History ComicBook / AnyasGhost

* BrokenPedestal: Anya is deeply infatuated with Sean and envies his girlfriend Elizabeth until she finds out that [[spoiler:Sean takes advantage of his girlfriend's insecurities to let him find girls to cheat on her with]].
* CharacterDevelopment: Largely with Anya; she starts off as a moody and unlikable character at the beginning of the story, only caring about herself with one friend whom she sneaks out to smoke with and ashamed of her Russian heritage. As she goes through her encounter with Emily, she begins to realize her own faults and how she previously thought of others were wrong, ultimately growing to become a more caring character -- and also gives up smoking and accurately gives her last name to the principal.

* IfICantHaveYou: [[spoiler:Emily's decision after catching her crush with another girl was to barricade them both in the house and burn it down, killing them both.]]
* ImagineSpot: Anya has one about her and Sean, as she prepares to impress him at Matt's party.

''Anya's Ghost'' is a single-issue [[ComicBooks graphic novel]] by Creator/VeraBrosgol.

* TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: A sad variation. After Anya [[spoiler:talks Emily out of her stubborn rage, Emily's skeleton falls apart and she evaporates in order to 'move on'.]]
* TamperingWithFoodAndDrink: [[spoiler:With her growing strength, Emily puts rat poison in the dinner Anya's mother was cooking. Anya saves them by "accidentally" dropping the food.]]

In [[https://variety.com/2015/film/global/muschiettis-to-produce-supernatural-thriller-shadows-exclusive-1201630876/ 2015]], the film rights were bought by [[Creator/AndresMuschietti Andre]] [[{{Film/Mama}} and Barbara Muschietti]]. However, the latest news of the film's development comes from [[https://deadline.com/2018/03/emma-roberts-cast-anyas-ghost-movie-dan-mazer-eone-1202321986/ 2018]], with the announcement of Creator/EmmaRoberts being slated to play Emily, so the current status of its production is unknown.

* LoveMartyr: Elizabeth. She'll quietly stand guard while her boyfriend Sean cheats on her with other boys' girlfriends, because she wants him to love her and says she loves him.

* BlahBlahBlah: Anya's first day after returning to school has her tuning out the long strings of math class.
* BoringReligiousService: Anya describes Orthodox church as "long, boring and full of Russians" who never bothered to learned English, and tries to make excuses not to go whenever she can. However, it's hinted that the real reason she hates church is because the elders always tell her she's too fat "while their ankles are spilling over their orthopedic shoes" and because she is expected to spend time with Dima, who she dislikes.
* BrokenPedestal: Anya is deeply infatuated with Sean and envies his girlfriend, until she finds out that [[spoiler:Sean takes advantage of his girlfriend's insecurities to get her find girls for him to cheat on her with]].
* CharacterDevelopment: Largely with Anya, she comes off as a moody and unlikeable character at the beginning of the story, only caring about herself. As she goes through her encounter with Emily, she begins to realize her own faults and how she previously thought of others were wrong. Ultimately growing to become a more caring character.
* ChekhovsGun: Sasha's obsession with archaeology, of all things, turns out to be useful when he finds [[SoulJar Emily's finger bone]] and stores it in a box thinking it's a dinosaur bone. [[spoiler:This enables Anya to end her rampage by taking it -- and her -- out of the house and back to the well.]]

* DeadToBeginWith: Emily is only shown alive in brief flashbacks.
* DeathByFallingOver: Emily died by falling down the well and breaking her neck.

* DyingAsYourself: Well, dying ''again'' as yourself. [[spoiler:As Emily falls down the well again, her hair reverts from the long, modern style to the poofy, dandelion-like style she had when she first met Anya.]]

* EmbarrassingLastName: Anya's last name is Borzakovskaya. Her biology teacher has trouble pronouncing it when she calls Anya out for talking during her test, which makes the other students snicker and her embarrassed. She lies to Sean and says it's "Brown."
* EveryoneHasStandards: Anya may fantasize about Sean inexplicably leaving his long-time girlfriend for her instead, but when he offers for her to have a threesome with him and ''his best friend's girlfriend'' while [[LoveMartyr Elizabeth miserably guards the door for them]], she decides she doesn't want him ''that'' badly.

