New Adulthood.
Read it here: https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/story/B099T537G4
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