Sixteen Souls ~ Rosie Talbot

Sixteen Souls by Rosie Talbot is an LGBTQ+ YA novel.  Charlie can see ghosts, ever since he momentarily died. The problem, he lives in York, one of the most haunted cities in the world, the ghosts are everywhere. On top of that, Charlie’s sisters have glittered his prosthesis and his crush is dating someone else. Then, Sam, a new Seer, turns up in town and Charlie is forced to face the fact that the ghosts of York are disappearing. When one of his ghost friends vanishes, Charlie and Sam have to work together to solve it before all of the York ghosts are afflicted.

Rosie Talbot had me hooked on this book before it even came out, her sneak peek synopsis on TikTok sounded just my cup of tea and I knew that I had to read it. I put it off a little bit just so I could read it around Halloween and it was perfect to cosy up in bed and read. 

I’ll be honest and say that the plot was more complex than I was expecting, but that’s not a bad thing. There was some deep histories to the characters and plot twists that I very much didn’t see coming. 

I liked the characters I thought they were all different but not different enough that they felt like stereotypes. I would have loved to know more about the ghosts that surrounded Charlie, what we did know was fascinating. I did, however, feel like some of the stories were cut ever so slightly short. I would’ve loved to see an epilogue maybe with the long-awaited conversations with the parents.

Overall, I very much enjoyed this book and thought it was a perfect book to read on Halloween this year. I gave it four stars.

C🌙