* ExactlyExtyYearsAgo: Emily says she died ninety years ago from 2011 -- 1921.

* GenderBlenderName: Sasha, Anya's little brother. {{Justified|Trope}} as their family is Russian, where "Sasha" is usually a short form of "Alexander".
* GenreSavvy: Siobhan knows that Sean is a bad pick for romance because he's "the kind of guy you're supposed to get a crush on in a bad teen movie."
* GhostlyGoals: Anya discusses with Emily trying to help solve her murder, planning to research what happened to her killer so she may be able to rest in peace; Emily agrees it might be worth a try. The truth is that Emily's real goal is to live the perfect life she never got to have, and she plans to do this by living vicariously through Anya -- making her chase after boys, dress up, and be popular. Ultimately, Emily is only able to rest in peace after [[spoiler:she understands that the perfect life she wants doesn't exist, and there's no point to envying other people.]]

* HeelRealization: Anya slowly comes to realize she's been a {{Jerkass}} to Emily when, after knowing Emily for two days and having her help with school and her crush, she doesn't even know her name yet. Much later, [[spoiler:after Sean and Emily show their true colors]], Anya realizes what a jerk she's been to ''everyone else'' too because of her poor attitude. [[spoiler:This finishes out in the climax, where she at first denies being anything like Emily before admitting that -- while she's not murderous -- she's at least enough like Emily to understand her.]]

* IAmNotPretty: While not as skinny as the likes of Elizabeth or Emily, Anya is nonetheless a curvy, fresh-faced young girl that in fact more than one character finds attractive. She nonetheless sees herself as fat and has a lot of insecurities about her weight.

* IfICantHaveYou: [[spoiler:Emily's decision after catching her crush with another girl was to barricade them both in the house and burn it down.]]

* ItsAllMyFault: Anya says this after [[spoiler:Emily scares her little brother Sasha]] and Sasha asks what it was that did it, as she feels it's her fault for bringing Emily in the house.

* NonHumanSidekick: Emily is one to Anya, being a ghost and helping Anya with just about everything in school after they become friends. [[spoiler:Because she wants to take over]]
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Emily and her parents were murdered by a man who they let stay in their barn one spring. [[spoiler:Except not really, because the whole story she tells is a crock of shit.]]

* SchoolUniformsAreTheNewBlack: Anya spends a good part of the story in her private school uniform, and the other students are almost always shown in them since she sees them at school mostly.

* SilenceIsGolden: Anya and Dima read about [[spoiler:Emily committing murder]], which is shown with just images of what happened over the microfiche paper

* SmokingIsCool: Anya and Siobhan think so at the start. Anya begins to realize it just makes her look like a jerk when seeing Emily smoke.
* SoulJar: Of a sort. Emily can't move very far from her skeleton, so Anya ends up [[LoopholeAbuse carrying her little finger bone]] around so they can move about together; she initially took it on accident in her school bag but turns it into a necklace. [[spoiler:Or so she thinks -- Emily actually left it where it could be grabbed.]]

A lovely story about friendship, selfishness and maturity. Vera Brosgol talks more about the process [[https://www.verabee.com/news/2011/06/process on her blog]].

* AlphaBitch: {{Deconstruction}} with Elizabeth. If you are familiar with high school tropes you'll think she'll be one, however she doesn't have the mean-spirited personality that typically defines them. It soon becomes obvious that ''Anya'' is the nasty one and she and the other girls are jealous of Elizabeth for being all around "perfect". It's at the party Anya attends that she finds out Sean likes to sleep around with other girls and Elizabeth not only knows about it, she ''goes along with it,'' because she only feels good about herself if she and Sean are together and desperately wants to keep him in her life. All her positive traits mean very little to her and it only shows she probably has little to no self esteem.

* AmbiguousSituation: Emily claims to have died after fleeing from a maniac who murdered her parents and then falling down the well. [[spoiler:The truth is she was hunted down by an angry mob after burning down the house of the guy who rejected her with him and his girlfriend trapped inside. It's unclear if she was killed by the mob and her body was thrown into the well, or if she fell into the well while fleeing and died of starvation/dehydration in there instead.]]

