Ghost Town

By Tom Perrotta
** Publication Date 28 April 2026 **
​4 stars




The early teen years can be fraught with emotions and hormones. Your friends from grade school suddenly become your not friends or even enemies in middle school. You start noticing people in a desirable way. You try ti find yourself and figure out who you are.


For Jimmy, the summer before high school started out in a normal way. Finishing up little league. Hanging out with friends. Although his mom was very sick - cancer. Jimmy is at a little league championship game when it happens. His mother is whisked off to the hospital where she dies because her heart gives out. Jimmy can’t understand this. But it will change his life forever.


At the funeral, Jimmy starts to hear his mom’s voice. He wanders out of the building and runs into a older kid in a Vega. Eddie. Jimmy will become friends with Eddie and spend a lot of time hanging out with him. Trying new things. After all, Jimmy has no idea what his life is anymore. His sister is heading off to college in the fall. His father works extra hours and hangs out at the firehouse. Jimmy is left alone to figure out his summer, his friends, his future.


This is the summer that will make a lifelong impression on Jimmy and his childhood in Creamwood, NJ. Life will never be the same after this summer. 


Somewhat of a coming of age novel, it is a fairly tragic story about being a young teen and trying to understand how you fit into this world. Especially without your mom. Jimmy goes on to do well in life, but when he is summoned back to his childhood community, all the memories of that summer resurface, for good and bad. Beautifully written and quite compelling, this is a messy time in a young boy’s life. It’s a messy time without tragedy befalling your family.


I enjoyed it. Truly interesting.