The Lost Boys by Lilian Carmine

The Lost Boys by Lilian Carmine was both charming and a bit strange.

Joe has just moved to Esperanza with her mother, two weeks before Christmas.  The book begins with Joe becoming lost in the cemetery, as she twists and turns to figure her way out, Joe spots him sitting on a grave.  “A boy, just a few feet away.  And he was beautiful.”  That is the beginning of Joe and Tristan’s friendship.  The only problem?  Tristan never wants to hang out anywhere but the graveyard, and since Joe just wants to be around him, she doesn’t really bother to think… for a minute… what this could mean.  I mean you only need a minute to figure out why someone only wants to be in a cemetery, never wants to touch you (like, say, when you fall), or doesn’t really talk about himself much.  Turns out, he’s a ghost.

This is a story of love, of witchcraft, of The Lost Boys (band of misfits and cuties who play in a…well, a band), and finally of growing into your own skin.  I think the author tried too hard to do too much in this book.  Not only is a ghost story, but Joe brings Tristan back with some hidden power she has.  Now they both must escape from the thing that fixes mistakes and anomalies in life, and they both must run away from death, or is it run towards it?  At the same time this is happening, Joe starts a new school, where she has to pretend that Tristan and her are siblings.  Here it’s about her growing into her own person, meeting new people and struggling with a new love that must remain hidden.  All the while the supernatural world is knocking on the door.  The book was interesting but it was not light, it tried to be…