Ghosts of Harvard by Francesca Serritella

I wanted to jump on this new release that comes out on May 5th, so per my usual fashion, I read it in one night.

Thank you Random House for my gifted ebook in exchange for my honest review.

Synopsis: Cadence Archer arrives on Harvard’s campus desperate to understand why her brother, Eric, a genius who developed paranoid schizophrenia took his own life there the year before. Losing Eric has left a black hole in Cady’s life, and while her decision to follow in her brother’s footsteps threatens to break her family apart, she is haunted by questions of what she might have missed. And there’s only one place to find answers. As Cady struggles under the enormous pressure at Harvard, she investigates her brother’s final year, armed only with a blue notebook of Eric’s cryptic scribblings. She knew he had been struggling with paranoia, delusions, and illusory enemies—but what tipped him over the edge? With her suspicions mounting, Cady herself begins to hear voices, seemingly belonging to three ghosts who walked the university’s hallowed halls—or huddled in its slave quarters. Among them is a person whose name has been buried for centuries, and another whose name mankind will never forget. Does she share Eric’s illness, or is she tapping into something else? Cady doesn’t know how or why these ghosts are contacting her, but as she is drawn deeper into their worlds, she believes they’re moving her closer to the truth about Eric, even as keeping them secret isolates her further. Will listening to these voices lead her to the one voice she craves—her brother’s—or will she follow them down a path to her own destruction?

This was a slow burn for me. I had a hard time being invested in the story and it was a little too dark for what I was in the mood to read at the time. I think if I picked this one at a different time, I would’ve enjoyed it more. There is a lot of focus on suicide and mental illness and I wanted more focus on the paranormal. The setting was superb and the author did a great job with descriptions of the arts and history of Harvard. I may want to re-read this again when I feel like I can handle the dark side of this one.

3/5 Stars