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Anya is immensely jealous of Elizabeth for seeming so perfect all the time, and wishes for proof that Elizabeth isn't as flawless as she presents herself as. But when she finally finds out that [[spoiler:Elizabeth is so insecure that she would rather help Sean cheat on her to keep him around than lose him, Anya is less than thrilled at the revelation]].
* BeneathTheMask: Elizabeth. She's cheerful, confident, and bests everyone at everything, [[spoiler:but none of that gives her any sense of self worth and she desperately tries to keep Sean in her life by ''helping'' him cheat on her with other girls.]]

* ClassPrincess: Deconstructed. Elizabeth is beautiful, blonde, popular, and dating the BigManOnCampus, and Anya and the other girls hate her for being so nice and perfect. However, [[spoiler:BeneathTheMask, she is so insecure she lets and even helps her boyfriend find other girls to cheat on her with because she's afraid he'll leave her if she doesn't let him do whatever he wants]].

* ConfirmBeforeReveal: Anya and Dima are at the library looking through microfilms to find newspaper articles regarding the murder of Emily. After they have spent a while looking, Dima asks, [[spoiler:"We're looking for a [[WhamLine murder ''by'' a person named Emily Reilly]], right?"]]. Anya dismisses it at first because it wasn't what she's looking for until it clicks in her head, she realizes what Dima just said, and she sees the article he found.

* EveryoneHasStandards: Anya may fantasize about Sean inexplicably leaving his long-time girlfriend for her instead, but when he offers for her to have a threesome with him and ''his best friend's girlfriend'' while Elizabeth miserably guards the door for them, she decides she doesn't want him ''that'' badly.

* InsecureLoveInterest: {{Deconstruction}}. Elizabeth Standard is one of the prettiest, most athletic girls in school, dating one of the more popular boys, Sean. Everything about her seems to be perfect, and despite how jealous Anya and the other girls are of her she appears to be a nice and carefree girl. Then at a party Anya learns that Sean is a creep who sleeps around with other girls (even his friend's girlfriend) with Elizabeth not only knowing but keeping watch when he does; Anya, who came to the party to steal Sean from Elizabeth, couldn't bring herself to sleep with Sean and hurt Elizabeth. Before Anya leaves the party, she asks Elizabeth why she lets Sean treat her like that. Elizabeth tells her that while she appears happy she really is miserable and insecure, and the only person that makes her really happy is Sean. Because she loves him -- or as she admits, thinks she loves him -- she's willing to do anything to keep him in her life, even though his cheating and her covering for his cheating is hurting her.

** Anya is jealous of and greatly resents popular girl Elizabeth Standard. She has a crush on Elizabeth's boyfriend Sean and plans to steal him from her. Anya hates how everything about her is utterly nice, making her wish Elizabeth would show just once that she can be imperfect too; Elizabeth appears to be completely in the dark about how Anya feels about her and treats her nicely. Anya later lets go of her jealousy and resentment when she learns that Sean is a creep who sleeps around with other girls, while Elizabeth allows him to cheat on her because she is miserable and insecure without him -- Elizabeth is willing to do ''anything'' to keep him in her life because he makes her happy.

** [[WesternAnimation/CorpseBride A girl named Emily]] who comes back from the dead involved in a LoveTriangle.

* WhatYouAreInTheDark: Anya is in love with Sean. But when she gets an opportunity to fool around with him -- right after finding out that Elizabeth ''knows'' he sleeps with other girls and not only lets him do it, but stands watch so he can -- she can't bring herself to go through with it.

* WildTeenParty: Anya attends this with Sean and Elizabeth. A boy, Preston, calls her boobs "spectacular" in her shirt, and she also learns that Sean cheats on Elizabeth with ''anyone'' -- and she stands guard for him, because she says she loves him. Anya ends up leaving early.

-->'''Emily:''' Does everyone dress like that now? It doesn't look every warm.

[[CuteGhostGirl The ghost, Emily]], turns out to be pretty friendly and the two eventually become good friends as well as partners in crime as Anya uses her invisible buddy to [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatPerks cheat on tests, keep watch while she's smoking and spy on classmates.]] But these sort of things rarely end well, and soon Emily proves more of a problem than a friend.

