Ghost by Jason Renalds (208 pages) is a book about a middle school-aged boy. It all starts as a normal day in the life of our protagonist Castle Crawshaw(aka Ghost). The way the author describes his day and what Castel thinks about as he lives his daily life in a modern-day city and gives a good sense of his perception of what Castle enjoys. When Castle was little he remembered his dad watching sports on TV eating sunflower seeds and telling him these seeds grow all up in me. Until one day those memories went in the wrong direction when his father got drunk and shot at him and his mom and then was taken to jail. After that Ghost was always good at running; he had run as fast as he could that night. As he grows up his main sport is basketball and he often gets in fights at school. He usually gets in fights with a particular boy named Brandon who makes fun of him because he doesn't live in the best neighborhood or have the most expensive clothes. There was one day in his life that probably changed it. When he was making his usual trip to the convent where an old man named Mrs. Charles, who was a good friend to him to buy sunflower seeds, he later made a stop at the track team practice. As he watches the runners he thinks of the world record books that he got from Mr. Charles and the fastest man alive. As he watches the runners and thinks about how fast he can run he decides to race one of the best runners at the practice. He tried and realized he was pretty good at track. A couple of days later he is on the team. He thinks that track will help him with basketball. As he is on the team all the other runners have on fancy shoes and clothes and since his family doesn't have a lot of money he knows he won’t ever have anything better than jeans and no name high tops. So one day when school was getting hard he ran out of there as fast as he could and stole a pair of silver shoes. What happens because of those actions you will have to read that. But overall in the book Ghost grows a lot in character and makes good relationships with his team and Olympic-winning coach. His coach did a lot for him throughout the story such as being his shofer, taking him to dinner, and most of all coaching him. The book is very exciting and makes you want to read more at the end.

In the book, several great characters play an amazing role in Castel’s life, the first is Mr. Charles. Mr. Charles is an old man who owns a convent store in the middle of town. He is described as a white version of Charles brown in my mind that is very fitting. The reason that he needs to be in this book is the kindness and light he sheds on Castel's sometimes dark life. He provided a palace to hide from his dad when they were under attack and put his life on the line for them. And that is why Mr. Charles is my favorite character in this book. 

Another one of my favorites is a runner on the track team named Sunny. Sunny plays an important part in this book because Castle is on a track team with a bunch of almost snobby kids he has never met. It’s important what Sunny does when Castle is in this awkward position because if you were Ghost you would have loved to have Sunny. Sunny is the one to become friends with Castle and not treat him  rudely. They might be best friends because Ghost told Sunny his secret about his family and he has never done that to any other group of friends.

One very important passage from the book happens when Ghost is saying in his mind that he feels really mad when getting in a fight with Brandon; it shows how he can explode with anger and that it is hard for him to keep it all in. And at this time he has had to keep a lot of anger when it comes to school. He was done with it at that point and let all the scream out. 

“Like, for me, the best way to describe it is, I got a lot of scream inside.” - Ghost 

This quote is in the book to show how Castle feels and is a rift into his internal rather than external struggle. Through the development of the story, this quote shows up over and over again when Castel tries to run like running out of school, fighting with Breandan, shoplifting shoes. This quote is a window into Ghost or in other words it shows a dilemma having to do with anger when screaming inside of you can’t let the sun go down on anger because it will only make it louder.  This is an important theme in the story because  leting that scream get so loud can mute everything else. Anger can consume Castel  and it won’t stop until Castel chooses to be free. Until he chooses to find what that anger is and not run from it, face it head-on and accept or give apologies or forgive. And in Castle’s life, he needs to face his father's head on the one thing that makes him run the most.

I think that this book was pretty good. I will recommend it to anyone 15 or under. But the type of people who would like it would be the people that can relate to Castle's life in some way, maybe they run track, deal with bullies, or have a hard family life. When you can connect to this book you understand it on a better level. Overall my rating would be 4 stars out of 5. It was a well-written book that had a good plot and taught lessons in many different ways. One of my favorite things was the writing in the book. The way the author was able to describe the life of Castle, the places, and the characters made me feel like I could take a walk down glass manor.  The plot was great, it captured the readers and made you feel with Castel like anger, sadness, or guilt. And the lessons teach a lot throughout the book such as don’t let anger get the best of you, don’t steal or lie because it never ends well. In conclusion, it is a good book so get to reading!