Blog Tour Review: You’re Dead to Me, Reed Walker by Gwenyth Reitz

Hi friends, I’m excited to be back with a blog tour review today! I’m here to share my thoughts (and a few favourite quotes) as part of the blog tour hosted by Toppling Stacks Tours for You’re Dead to Me, Reed Walker by Gwenyth Reitz.

Thanks to Roaring Book Press for providing a digital ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!

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You’re Dead to Me, Reed Walker
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Publication Date: 12 May 2026
Genre: YA Paranormal Romance

Rating:

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📖 SYNOPSIS

A swoonworthy YA supernatural romcom where two academic rivals are trapped as ghosts to haunt the same house.

They’d kill each other… if they weren’t already dead.

Tessa Sinclair is a winner. Winner of spelling bees, science fairs, and scholarships. So when she finds herself unexpectedly dead after a graduation party in an abandoned mansion, she’s none too pleased. What’s worse, her academic rival—the Harvard-bound, Mr. Perfect Reed Walker—is there too, deceased, smug, and annoying as hell.

Being a ghost is hard enough, but it’s a thousand times worse having to haunt the same house with your nemesis. But as Tessa and Reed retreat to R.I.P in their respective corners of the mansion, a mystery unfurls about the exact cause of their deaths.

Though they’d rather die (again) than work together, they’ll need to find a way to overcome their differences to hunt down a murderer on the loose. And should they happen to fall for each other along the way… who ever said you can’t find love after death?

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⚠️ CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNINGS

Murders (described in semi-graphic detail), child death, underage drinking and intoxication, stalking, abusive and toxic relationship and ex-partner, panic attacks

TL;DR: You’re Dead to Me, Reed Walker was a surprising YA supernatural romcom debut. It’s a really easy read to slip into and I found myself having a great time following Tessa and Reed—I’m so glad we got both of their POVs in this because it really served to allow us to get to know the characters so much better. Of the two, I admit that Reed was my favourite, but I did enjoy their banter, their playfulness, their chemistry, and also, the mysterious turns this story takes. It is much darker and heavier than I anticipated, but as someone who loves what the turns entailed, it made me enjoy the storyline even more! That said, as it does confront some difficult topics, please read with care and view the content warnings beforehand. Overall, an exciting YA debut and I’m looking forward to seeing what the author puts out next.

I knew I would enjoy this when I started it, and I’m happy to say I wasn’t wrong. This did end up being different to what I expected but I obviously don’t mean that in a bad way. I enjoyed the dark turn that the mystery takes, but I think the author handled the sensitive issues well, and doesn’t take it to an absurd level that could’ve ended up making it disrespectful. I would recommend checking content warnings beforehand to see if this “dark turn” would be for you though! That said, this was a really enjoyable and easy story to slip into, even with the tougher topics that it tackles. I liked the author’s writing and I think she did a good job as well of capturing the “teenage spirit” including the bad decisions and frustrating reactions (lol) but that’s what made it more realistic. Despite the tragically short life that our characters live, they did experience a few “coming-of-age” moments as they deal with the grief, loss, and mourning that came with their early deaths.

“Don’t wish for an easy life. Wish for a full one.”

Tessa and Reed were fairly easy characters to root for and empathise with (mostly). These characters weren’t perfect and I admit to struggling with Tessa at times, but for the most part, I thought they were well-developed teenage characters that made the story a joy to follow along to. Tessa and Reed are high school nemeses—always working hard to one-up each other and doing an excellent job of getting on each other’s nerves. Or at least, that’s what Tessa has always believed. It’s one of those ‘rivalry’ moments that might be familiar to those who enjoy the rivals to lovers romance trope, and there’s a reason it works. We have the guy, secretly pining after the girl, but he never seems to be able to say the right thing at the right time and always seems to annoy her. Although, to be fair, he does try to push her buttons as much as possible because he knew how easily she got riled up by him, but he also loved the heat of her reactions. Tessa did have a very short fuse when it came to him and had a tendency to almost automatically assume he’s out to get her or show her up though. 😂

“Why should death make more sense than life? Good people die young. Life’s a great mystery, with everything either fated or up to some divine luck of the lottery, so why should death be any different?”

You could say that Tessa is your typical overachieving uber competitive high school student who basically wants to come out on top of everyone, but especially against Reed. Unlike how those characters are usually portrayed though, it seems that most people liked her in school, but not as much as everyone loved Reed. I enjoyed getting to know her backstory and how much she loved her dad and what her home life is like. The father-daughter relationship they had was very sweet! I will say that Tessa’s character was a little harder for me to empathise and connect with mostly because she was quite judgmental of others and would so quickly jump to conclusions about someone without really knowing them, and insisted that what she thought of them was how they actually are (when that’s not true). Honestly, I wish that Tessa hadn’t been so awful to Reed, especially at one point where I felt she really crossed the line with her awfulness during a very emotionally vulnerable moment, but thankfully she did win me over again by the end.

“When you take your time to really look, you’ll see everyone’s doing the best they can.”

Reed was in many ways similar to Tessa as a high-achieving, highly competitive student (obviously, as her academic rival), but we very quickly learn that there’s a lot more going on beneath his “smirky, cocky, cool guy” exterior. I feel somehow that the author wrote him in a way that made it much easier to empathise with him. I loved the vulnerability we get to see through his character’s POV and it made me appreciate him more. He also has a wonderful relationship with his mother and I loved how much she meant to him, and it made my heart ache to see all the guilt and trauma he bore on his shoulders for things that happened in the past and present. He was awfully sweet to Tessa, even with his button pushing and constant teasing, and I could really see how much he cared for and wanted to take care of her.

“Bravery isn’t always rushing off to fight the dragon. Sometimes, it’s picking yourself up after crippling loss.”

Although I wasn’t entirely sold on their romance, only because of how much Tessa waffled on her treatment of him, I did think they had great chemistry, especially as nemeses, lol. I did enjoy when they decided to put their enmity aside and work together to understand their deaths though, and it’s clear that they made a great team! Overall, it’s been a while since I’ve read a YA that I really enjoyed, but I’m glad to say that this was one of them and I’m looking forward to seeing what the author comes out with next. This was a great debut! 😊

Gwenyth Reitz was born in Sri Lanka, and has since lived and worked in California, Washington, Alaska, Montana, Japan, and Mongolia. When not intrepidly exploring she writes genre-blending YA stories with swoony romance, mystery, humor, and heart. Gwenyth now lives in NYC with her husband and two daughters, where she can often be found scribbling late into the night on her rooftop like the caffeine-obsessed night-owl she is.

As a theater maker with an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art, Gwenyth works for Lincoln Center Theater teaching acting and directing teens. For fun, she likes to sing Hamilton karaoke, maybe not well, but with gusto. Her debut novel, YOU’RE DEAD TO ME, REED WALKER, comes out in the Spring of 2026 with Macmillan’s Roaring Brook Press, followed by an untitled second novel in 2027. Gwenyth is represented by Dr. Uwe Stender of Triada US Literary Agency. You can find her on socials @GwenythReitz

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