Grief and the Gay Supernatural Alliance: Jasmine is Haunted by Mark Oshiro

Jasmine Garza is tired of moving, she’s tired of switching schools, and she’s tired of her Mami not believing her. Ever since her father died, she’s been haunted—but not by him. By a ghost who wants to ruin her life, apparently, because it keeps getting her into trouble. She’s tried to talk to her Mami about it, but she doesn’t believe her. She’s also pretty much given up on making friends, since she’s probably just going to have to move again, but on her mother’s insistence, she decides to give it one last try and joins her middle school’s GSA. There, she meets Jorge Barrera and Bea Veracruz (who is genderfluid and changes pronouns throughout the book). She likes the two of them, but she feels like they’re hiding something from her. Soon, she learns that the GSA is also known as the Gay Supernatural Alliance: Bea and Jorge are obsessed with the paranormal.

Against her better judgement, Jasmine shares her situation with them, and they are determined to help. Bea’s parents are paranormal investigators, and while Jorge is nervous about ghosts, he wants to face his fears. One thing I appreciated about Jasmine is Haunted is that there’s no question that there is something paranormal happening: objects float and are thrown around. This is a very active haunting, and Bea and Jorge immediately agree that she’s being haunted.

Instead, the problem becomes their attitude around this fact. Jasmine begins to feel like the ghost hunting is fun for Bea, and that they’re ignoring the real problems this has caused in Jasmine’s life. Bea is also prone to bulldozing over her and Jorge, leaving Jasmine doubtful of whether she should have ever gotten them involved.

Unsurprisingly for a book about ghosts and hauntings, it’s primarily about grief. Jasmine feels isolated not just because of the haunting, but also because she’s still grieving her father after his death three years ago. She feels like she should have moved on. Slowly, she learns that so many of the people in her life, from teachers to neighbours to friends, are also grieving.

This is a book about ghosts, but it’s not very scary, so you can feel free to give this to kids who aren’t able to stomach horror: it really is mostly about grief and Jasmine’s relationships with her friends and family. I think it is a great pick for the younger end of middle grade readers.

It’s nice to be at a point with queer middle grade books that this can be such a taken for granted aspect: Jasmine, Bea, and Jorge are all queer, but that isn’t the focus of the story.

I’ve been following Mark Oshiro since before they published their first book, so I love seeing how successful they’ve become in the publishing world. If you have a chance to show up to one of their events—they’re doing a big book tour for this title—I highly recommend going!