YMMV / Anya's Ghost

• Adorkable:
  • Dima, a kind and very smart, but subsequently very nerdy, short Russian boy who hasn't quite managed to get the hang of English yet.
  • Emily is small, thin, and mousy with hair like a dandelion, and though she means well she comes off a bit dorky in her excitement to learn more about the present. This goes away as she begins showing her crueler nature, with even her appearance changing to make her look less mousy.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: After her final confrontation with Anya, and a last-minute "The Reason You Suck" Speech, Emily has tears in her eyes just before her spirit floats up and off toward the sky. Could it be guilt, from finally realizing the true horror of her actions? Regret, at finally finding a friend in Anya after ninety years, and then ruining that too by trying to kill her and her family? Grief at realizing that she's all alone and now always will be? All of them?
• Friendly Fandoms: With Persepolis, after some people mistook this as being associated some way.
• Funny Moments: When Anya first meets Emily in the well, there's something darkly funny about how she keeps acting unbothered by Anya's situation. The more Emily casually brings up things like how she likely died of thirst or how she can't smell anymore, the more it freaks out Anya that she could end up like Emily if she doesn't get out.
• Heartwarming Moments: When Anya comforts Dima. It's actually very meaningful because initially, Anya wanted nothing to do with him and considered him annoying.
• Iron Woobie: Dima. This kid gets bullied, his glasses broken, has a poorer family, and keeps to himself, all while being a nice, helpful little guy, yet he still keeps trucking.
• Memetic Mutation: This is not Persepolis. ^ExplanationThe Deliberately Monochrome colour scheme, black-haired female protagonist, and the cover depicting them looking to the right has made a few people mistake this book for Persepolis.
• Moment of Awesome:
  • Anya telling Dima that he doesn't deserve to be bullied, and that "impressing a bunch of snooty teenagers" is a "pretty lame life goal". This shows marvelous Character Development from the girl who thought she wanted to have Sean's attention and not appear as Russian as she is. If she can show more personal growth in a couple weeks than a ghost ever did in ninety years, then she's doing something right.
  • Anya's second-to-last confrontation with Emily She outright bolts for the park with Emily's little finger bone in her hand and then, when Emily threatens her, she just drops it in the well — sending Emily plummeting with it.
• Tear Jerker: Emily's last gasp towards life and departure. At first she's standing, barely able to hold her bones up out of the well; then after Anya's rant, there are tears in her eyes just before her bones fall into the well, while her spirit drifts up to heaven.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Apart from the obscure feminine name and a couple fleeting snippets of dialogue, it can be hard for some readers to tell that Siobhan's a girl. It doesn't help that she wears the male school uniform.
• The Woobie:
  • Anya, with certain shades of Jerkass Woobie given her own flawed and selfish tendencies.
  • Dima is a sweet kid who gets picked on for being small and nerdy. His glasses have been broken so many times that he's excused from gym class because his family can't afford to keep replacing them.
  • At Matt's party, Elizabeth reveals that she knows Sean cheats on her, but she still stays with him and helps him cover it up because she loves him that much.

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