FICTION CHANGED EXPECTATIONS.

In colloquial terms, 'ghosted' is when someone cuts off all communication without any explanation. The word is usually used by Gen Z in the context of a digital departure. So when I picked up Ghosted by British travel writer and novelist Emily Barr, I didn't think very highly of the title, primarily because of how frequently this word is thrown around by my generation.

Adding to my apprehension was the cover featuring a young couple that looked fairly teenaged. I hoped my assumptions for the book would be proven wrong, simply so that, in the future, I would stop myself from judging any book by its cover.

My assumptions were proven wrong, indeed.

Barr is the author of 20 books, five of them being Young Adult novels. However, her most recent work, Ghosted, is - despite all appearances to the contrary - not just another teenage romance with a predictable storyline and sappy writing.

Nestled within a sappy romance that makes a novel almost unbearable at times, is a gritty, worthwhile and page-turning mystery

When the novel begins, it's a short while before sunrise and 15-year-old Ariel is a wreck, having just stood up to her violent bully of a father. The night before, there had been a falling out in the family and words exchanged between Dad and 19-year-old sister Sasha because, much to his enormous dismay, she is pregnant and has dashed all his hopes of her becoming a doctor like himself.

Dad has now pinned all his expectations on the younger of his two daughters. He wakes her up in the middle of the night to tell her he is leaving, and she has to come with him. Although Ariel has always acquiesced to her father's demands, tonight she musters up the courage to defy him and decides to stay with Sasha.

Since their mother died a year ago and Sasha is barely an adult, there is an ever-present fear that Ariel will be put into foster care, which adds to the overwhelming anxiety she lugs around, courtesy the constant emotional abuse showered upon her by Daddy Dearest.

At this rock-bottom point in life, Ariel meets Joe. Like her, Joe is also 15 years old. His mother is unavailable, emotionally as well as physically, but at least his father, who runs a children's nursery, is a jolly man. Joe seems to fit in well at school, but there's a persistent monotony weighing upon him that makes him slightly frustrated with his life. The day he meets Ariel is the day before he has to leave for France on a school trip - an excursion which he's not looking forward...