** Preston tells Anya, "Your boobs look spectacular in that shirt" at Matt's party.

* AmbiguousSituation: Emily claims to have died after fleeing from a maniac who murdered her parents and then falling down the well. [[spoiler:The truth is she was hunted down by an angry mob after burning down the house of the guy who rejected her with him still inside. It's unclear if she was killed by the mob and her body was thrown into the well, or if she fell into the well while fleeing and died of starvation/dehydration in there instead.]]

* AxeCrazy: [[spoiler: Emily whenever she's rejected. In life she murdered the boy she loved and the girl he chose over her because he called her "ugly", and as a ghost she starts trying to injure, and possibly even kill, Anya's family once Anya tries to break off their relationship.]]

* BitchInSheepsClothing: [[spoiler: We're led to believe at first that Emily is just a timid but friendly ghost who only wants to be free from the hole her remains are in, akin to Casper. But once she manages to get Anya to go to Sean's party, the facade slowly starts to crumble and we begin to see how she ''really'' is.]]

* ChekhovsGun: Sasha's obsession with archaeology, of all things, turns out to be useful when he finds [[SoulJar Emily's finger bone]] and stores it in a box thinking it's a dinosaur bone. [[spoiler:This enables Anya to end her rampage by taking it, and her, out of the house and back to the well.]]

* ClingyJealousGirl: [[spoiler: Emily was this when she was alive. It's not clarified if she was even dating the boy that she murdered, but seeing him with another girl led her to kill them both. She also becomes clingy towards Anya in a platonic sense.]]

* ConfirmBeforeReveal: Anya and Dima are at the library looking through microfilms to find newspaper articles regarding the murder of Emily. After they have spent a while looking, Dima asks, [[spoiler: "We're looking for a murder ''by'' a person named Emily Reilly, right?"]]. Anya dismisses it at first because it wasn't what she's looking for until it clicked in her head when she realized what Dima just said and she sees the article he found.

* DisproportionateRetribution: [[spoiler: Emily killed two people because one of them wouldn't return her affections.]] [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Anya:
-->'''Anya:''' " I don't think murder is an appropriate reaction to disappointment."

* FaceHeelTurn [[spoiler: Though it's debatable if she was a good person to begin with, Emily becomes more overtly controlling after Matt's party and later starts threatening Anya's family when Anya finds out the truth about her death.]]

* IfICantHaveYou: [[spoiler: Emily's decision after catching her crush with another girl, was to lock them both in the house and burn it down.]]

* JacobMarleyApparel: Emily explicitly expresses the wish to upgrade her turn-of-the-century jumper, but she's apparently stuck with it. [[spoiler: Played with later as she learns to change her poofy hair into a more modern style, foreshadowing her shift out of the 'innocent victim' persona.]]
* JerkassHasAPoint: While Anya admits that's she's no different from Emily in some similar traits, she's right to point out Emily more than had her chance when she was alive and her dilemma is the result of her own rash actions and failing to grasp their consequences.
** Also, even though she's [[BrutalHonesty brusque]] about it, Siobhan turns out to be right about Sean being a creep.

* KubrickStare: [[spoiler: Emily has one in her news article picture.]]
* LoveMakesYouCrazy: [[spoiler: Emily's excuse for burning a couple alive because she was in love with the boy and he'd rejected her]]. She says outright that love can make you do crazy things.
* LoveMartyr: Elizabeth. She'll stand guard while her boyfriend Sean cheats on her with other boys' girlfriends because she wants him to love her.
* ManipulativeBitch: [[spoiler: Emily's EvilAllAlong reveal. She was manipulating Anya to do what she liked in the world of the living.]]

* NotGoodWithRejection: Taken to dark extremes with [[spoiler:Emily. The guy she loved rejected her and called her ugly...so she [[DisproportionateRetribution murdered him and the girl he turned her away for]].]]

* SelfDisposingVillain: [[spoiler: How Emily originally died. After burning her crush and his girlfriend to death in their home [[IfICantHaveYou because he rejected her]], she fled from the angry mob after her and fell in the well, killing herself in the process.]]

* SkippingSchool: They're still on campus, but Anya and Siobhan skip class to go smoke in the bathroom and frequently skip gym.

