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Apr 17, 2011

Joel rated it:

The first Jonathan Carroll book i read, about eight years ago, was The Wooden Sea, an other-worldly sci-fi fever dream of a novel. I really liked it, and then I finished it, and it made me crazy, because at the end, I had only a vague idea of what the heck had happened.

The Ghost in Love is less opaque but similarly fantastical, and I could probably give both books the same capsule review: It starts off making sense, and then things get really weird, and continue to get weirder. Also More...

5 comments like (14 people liked it)

Nov 15, 2008

Jen rated it:

Some of the things I don't like in other authors such as jerky transitions and sloppy endings I eternally forgive in Jonathan Carroll because I am really taken with his descriptions of things and the relationships of who he is writing about. All of his books have these characters with beautiful attractions to each other for all the tiny little reasons we each have for anybody we've ever cared about, but here they are laid out for us the reader in charming array. Touch, details, funny bits of mem More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Jan 28, 2009

doreen rated it:

I thought this was a lovely book. I would recommend this book with caution, for I can see people either loving or hating this book. Readers may not like it because there is much in the story which is left unexplained, but I suppose I'm a relatively complacent reader, as any mysteries left unexplained to me weren't as important as the feelings and thoughts of the characters, along with the overall message I took from the book.

I happen to love The Ghost in Love, and finished the book More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 09, 2009

Michele rated it:

I love Jonathan Carroll. Here's what happens to me when I read his books. Number 1, reading the book is a roller coaster of delights. There is always the element of the supernatural but I would not call these books fantasy, at least not traditional fantasy. There is always some cool dog in the book that can talk. Carroll has a million interesting complicated plot twists and ideas that unfold as the novel progresses and as my friend, C, put it, the novel crescendos to the very end. Number 2, More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 11, 2008

El rated it:

The ghost who is in love is Ling, a companion ghost to still-living Ben Gould; Ben was slated to die earlier but did not, thus throwing the ghost world into a state of confusion and disconcert. Ling is attached to Ben in order to find out what exactly is happening and why those scheduled to die are not dying as the schedule dictates. In the meantime, Ben is having flashes of another person's life and is suddenly able to communicate with his dog, Pilot. As Ben's recently ex-girlfriend, German, More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 29, 2008

Amy rated it:

The Ghost in Love is a bizarre page-turner that breaks all the rules of death and ghosts as we know them. According to Jonathan Carroll, God decided to create ghosts only because people believed in them anyway and they seemed like a good idea. Their purpose would be to tie up loose ends after a person died. Strangely, the ghost wouldn't have to look like the person they belonged to since they operated on a plane of existence where they could only been seen by other ghosts and by animals.

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0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 14, 2008

Nicole added it

A decent event. Better than decent. Enjoyable even.

Admittedly, the premise of the book is a little cheesy (as is the title) but what he read of the first chapter held my attention. There were even a couple of downright brilliant passages.

And his fans are certainly devoted. Not in the long greasy ponytail and wolf t-shirt way, but well, here's an example. When he mentioned Neil Gaiman people cheered and when he mentioned some other author/friend of his 2 people pul More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 09, 2008

Audrey rated it:

One of my very favorites by Jonathan Carroll, I think. I found this one much more hopeful and optimistic than some of his previous novels. His writing style does take some getting used to, as there's a lot of exposition that occurs all the way through the story, and sometimes he'll even disrupt the narrative flow to make a point directly to the reader, and that can be jarring. But in the end, it all comes down to something that's completely magical and strange and even absurd at times, but so th More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 09, 2009

Shauna rated it:

Hmmm. I think I should have liked this one more than I did. It was quirky and dealt with existential ideas of identity and purpose--it had talking dogs and gourmet cooking ghosts and other fun twists and turns, but I guess I didn't buy everything Carroll was trying to teach. It was about a guy who falls and hits his head and is supposed to die, but doesn't. This intrigues the Angel of Death, who monitors him, along with his ghost, who try to find out why the rules were broken and what might More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 19, 2009

CD rated it:

I love this book. It started when I read the recommendation for the book from one of Nancy Pearl's columns where she quoted from page 171 "A man, a dog, and two understandably disgruntled women were walking down a sidewalk. One woman was a ghost, the man should have been dead, the dog was the reincarnation of the should-have-been-dead's girlfriend, and the last, the tall woman, was an innocent bystander who had the bad fortune of loving two of the others." HOw can you not fall in lo More...

