The Boy in the Cemetery - Sebastian Gregory

The Boy in the Cemetery - Sebastian Gregory

Publisher - Carina

Release date - October 29 2014

Find - Goodreads

This is the story of a girl who didn’t want to live...

Carrie Anne is desperately unhappy. Tangled in a web of abuse, she seeks solace in the cemetery that backs onto her garden. But something creeps between the gravestones. Carrie Anne is not alone

...and a boy who cannot die.

The cemetery is home to a boy. He has guarded these forgotten bones since meeting a gruesome end two hundred years ago. Neither dead nor alive, he has been watching for a long time. And now, he finally has the visitor he’s been waiting for...

Before I say anything about The Boy in the Cemetery I think it's important to point out that this book is about a main character who is abused, mentally & physically by her parents. If that is any way hard for you to read about (the abuse is off-page for the most part but talked about) then I would suggest avoiding The Boy in the Cemetery.

The story of Boy starts off badly and doesn't get much better, losing first his mother whom he regards as an angel and then his abusive father after a grave-robbing incident gone wrong, Boy finds a new home in a cemetery. He never leaves... Fast forward 200 years and Carrie Anne arrives, withdrawn and quiet, drawn to the very cemetery where Boy has been standing guard for the last two centuries and you could say all hell breaks loose!

The Boy in the Cemetery intrigued me as soon as I read the synopsis, it's the sort of book that makes you feel like you're watching a Tim Burton movie. The overall tone of the whole book is so very dark but there are moments of hope and some touching interactions between Boy and Carrie Anne that lighten the book. What really made the book for me though was Sebastian Gregory's writing. It was beautiful, lyrical and descriptive to the point I could 'see' everything. It's rare that I get so immersed in a book (and a short one at that, Boy in the Cemetery is a scant 120 pages) that by the the time I turn the last page I feel like I've lived through the book

There's a deep seated need for revenge on Boy's part and meeting Carrie Anne gives him the perfect canvas to do so. Without giving spoilers away let's just say that everyone who wrongs Carrie Anne is punished in one fashion or another without a second thought. The only thing that took me completely by surprise was the ending, I was not expecting what happened at all. Looking back now though it was probably the only realistic ending for both Boy & Carrie Anne, obviously the law in the 21st century is far more efficient than it was in Boy's time (except it would appear, in Carrie Anne's case, serious child abuse and the fact that the family were able to move away without any consequence). I feel sad that there was no happy ending, no fairy godmother to wave a magic wand. maybe it was inevitable that things would end this way, from the moment Boy became more in the cemetery centuries ago.

Thank you to Carina, via Netgalley, for providing me with a copy of The Boy in the Cemetery!