Haunt Me - Ashley Sgro - A Short Summary and Review
Haunt Me - Ashley Sgro - A Short Summary and Review
By: a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures
A Rite of Fancy Book Recommendation and Review
A Short Summary:
Lance cannot stop thinking about Clara. Their relationship is over; she is gone, and by every reasonable measure he should be trying to move forward. Instead, he wants her back so badly that even being haunted by her begins to sound preferable to living without her. Their relationship had always contained an unusual element: Clara practiced witchcraft and introduced Lance to Warren, a friend who shared her interest in darker magic. After the breakup, those once-uncomfortable beliefs begin to offer Lance something irresistible: the possibility that Clara doesn't have to be entirely gone.
What follows blurs heartbreak, obsession, memory, and the supernatural. Lance tries another job, another apartment, and even another woman, yet everything somehow leads him back to Clara. Black irises remind him of her; the night sky reminds him of her; ordinary moments echo their relationship. Eventually, he turns to Warren and the very magic he once regarded with suspicion, willing to risk increasingly dangerous consequences for another chance to see the woman he cannot release.
My Favorite Quote from the Book:
Questions to ponder while reading:
My Review:
Haunt Me by Ashley Sgro was a little outside my normal wheelhouse, but there is something undeniably eerie about it. The story places you so deeply inside Lance's fixation on Clara that it becomes hard to tell where grief ends and obsession begins. Then Sgro adds witchcraft, strange objects, mimics, shadows, and Warren's unsettling knowledge of things Lance probably shouldn't be experimenting with, and suddenly another question emerges: is something supernatural actually happening, or has Lance simply gone too far down the rabbit hole of wanting someone back?
That uncertainty was probably what worked best for me. Lance's obsession is uncomfortable because it is not simply romantic longing. He watches, follows, waits outside Clara's apartment, compares other women to her, surrounds himself with objects that remind him of her, and eventually becomes willing to gamble with his own safety rather than accept that the relationship is finished. Even his attempt to start over with Samantha never really becomes about Samantha; he constantly measures her against the person he left behind.
Love asks something of us. Relationships require compromise and vulnerability. But Haunt Me pushes that idea into much darker territory, asking what happens when wanting another person becomes more important than maintaining your own identity, or even protecting your own life.
I found myself less frightened by the supernatural possibilities than fascinated by how genuinely peculiar everyone involved seemed. Clara is mysterious. Warren is creepy in that why exactly do you know how to do this? sort of way. Lance is increasingly unreliable. And somewhere in the middle of all of them, the novel becomes an odd, atmospheric relationship story about love, possession, regret, and refusing to accept an ending.
If you liked Haunt Me, you may also like:
She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.
You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.
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