Watch Over Me Review

 

Oh my, this was disappointing...

Watch Over Me by Nina Lacour is a YA magical realism and character-driven book about a girl named Mila who just aged out of the foster system. She finds a job working as a teacher in a small remote farm somewhere in California. As she gets to know everybody there she finds out that the farm is haunted by ghosts, and these ghosts force her to confront her dark past.

This sounds like a really interesting premise, right? Well, unfortunately this is one of those books where the first half is really good, and the second half is where it completely falls apart. I can't get too much into detail because it would go into spoiler territory, so I'll try to keep it as vague as much as possible.

Here's what I liked:

• The themes of trauma, grief, and healing
• Mila's big sister-little brother dynamic with one of the younger kids on the farm named Lee.
• There is some queer representation

Now what I didn't like:

• Ok. Seriously. The farm Mila goes to live at...with the way it is written...it feels like a cult! For example, everyone acts really overly nice to the point that it feels kind of fake. I thought there would be some reveal that the farm is a front for a cult and Mila would try to find a way to escape, but it never happens.
• Her relationship with two of the other teachers around her age there, Liz and Billy, was a little odd and confusing.

This is my least favorite Nina LaCour book so far. I gave it 3 stars.