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Feb 15, 2009

Kendra rated it:

Just by way of explanation, Jonathan Carroll writes truly bizarre novels. It is for this precise reason that I adore his writing. He is on my list of top 10 authors, in line only behind Graham Joyce. His website totes his work as “hyper-fiction.”

“The Ghost in Love” is another strange psychological thriller from the mind of Carroll. I say “psychological” because his writing inevitably takes the reader through a strange adventure in the psyche of his characters. But, unlike most autho More...

0 comments like

Jan 16, 2009

Shannon rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 12, 2012

Arthur rated it:

I've read every published Jonathan Carroll book since encountering The Marriage of Sticks some years back. The seamless way in which he joins dreams and reality could be called fantasy, but I rather consider it a different, hypnotic presentation of how we live our lives and how our minds actually operate. Consider the few moments in morning when you wake, often with a dream fresh in your mind -- a moment of what you might call augmented reality. That's Carroll's territory and I find it an irresi More...

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Jan 15, 2012

Mrs. Nakagawa rated it:

When my father noticed me reading this book he asked with a chuckle, "How can a ghost be in love?" Good question. I had to find out, and I'm glad I did.

I discovered a story about finding all the parts of ourselves-- forgotten, overlooked, hidden, lost, found, loved, and hated. All of them. I was treated to paragraph after paragraph of revelations that billowed like clean and dirty laundry tossed together in the sunlight. The words blended the real with the unreal, tangib More...

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Jun 03, 2010

Harmonybites rated it:

I liked this novel a lot--I got sucked in from the first and read it in one sitting. It's not quite like anything I've read. Maybe the closest analogy is a modern prose version of Dante's Divine Comedy with a quirky sense of humor, a contemporary allegory of soul and psyche starring a man, Benjamin Gould, his girlfriend German Landis, their talking dog Pilot, and oh, yeah, Benjamin's ghost, Ling, living with Ben and in love with his girlfriend. And if that sounds whacky, hold on, because this st More...

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Feb 16, 2010

Steve rated it:

Jonathan Carroll is my favorite popular novelist. In THE GHOST IN LOVE, he's in top form as a storyteller. While some of his novels are quite unsettling and even creepy, TGIL is sweet and heart-warming. That's not to say that there aren't disturbing developments, but they are in the service of a novel that will delight readers. As usual, Carroll manages incredible feats of fancy and magical realism which are all the more persuasive for being grounded by realistic characters, details and dialogue More...

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Oct 08, 2009

selena rated it:

A librarian recommended this book to me when there were no Murakami books on the shelf. She assured me that this would fill that same gap in my heart. It sat around in my room, almost forgotten, for about a month, and when it was time to give it back or incur over-due fines, I decided to read it anyway. I began at eleven and finished at four in the morning.

Jonathan Carroll’s Ghost in Love begins as a relatively normal story about a breakup between Ben and his girlfriend, German. Then w More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 21, 2009

Stephanie rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like

Apr 13, 2009

Elizabeth rated it:

I adore Jonathan Carroll. In some ways he reminds me of Italo Calvino, with his deeply specific imagery and language that it simultaneously plain and yet evocative of poetry. The other author he reminds me of is Billy Collins.

The Ghost in Love is very much a love story, an explosion of the idea that our past and our many selves all come to bear on our present lives and loves. He takes commonplace ideas about love and self and airs them out, exploring the meanings they take on in More...

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May 16, 2011

Megan rated it:

As I browse the other reviews of this book, I see that Jonathan Carroll has lovers and haters, and few fall anywhere between the two. I understand: it's impossible to feel tepid about his books. They are insane, sometimes creepy, sometimes beautiful forays into a fantastical world that most people forget how to even conceive of, let alone create, by the time they leave childhood. But Carroll has held on to this imaginative power usually only reserved for the very young, leaving the lucky reader More...