* SoulJar: Of a sort. Emily can't move very far from her skeleton, so Anya ends up [[LoopholeAbuse carrying her little finger bone]] around so they can move about together; she initially took it on accident in her school bag but turns it into a necklace.

--> [[spoiler: LOCAL GIRL MISSING AFTER DOUBLE MURDER]]
* WhamShot: The newspaper article that Anya comes across as she researches Emily's murder. [[spoiler:Which shows that ''Emily'' was a ''murderer'', not a victim. The subsequent pages show her ''burning a couple alive'' before she falls down the well and dies.]]

* WhatYouAreInTheDark: Anya is in love with Sean. But when she gets an opportunity to have sex with him -- right after finding out that Elizabeth knows he sleeps with other girls and lets him do it -- she can't bring herself to go through with it.

* WomanScorned: [[spoiler: Emily -- after the boy she likes calls her ugly and goes off with another woman -- burns their house down with both of them inside.]]
* YouCanBarelyStand: Almost said word-for-word when [[spoiler: Emily crawls out of the well, bones and all, to try and drag Anya down with her. But it's obvious it's taking all she has just to move her remains. Her apparent weakness and anguish make this scene a bit of a TearJerker.]]

** We see pictures of women in bikinis in Sean's locker while Emily is in there peeking at his schedule, despite the fact that he already has a girlfriend. He turns out to be a lecherous pervert who doesn't just cheat on her, he makes her help him.

* BoringReligiousService: Anya describes Orthodox church as "long, boring and full of Russians", and tries to make excuses not to go whenever she can. However, it's hinted that the real reason she hates church is because the elders always tell her she's too fat "while their ankles are spilling over their orthopedic shoes".

* SoulJar: Of a sort. Emily can't move very far from her skeleton, so Anya ends up [[LoopholeAbuse carrying a bone from her little finger]] around so they can move about together; she initially took it on accident in her school bag.

* ShadowDiscretionShot: Used when Emily is telling Anya how she was murdered. [[spoiler:The story is bullshit.]]

''Anya's Ghost'' is a single-issue graphic novel by Creator/VeraBrosgol. It features Anya: an [[OrdinaryHighschoolStudent insecure, dowdy teenager,]] a Russian immigrant (although she's lost the accent), who finds herself struggling with the day-to-day trials of highschool life, like her crush Sean and [[DeadpanSnarker mouthy]] friend Siobhan. One day, she falls down an abandoned well and discovers the bones of a young girl who fell down there before her... As well as the ghost of said girl, still haunting the well she died in ninety years prior. [[CuteGhostGirl The ghost, Emily, turns out to be pretty friendly,]] and the two eventually become good friends, as well as partners in crime. (Anya uses her invisible buddy to [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatPerks cheat on tests, keep watch while she's smoking and spy on classmates.]]) Of course, these sort of things rarely end well, and soon Emily proves more of a problem than a friend.

A lovely story about friendship, selfishness and maturity. Try [[http://www.verabee.com/ the artist's blog]] for more information.

!!This comic provides examples of:

** A picture of a girl in a bikini is visible on the inside of Sean's locker when Emily sneaks into it to look up his schedule for Anya.

** Averted with little church boy Dima.
** Siobhan certainly thinks so.
--> '''Siobhan:''' Has he even talked to you?
-->'''Anya:''' He talked to me yesterday. He was really nice, as a matter of fact.
-->'''Siobhan:''' Are you sure he wasn't just talking to your boobs?
* AlphaBitch: {{Deconstruction}} with Elizabeth. If you are familiar with high school tropes you'll think she'll be one, however she doesn't have the mean-spirited personality that typically defines them. It soon becomes obvious that Anya is the nasty one and she and the other girls are jealous of Elizabeth for being all around "perfect". [[spoiler:However, when we get to the party we find out Sean likes to sleep around with other girls and Elizabeth not only knows about it, she ''goes along with it,'' because she only feels good about herself if she and Sean are together and desperately wants to keep him in her life. All her positive traits mean very little to her and it only shows she probably has little to no self esteem.]]

