John Belushi is Dead by Kathy Charles

Book Description
IN THE END WE ALL FADE TO BLACK.

Pink-haired Hilda and oddball loner Benji are not your typical teenagers. Instead of going to parties or hanging out at the mall, they comb the city streets and suburban culs-de-sac of Los Angeles for sites of celebrity murder and suicide. Bound by their interest in the macabre, Hilda and Benji neglect their schoolwork and their social lives in favor of prowling the most notorious crime scenes in Hollywood history and collecting odd mementos of celebrity death.


Hilda and Benji’s morbid pastime takes an unexpected turn when they meet Hank, the elderly, reclusive tenant of a dilapidated Echo Park apartment where a silent movie star once stabbed himself to death with a pair of scissors. Hilda feels a strange connection with Hank and comes to care deeply for her paranoid new friend as they watch old movies together and chat the sweltering afternoons away. But when Hank’s downstairs neighbor Jake, a handsome screenwriter, inserts himself into the equation and begins to hint at Hank’s terrible secrets, Hilda must decide what it is she’s come to Echo Park searching for . . . and whether her fascination with death is worth missing out on life.

My thoughts
Hilda and Benji are two bored teenagers that find thrills in visiting the sites of celebrity deaths. That is until Hilda befriends an old man and begins to spend more time with him than Benji. John Belushi is Dead is the story of two outsiders that have this weird connection until they drift apart and learn that each have their own demons that need to be worked out. I found this book to be much more than I had expected. I could relate to the characters and the emptiness each felt and trying to (I wouldn’t say fit in) but to live a meaningful life worth something other than the void.


Disclosure: This book was received for review from the publisher. I received no compensation for my thoughts.