Ceremonials by Katharine Coldiron is a lyric novella inspired by, and named after, Florence + The Machine’s 2011 album. The novella explores the relationship between two girls, Amelia and Corisande, who fall in love at boarding school and then lose each other when Corisande dies suddenly just before their graduation. The narrative predominantly focuses on Amelia as she navigates the grief of losing the only person in her life to suicide. Because of the use of narrative shifts, the reader also gets Corisande’s perspective of events, crossing the veil between life and death. The novella explores the codependency of the girls’ relationship and the grief of its loss well. Through the use of its beautifully crafted prose and illustration, Ceremonials effectively evokes feelings of grief in the reader, often making the book difficult to read.

The novella immediately begins with Amelia longing for Corisande just a week after she took her own life. Throughout the first part of the book, Amelia repeats “Where is my Corisande?” until Corisande seems to come back to her. It is unclear whether Corisande is really back or if, in her grief, Amelia has created this image as a coping mechanism. Coldiron writes, “Then you—not you, but the you I’ve retained under my hair—whisper to me”. Regardless of whether the ghost is real or imagined, it seems that Amelia needs her in order to function.

As the story unfolds, the reader learns that Amelia has no family or friends outside of Corisande. This, of course, impacts the way Amelia grieves. Moreover, because Corisande took her own life by drowning herself in the lake while Amelia was present, it makes Amelia’s trauma significantly more palpable. She feels responsible for Corisande’s death. Therefore, it is her trauma that causes her to be haunted by the ghost of Corisande.

Despite getting what she longed for—Corisande’s return—Amelia does not seem to believe it entirely. She says, “Not you, but the bright glow you have become, the half-Corisande that remains after the lake drew you down. She hovers before me, glimmering, eyes, and smile just off yours.” Because she refers to this ghost figure as “half-Corisande” it seems that Amelia understands that Corisande is not entirely herself. Despite this, Amelia allows herself to fall into her desire to have Corisande back. She allows herself to be haunted.

The trauma of Corisande’s suicide haunts Amelia throughout a large portion of her adult life. It affects her so much that she seems to have died at the lake too. Everything Amelia does is motivated in some way by Corisande. She dates women who remind her of Corisande, and she dates men because they are her total opposite. Further, even in adulthood, the physical ghost of Corisande remains, keeping Amelia stuck in the past.

When the narrative shifts to Corisande’s perspective, she explores her relationship with Amelia. It seems that Amelia is codependent to the point of obsession. The romantic love does not seem to be entirely requited. Corisande says, “We loved each other, Amelia with desperation, I with tenderness”. Corisande’s belief is directly countered by her behavior, though. She craves Amelia’s attention even in death, becoming jealous of Amelia’s relationships. As such, it becomes clear that Corisande is just as codependent (if not more) because she is unable to let go of Amelia even as a ghost. This codependency keeps both girls stuck in the past: Amelia is unable to work through her grief and trauma and Corisande is unable to cross into the afterlife.

Ultimately, Amelia decides to confront Corisande’s ghost and chooses her own life for the first time: “I still do not know what I want, where to go, what pushes or pulls at me. But her light—these years, there has been no light. No beacon to follow. Her no-light has led me nowhere”. She recognizes that she has not been living at all since Corisande died. It is at this point that Amelia chooses to begin living again by moving on from Corisande, and by choosing to create a life of her own. After being so deeply immersed in Amelia’s grief, this decision to move on is all the reader can hope for.

Ceremonials by Katherine Coldiron follows the tropes of the gothic genre without feeling contrived. Primarily, the novella presents ghosts as a personification of grief. While the prose and illustrations in the novella are beautifully composed, the story does not always feel beautiful because of its underlying metaphor. Amelia’s grief is often ugly, and it shapes every facet of her life. As grief took hold of Amelia, I felt my own grief engulf me. The context in which I read this book is important to my understanding of and feelings toward it. Ceremonials came into my hands in the midst of my own grief, having lost loved ones of my own just months prior. As a result, I felt frustrated by Amelia’s grief because it reflected my own. I struggled with the novella because I saw too much of myself in Amelia’s inability to move on from Corisande’s death. It is because Ceremonials forced me to face my own grief that I have such complex feelings toward it. It is a novella that I hold dear for what it is: an honest portrayal of grief.