The Afterlife of Mal Caldera by Nadi Reed Perez

Book Description

Mal Caldera—former rockstar, retired wild-child and excommunicated black sheep of her Catholic family—is dead. Not that she cares. She only feels bad that her younger sister, Cris, has been left to pick up the pieces Mal left behind. While her fellow ghosts party their afterlives away at an abandoned mansion they call the Haunt, Mal is determined to make contact with Cris from beyond the grave.

Mal knows it’s wrong to hold on so tightly to her old life. Bad things happen to ghosts who interfere with the living, and Mal can’t help wondering if she’s hurting the people she loves by hanging around, haunting their lives. But Mal has always been selfish, and letting go might just be the hardest thing she’s ever had to do.

Review

When I picked up The Afterlife of Mal Caldera, I thought I was settling in for a quirky ghost story. What I got was something stranger, bolder, and far more tender. A haunting journey that explores sisterhood, unresolved grief, and the liminal space between life and death.

The Afterlife of Mal Caldera follows Mal, a former rockstar-turned-ghost, who’s stuck in the afterlife with unfinished business. (Side note: aren’t we all eternally struggling to finish some piece of business?).

When she reluctantly teams up with a medium to reconnect with her sister, their path is anything but straightforward. What unfolds is equal parts spectral road trip and messy reckoning with family, faith, and the things we never got to say.

If you’ve read Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas, this one pairs beautifully. Both stories feature queer Latinx protagonists navigating identity, magic, and mortality. But where Cemetery Boys leans into romance and community, Mal Caldera leans into the chaos. Mal herself is a gloriously flawed hurricane of a character—sarcastic, hurting, vibrant. She’s not here to be liked, but she is here to be seen.

And I saw her.

Perez weaves her speculative elements through a grounded emotional world. Even when the story dips into the surreal (and it does), it never loses its emotional pulse. If anything, those dreamlike moments make the real ones hit harder. Like Salthouse Place, Pitch Wars shone light on this novel!

My only quibble? There were a couple of side characters I would’ve loved to engage with more deeply. But like any good story, The Afterlife of Mal Caldera leaves you hungry for more.

If you enjoy stories about ghosts that are really about the living, or if you’re drawn to narratives that embrace the complicated, raw, and hopeful mess of healing, The Afterlife of Mal Caldera might be your next favorite.

Content Warning

Abandonment, Ableism, Alcohol, Cursing, Death, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Mental illness, Sexual content, Suicide, Suicidal Thoughts, Toxic Relationships

The header photo is a composite image. Base image by Vicki Schofield on Unsplash