A supernatural adventure with a majority queer, Latine cast and thoughtful messages about grief and change.
A ghost has been following 12-year-old Jasmine Garza for years, ever since her Papi died from a car accident. The spirit’s chaos and noise has driven her and her mami from home to home—or at least, that’s what Jasmine thinks. Her mother has become increasingly reluctant to talk about Jasmine’s supernatural speculations.
The family’s frequent moves mean Jasmine has rarely had time to make friends, but at her latest school, her English teacher, Mx. Chen, sees her rainbow pin and invites her to a meeting of the school’s GSA. (Jasmine identifies herself as “queer.”) There, she meets Bea Veracruz (who is queer and genderqueer) and Jorge Barrera (who is gay). After a slightly bumpy start, Jasmine learns that the two of them secretly use the GSA as a “Gay Supernatural Alliance” to investigate supernatural happenings and creatures. Bea wants to impress her parents, who are supernatural investigators, and Jorge is trying to face and overcome his fear of ghosts.
Jasmine reveals her own haunting, and her new friends jump at the chance to help her prove she’s not just making things up, and to try and catch what is haunting her. Jasmine becomes increasingly frustrated, though, that despite her haunting, her Papi has never reached out to her from the beyond.
As the paranormal activity around her increases further, however, the friends have to convince family and community members to help them, even as each person grapples with their own experiences of loss. Together, can they figure out what the spirits want and stop them from overwhelming the entire community?
Underlying the spooky plot is a nuanced exploration by author Mark Oshiro of what it means to grieve and what a universal experience it is. This isn’t a somber book, though; there are poignant moments, to be sure, but the sometimes-quirky characters and warm moments of friendship and family keep the tone from growing dark.
Spanish words and phrases throughout feel authentic to the characters but also simple enough that readers who don’t know Spanish should understand most of it through context and cognates. And all of the main characters are queer: in addition to the three GSA friends, Jasmine’s mom is bi; Jasmine’s Tia Selena likes women, as does a neighbor (though the term “lesbian” is never used); Mx. Chen is nonbinary, and one of the other teachers is gay. Their queerness is wonderfully incidental to the plot, although Oshiro nicely weaves in moments in which Jasmine notes Bea’s changing pronoun pins or other gender cues and makes a point of using the right pronouns or asking which ones she’s using that day. It’s a lovely, low-key modeling not just of using someone’s correct pronouns, but of doing so for someone whose pronouns may change frequently.
Come for the supernatural adventure but stay for the compelling characters and thoughtful theme.
Jasmine and her family are Mexican American; Jorge is adopted and not sure of his ethnic origins, but one of his dads is from Mexico and the other, who is Black, is from the U.S. Bea’s parents are from Guatemala.
