Ghost is not a book about winning a race. It is a book about learning to stop running away from your past and start running toward your future—even if your shoes are too tight and your shirt has holes.
When we meet Ghost, he is literally running from a bully. He stumbles (literally) onto a track team practice, and Coach, an Olympic medalist with a mysterious past of his own, sees something in the boy’s raw, desperate sprint. "You like running?" Coach asks. "Only if someone's chasing me," Ghost replies. And that line is the thesis of the entire novel.
Yes, but with a caveat. The PDF is great for highlighting quotes (and there are many worth highlighting, like “You can't run away from who you are, but what you can do is run toward who you want to be.” ). However, the audiobook, narrated by the author himself, is actually the definitive version. Reynolds is a spoken-word poet, and hearing him voice Ghost’s stutter and panic is electric.
Castle "Ghost" Crenshaw has a secret. Actually, he has a lot of them. He has a secret love for sunflower seeds. He has a secret stash of money in a Snicker’s box. And he has the biggest secret of all: the reason he is the fastest kid in his neighborhood isn’t because of sports—it’s because he has spent years running away .
Fans of The Crossover by Kwame Alexander, Wonder by R.J. Palacio, or anyone who has ever felt like they were born on the wrong side of the starting line.
If you are looking for a superhero origin story, put this book down. But if you want a raw, funny, and heartbreaking look at how a kid finds his superpower in the middle of his wrecked life—keep reading.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐½ (4.5/5) Genre: Middle Grade / Young Adult Realistic Fiction Vibe: The Pursuit of Happyness meets Remember the Titans for a new generation.
Read Ghost if you want to cry, laugh, and immediately go outside for a sprint. Jason Reynolds has written a modern classic about the fact that sometimes, the people who run the fastest are just trying to leave the ghost of their old self behind.
