Chasing Brooklyn by Lisa Schroeder

Restless souls and empty hearts

Brooklyn can't sleep. Her boyfriend, Lucca, died only a year ago, and now her friend Gabe has just died of an overdose. Every time she closes her eyes, Gabe's ghost is there waiting for her. She has no idea what he wants or why it isn't Lucca visiting her dreams.

Nico can't stop. He's always running, trying to escape the pain of losing his brother, Lucca. But when Lucca's ghost begins leaving messages, telling Nico to help Brooklyn, emotions come crashing to the surface.

As the nightmares escalate and the messages become relentless, Nico reaches out to Brooklyn. But neither of them can admit that they're being haunted. Until they learn to let each other in, not one soul will be able to rest.

Chasing Brooklyn was… wow. This book was so amazing. Within the first fifty pages, I was crying. I didn’t stop crying until the very end of the book. Lisa Schroeder wrote a book with so much heart and soul that reading it in more than one sitting is nearly impossible. I devoured Chasing Brooklyn within a couple hours. When reading it, I often found myself holding by breath, waiting for what was going to happen next.

I felt so bad for Brooklyn and everything she was going through. I felt bad for Nico, as well. Chasing Brooklyn is told in verse, from alternating points of view. One point of view is from Brooklyn, who’s had struggled with Lucca’s death for the past year- and is now struggling with Gabe’s death too. Nico is Lucca’s brother, so I felt like his point of view was more hard hitting when it came to talking about Lucca opposed to talking about Gabe. Both voices were really strong and I loved how even though Brooklyn and Nico are totally different people, their thought processes intertwined and related to each other really well.

I fell in love with Chasing Brooklyn. I was hooked from the start of the book to the very end of it. Lisa Schroeder is not an amazing verse writer, but she also has the wonderful capability of making her books both crushingly dark and wildly hopeful at the same time. You really do need to read Chasing Brooklyn. It will remind you just how much the written word can capture your heart.

FTC- Bought.