Brandon Jones: "Whirly World"

Title: Whirly World [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: None
Author: Brandon Jones [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Afterlife, Thriller/Mystery
Year: 2023
Age: 14+ (I shelved it as Adult because of the characters' age, and it's indeed marketed to that demographic, but it can be read by teens)
Stars: 5/5
Pros: Inventive, entertaining, humorous and emotional.
Cons: Due to the large number of characters, not all of them feel fully realised. The ending doesn't give all the answers.
WARNING! Drowning, fires, claustrophobic settings. We see a character collapse to death in a flashback.
Will appeal to: Those who love creative afterlife settings, carnival rides and accidental heroes.

Blurb: Theme-park blogger Jason Green is dead and his spirit is stuck inside Whirly World, his favorite place to be. What should be a dream come true turns into an abstract nightmare as Jason confronts malevolent forces trapping him there. Desperate to escape, he has to befriend the other ten ghosts inhabiting this afterlife, from a disgruntled hostess crushed under a revolving stage, to a bereft security guard that still thinks it's 1983, and combine their strange powers to dig up the park's mysterious past. (Amazon)

Review: First off...DISCLAIMER: this title was up for grabs on NetGalley (in the Read Now section). Thanks to Emet Studios (Brandon Jones) for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

FUN FAIR

Afterlife meets theme park with a side of superpowers and time loops, all wrapped in a mystery: a recipe for fun, though peppered with some emotional moments (what with the characters being, you know, dead). For one, the premise is creative and intriguing: eleven employees or patrons of a famous amusement park who died on its grounds find themselves trapped in a ghostly version of the same park. Among them is Jason, a theme-park blogger who in life was probably the biggest Whirly World fan, but isn't necessarily thrilled not to be able to leave the place for mysterious reasons - not to mention, he can't even remember how he died. He sets on exploring the surroundings (which leads to a series of frustrating discoveries - frustrating for him, but again, making for lots of fun on the reader's part), and one by one he runs into his fellow resident ghosts, which creates some amusing dynamics (since Jason has written about their deaths in his blog, and coming face to face with some of them brings out the fanboy in him, if for a moment. [...]

WILD RIDE

I don't know if the author modeled Whirly World after one or more existing theme parks, but the different areas and the attractions they contain feel both familiar and exciting (not only because of the supernatural forces at play), and Jones, via his main character, paints a vivid image of the setting in all its nooks and crannies (it does help that the book comes with a map of the park, which you can also access from here; however, it mostly serves the purpose of giving you the lay of the land, and of course it doesn't include the interiors). Jason is the only ghost at Whirly World who questions the status quo, also because he's the only one able to see past the park's facade; at the same time, his love for the place is genuine and infectious, for reasons that have their roots in his childhood - and it's clear that such love, far from being a hindrance, is actually a catalyst for his gift. The more Jason questions the place and its limits - and the more he brings his fellow ghosts along for the ride (no pun intended) - the crazier things become,  until the gang has to face their antagonist in an epic showdown. And even then, the surprises are not over...

GHOST TRAIN

This novel comes with a massive cast of side characters, which is at the same time one of its best assets and a potential weakness. There's no space for each and every one of them to get fleshed out, or for them as a whole to become your average "found family" (though at any rate, I don't think the author was going for that - which is refreshing in a way, though I love found families as the next person). But they have very distinct personalities, and each of their gifts has an affinity with their nature or real-life abilities, which is really cool (the gifts/powers are, too). My only gripe is that, along with the different ethnicities, it would have been neat to see some LGBTQIA+ representation. Anyhow, without giving too much away, I can say that most characters' arcs, either on a personal level or in relation to one another, are satisfying (especially Jason's), or at least make sense - except maybe for a certain romance that comes out of the blue...literally...but that at least makes for a fun role reversal. And if the ending borrows from the Christian idea of the afterlife, it's open enough not to feel dogmatic, and to suggest the possibility that you get a say in where you end up - or when. Inventive, captivating, funny, yet emotional and profound at times, Whirly World is a brilliant debut that's sure to quench all my fellow afterlife aficionados' thirst for beyond-the-veil stories with bite and, ultimately, a sweet core.

Note: I noticed a couple of typos ("one IN the same" -> "AND the same"; "RIGHT of passage" -> "RITE"), but this is becoming increasingly common in traditionally published books as well lately...

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