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Mar 23, 2009

Coffeeboss rated it:

I can't remember how I discovered this strange, funny, touching, and curious novel... it certainly wasn't the dull title. But I was immediately sucked in by the quirky story of a man who was supposed to die (but didn't), his companion ghost (who apparently is not needed yet), and the woman that both he and his ghost love. Oh, and did I mention the dog? Ben Gould's dog Pilot is also a main character in the story, and as things get stranger (the living and not living overlap when things go awry af More...

0 comments like

Aug 03, 2010

Andi rated it:

After thoroughly enjoying White Apples and Glass Soup by Carroll, I was pretty excited to read another of his books. In some ways it met my expectations; the world was surreal, the details were charming, and the main canine character kept saving the day.

There were, unfortunately, a few problems with the book. As things became increasingly surreal, the characters who were figuring out what was going on kept mute about it. That may have been ok, but once the big reveal happened, th More...

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May 26, 2009

Angela rated it:

The book starts out with the ghost's point of view, saying how much the ghost is in love with German Landis, the ex-girlfriend of the ghost's human, Ben Gould. While Pilot, the dog, can see and communicate with the ghost, the ghost is unable to communicate with German or Ben.

The story then starts to unfold with the ghost and the Angel of Death, with the precipitating event that caused the ghost to come to Ben in the first place. I read this far and wondered how things were going to More...

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Mar 21, 2009

Sarah Pi rated it:

Jonathan Carroll holds a strange place in my heart. I have to say that none of his books of the last decade have pulled me in the way his early books did, but I still wait for them eagerly, and read them with relish.
Somewhere in the middle, they start to leave me cold. He explores similar territory in different ways. There are many elements of his previous books evident, but it has lost a little bit of charm for me. I can't quite put my finger on it. The characters are well developed, and More...

6 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 06, 2009

Vicky rated it:

It was my first book by Jonathan Carroll and I'll read more by this author for sure. It is a strange book with the elements of supernatural, New Age, mysterious beings and so much more. The idea is that some part of humanity gained power to decide the time of their death and it changed the whole structure of relations with God and afterlife. The main character meets his own doubles that have been created by his thoughts at the different times of his life. While he had already moved on, the old s More...

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Nov 09, 2011

Michael rated it:

If you're like me, you come into this trailing previous Carroll gems behind you like "From The Teeth of Angels", "Bones of The Moon" and "The Land of Laughs". You can't help but be.... well, expectant, even a bit eager and excited and any other number of nice words beginning with "e". Unfortunately, this isn't quite as effervescent as the others. It has some of the usual Carroll tropes for sure - rootable characters, significant dogs, a unique but oddly More...

2 comments like

Aug 01, 2011

Chrystal rated it:

I'm a big fan of Jonathan Carroll, but this was not up to the level I expect.

The beginning is charmingly chaotic, and Carroll's attention to detail is adept at triggering my own memories of times, places, smells, emotions, and entire segments of life. The ironic, humorous undertones are there and things progress at a nice clip.

Sadly, the last part of the book feels contrived and has the same feel as an after-school special. I had the impression that he wanted to make a stat More...

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Apr 22, 2009

lynne rated it:

The dust jacket features a glowing review of the author by Stephen King, so that was the clincher - without SK's input, I probably would have teetered the othe rway and laid the book back on the library shelf.

So I guess I could say it's SK's fault that I had to limp through this book?! :p

Seriously, though. The idea is good. Something is happening: people who are supposed to die are NOT dying, thus throwing the folk in charge of the afterlife into disarray. Thing i More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 15, 2012

Elizabeth rated it:

I have loved Jonathan Carroll since I first stumbled on him. I love magical realism, almost always. Neil Gaiman and Cory Doctorow and Jonathan Lethem love him too, so I am in good company....but for some reason this one did not do as much for me; it seemed a bit silly or pretentious at times. Too much about how Ben's love for his girlfriend and his dog and their love for him saved him from the nasty parts of himself. (which in this case manifested as actual separate people throwing rocks at hi More...

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Jan 14, 2010

Shinelle rated it:

Initially, the characters are intriguing. The dialogue provokes thought, and readers find themselves sympathizing with all of the "good guys"--a difficult feat for an author to achieve when there are so very many good guys. It can be difficult to keep track of the ever-growing cast of characters, but I found myself willing to follow through on all of the plot twists, right until the very end, which left me unsatisfied. Given the nature of the plot twists, I believe this is the auth More...

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