** The other kids picking on Dima. His bullying is only seen for one panel, but it's enough to drive the message home.

* AmbiguousSituation: Emily claims to have died after fleeing from a maniac who murdered her parents and then falling down the well. [[spoiler:Actually, she was hunted down by an angry mob after burning down the house of the guy who rejected her with him still inside, but we don't know if she was killed by the mob and her body was thrown into the well, or if she fell into the well while fleeing and died of starvation/dehydration in there instead.]]
* AnnoyingYoungerSibling: Sasha; while he's not mean to his sister, he makes a habit of taking her things and burying them in the yard for his "digs", and his energetic nature is at odds with his sister's teenage angst.

* ChekhovsGun: Little Sasha's obsession with archaeology, of all things, [[spoiler:turns out to be useful when he finds [[SoulJar Emily's finger bone]] and stores it in a box thinking it's a dinosaur bone, enabling Anya to end her rampage by taking it, and her, out of the house and back to the well.]]
* ComingOfAgeStory: For Anya as she struggles to deal with highschool life and become a more mature person, with goals beyond impressing boys or looking cool.
* ConfirmBeforeReveal: Anya and Dima are at the library looking through microfilms to find newspaper articles regarding the murder of Emily. After they have spent a while looking, Dima asks, [[spoiler: "We're looking for a murder ''by'' a person named Emily Reilly, right?"]]. Anya dismisses it at first because it wasn't what she's looking for until it clicked in her head when she realized what Dima just said and she sees the article he found.
* ControlFreak: [[spoiler:Emily shows her true colors as one when she starts taking more and more control over Anya's life, trying to force her to live the life she wanted.]]

* CreepyGymCoach: Anya hates doing the bleep test because she thinks the male gym teacher "just likes seeing [the girls] run around in those stupid skirts."

* DelinquentHair: The boy who rescues Anya from the well has a mohawk.

-->'''Anya:''' " I don't think [[spoiler: murder]] is an appropriate reaction to [[spoiler:disappointment]]."
* DyingAsYourself: [[spoiler:Well, dying ''again'' as yourself, but as Emily falls down the well again, her hair reverts from the long, modern style to the poofy, dandelion-like style she had when she first met Anya.]]
* DysfunctionJunction: [[spoiler: Reconstructed. The concept is used in Anya's speech in order to reason with Emily that no one's life is so perfect that it's worth coveting over.]]
* EveryoneHasStandards: [[spoiler:Anya may fantasize about Sean inexplicably leaving his long-time girlfriend for her instead, but when he offers for her to have a threesome with him and ''his best friend's girlfriend'' while Elizabeth miserably guards the door for them, she decides she doesn't want him ''that'' badly.]]
* EvilAllAlong: [[spoiler: Emily, who is actually the ghost of a psychopathic murderess.]]
* EvilCounterpart: [[spoiler:Emily when her true colors are revealed]] is the evil counterpart to Anya. [[spoiler:After spending time with Anya, she turns out to possess exaggerated versions of all of Anya's negative traits: Emily is obsessive over boys (but unlike Anya, murderously so), sees existing girlfriends of 'mark' boys as competition and not individuals (but unlike Anya, she is inclined to murder them), lies and manipulates (but not just about her last name, she lies about her entire past). The mirroring is even physical: she dons Anya's hairdo and starts smoking "ghost cigarettes", presumably a mimicking of Anya's bad habit.]]

* FogFeet: Emily's feet either are fully formed or just part of a tail connected to her bones depending on what she's doing.

** We see a picture of a woman in a bikini in Sean's locker while Emily is in there, [[spoiler:despite the fact that he already has a girlfriend. He turns out to be a lecherous pervert who doesn't just cheat on her, he makes her help him.]]
** [[spoiler: The cover. At first glance it just looks like Anya with the Emily we're first introduced to, but look closer and you'll see Emily's hairstyle is different. It's the hairstyle she gets when she first begins to reveal her true self to Anya.]]
* GenderBlenderName: Sasha, Anya's little brother. [[JustifiedTrope Their family is Russian,]] where "Sasha" is usually a short form of "Alexander".

