The Ghost on My Couch

I didn't enjoy this book very much, but at least it was short.

The biggest issue, for me, was that none of the characters behaved realistically. Why didn't Alex try harder to find out how Sid had died? Search obituaries, hospital admissions, anything other than the morgue. The whole plot hinged on Alex not thinking too much about the situation. I feel Sid should have also insisted on finding out what had happened to him.

I have no idea why Sid fell in love with Alex, except that Sid was extremely lonely and Alex was (at first) vaguely kind to him. Only a monster would not have been kind to Sid in the circumstances, so kindness was a pretty low standard for Alex to pass. For me, Alex was rather hard to like. He doesn't want to take in Sid's cat, for no real reason. Then, Alex says something truly awful to Sid when they argue, something far meaner than Sid's retort. But it was clear that the author meant the two insults to be equal.

There's also the side character of Andy, Alex's macho straight friend, who feels the need to remind Alex constantly that he himself is not gay and that Alex is very, very gay, in an “affectionate” way. That kind of humor might have been acceptable 20 years ago, just barely. In a contemporary novel, it made me cringe. Also, Andy is afraid to meet Alex's friend Jackie because she might (gasp!) be fat. His reticence to date fat women was, apparently, meant to be amusing, just another part of his dudebro charm. Of course, when Andy and Jackie finally meet, they're instantly attracted to each other, despite the fact that their good friend Alex has gone missing, after he left a panicked message for Andy. They acknowledge to each other that they're behaving inappropriately, but they still do it.

In a comic novel, with tons of madcap antics, Andy's humor might have almost been acceptable. I understand he was meant as comic relief. But overall, this book wasn't lighthearted. The title and the premise made me think it would be. However, Alex and Sid's interactions were mostly very sad; they spent their time talking about their feelings and their loneliness. For me, juxtaposing all that sadness with humor was just really awkward.

I was okay with getting no explanation for why Sid's spirit (or whatever) has appeared to Alex (and only Alex). Maybe their sad farewell was meant to be the explanation, that Sid needed to experience what it was like to love and be loved. But Alex didn't even wonder about it. I was very much not okay with the revelation that Sid never completely believed Alex's version of how they had met. Don't they love and trust each other at this point? How else would Sid accept Alex knowing so much about him, like his love for checkers? In fact, I think Alex would've kept up a creepy Eternal Sunshine thing, “magically” knowing Sid's favorite things and so on, if it hadn't been for the cat. Alex didn't come across as a good person to me, so it was hard to be happy for him.

While it's true that I don't read a lot of contemporaries, and my opinion is therefore biased, I can't recommend this book at all.