* GhostlyGoals: Anya discusses with Emily trying to help solve her murder, planning to research what happened to her killer so she may be able to rest in peace; Emily agrees it might be worth a try. [[spoiler:The truth is, though, that Emily's real goal is to live a perfect life she never got to have, and she plans to do this by living vicariously through Anya--making her chase after boys, dress up, and be popular.]] Ultimately, Emily is only able to rest in peace after [[spoiler:she understands that the perfect life she wants doesn't exist, and there's no point to envying other people.]]
* GymClassHell: Anya paints gym class that way during the bleep test, although it's pretty standard otherwise.
* HauntedFetter: The finger bone, which Emily is attached to. She can travel wherever one of her bones is.
* HeelRealization: Anya slowly comes to realize she's been a {{Jerkass}} to Emily when, after knowing Emily for two days and having her help with school and her crush, she doesn't even know her name yet. Much later, [[spoiler:after Sean, and then Emily, shows their true colors,]] Anya realizes what a jerk she's been to ''everyone else'' too because of her poor attitude. [[spoiler:This finishes out in the climax, where she at first denies being anything like Emily before admitting that, while she's not murderous, she's at least enough like Emily to understand her.]]

* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: Emily is this to when it comes to romance. [[spoiler: It's one thing when she makes a simple assumption that Sean will make a good match for Anya, as she didn't know what he was like at the time. It's another thing when, after witnessing him cheat on his girlfriend ''with his best friend's girlfriend'', she tries to shoehorn Anya into going out with Sean anyway because he was "interested" in her (despite that he was 'interested' in her [[AllMenArePerverts in all the wrong ways]].]]

* IdenticalStranger: [[spoiler:When seen in flashback, Emily's crush (and murder victim) looks eerily similar to Sean, just with a slightly different hairstyle.]]
* IfICantHaveYou: [[spoiler: Emily's]] decision after catching her crush with another girl, [[spoiler:locking them both in the house and burning it down.]]

* InsecureLoveInterest: {{Deconstruction}}. Elizabeth Standard is one of the prettiest, most athletic girls in school, dating one of the more popular boys, Sean. Everything about her seems to be perfect, and despite how jealous Anya and the other girls are of her she appears to be a nice and carefree girl. Then at a party Anya learns that Sean is a creep who sleeps around with other girls (even his friend's girlfriend) with Elizabeth not only knowing but keeping watch; Anya, who come to the party to steal Sean from Elizabeth, couldn't bring herself to sleep with Sean and hurt Elizabeth. Before Anya leaves the party, she asks Elizabeth why she lets Sean treat her like that, and Elizabeth tells her that while she appears happy, she really is miserable and insecure, and the only person that makes her really happy is Sean. Because she loves him, or as she admits, thinks she loves him, she's willing to do anything to keep him in her life, even though his cheating and her covering for his cheating is hurting her.

* JerkassHasAPoint: [[spoiler: While Anya admits that's she's no different from Emily in some similar traits, she's right to point out Emily more than had her chance when she was alive and her dilemma is the result of her own rash actions and failing to grasp their consequences.]]
** Also, [[spoiler: even though she's [[BrutalHonesty brusque]] about it, Siobhan turns out to be right about Sean being a creep.]].
** When Sasha buries Anya's jewelry (again) as part of a pretend game of archeologist, Anya calls out her mother for not stopping her little brother. Although she's being impatient about it (and although Sasha's intentions weren't malicious), Anya has a sound argument that it is expected of a child to stop messing with other people's stuff when they are asked to.

** Siobhan at first appears to treat Anya poorly, judging from how much of her screentime in the book is the two of them bickering. But when one of the other girls tries to pick on Anya because she fell in gym, Siobhan immediately comes to her defense and comforts her, and her telling Anya that her crush Sean was a "dirtbag" ''was'' her genuinely trying to keep her friend from getting hurt. [[spoiler:In the end, Anya is more comfortable with Siobhan, whose friendship with her is genuine despite their rough moments, than she is with the initially-friendly-but-controlling Emily.]]

--> "People might think five-years-olds can't be cruel, but I have some strong evidence to the contrary."
* KirkSummation: Anya's last argument with [[spoiler: Emily. She sums up how basically Emily was trying to live the life she lost through Anya herself, but pointing out she lost her chance already.]]

* LoveMakesYouCrazy: [[spoiler: Emily's]] excuse for burning a couple alive because [[spoiler:she was in love with the boy and he'd rejected her,]] saying outright that love can make you do crazy things.
* LoveMartyr: [[spoiler:Elizabeth. She'll stand guard while Sean cheats on her with other boys' girlfriends because she wants him to love her.]]

* MessyHair: Emily's is described as 'dandelion-like'.
* NiceGuy: Sean's pretty nice to Anya about her fall in Gym class even though all the kids laughed at her for it, among other nice behaviors. [[spoiler:Subverted at Matt's party, where he's shown as a cheater who doesn't care who he hurts by sleeping around.]]
* NoodlePeople: The thin people, like Emily, are really thin. Emily herself is also somewhat bendy looking, as if she doesn't have bones in her legs.
* NonHumanSidekick: Emily is to Anya, being a ghost and helping Anya with just about everything in school after they become friends.
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Emily and her parents were murdered by a man who they let stay in their barn one spring. [[spoiler:Except not really, because the whole story is a crock of shit.]]

* NotSoDifferentRemark: In the end, we get an explicit You're Just Like Me speech from [[spoiler:Emily - and Anya partially concedes the point, stating that she is enough like her to at least understand her.]]
* NotSoSimilar: After Anya leaves the party upon learning [[spoiler: Sean is a creep, Emily tries to convince her to stay. At one point during the heated discussion, Emily tries to argue that she's just trying to keep Anya from ever being alone, as it was previously mentioned she lost her fiancé decades ago (even though this turns out to be false). To this, Anya has to spell it out to Emily that Sean is ''hardly'' comparable to her war-hero fiancé. One is only unreachable by sleeping six feet under, and the other is [[ExactWords unattainable]] by [[BrokenPedestal sleeping with his best friend's girlfriend]].]]

** Dima, a little Russian boy whose family is friends with Anya's mother, was always friendly with Anya and appears to think they're friends. In fact, Anya hates him and tries to ignore him, believing he deserves to be bullied for being a "fobby creep". Later in the story, when Anya realizes how unfair and judgmental she has been, she starts to be nicer to Dima. She opens up to him on how she was also bullied as a child, telling him not to worry about impressing his schoolmates because being popular isn't really that important.
** Anya is jealous of and greatly resents popular girl Elizabeth Standard. She has a crush on Elizabeth's boyfriend Sean and plans to steal him from her. Anya hates how everything about her is utterly nice, making her wish Elizabeth would show just once that she can be imperfect too. Elizabeth appears to be completely in the dark about how Anya feels about her, and treats her nicely. Anya later lets go of her jealousy and resentment of Elizabeth when she learns that Sean is a creep who sleeps around with other girls, while Elizabeth allows him to cheat on her because she is miserable and insecure without him -- Elizabeth is willing to do anything to keep him in her life because he makes her happy.
* OneWingedAngel: A mild form of this [[spoiler: at the climax, when Emily hauls her bones up from the well in a last-ditch attempt to kill Anya. She looks like a ghostly silhouette with a tangible skeleton underneath.]]
* OrdinaryHighschoolStudent: Anya, Siobhan and their classmates. [[spoiler: Evidently, Emily wants ''very badly'' to be one.]]

* RealityHasNoSubtitles: Zigzagged. When Anya's mom makes ''syrniki'' pancakes, she refers to them as сы́рники, but later when she trips over Sasha's marbles and says, "Oy...''bleen''...my leg!" the word is fully spelled out in English.
* RewatchBonus: Emily doesn't sound as excited as one would think she would when Anya says they can get started on solving her murder. [[spoiler:Because she wasn't murdered...she ''was'' the murderer.]]

* SelfDisposingVillain: [[spoiler: How Emily originally died. After burning the couple, she fled from the angry mob after her and fell in the well, killing herself in the process.]]
* SheCleansUpNicely: Emily convinces Anya to dress up and go to Matt's party. This is the result, although Anya wonders if she doesn't look a little "loose-womany". [[spoiler:As it turns out her outfit did make her look more attractive, but not in the way she wanted. Sean outright says that Anya looks "really good" on that night in particular as he offers for her to take part in a threesome.]]
* ShownTheirWork: Vera Brosgol knows how to investigate old newspapers using microfilm, and she will make damn sure you do too when you've read this. With four pages, and a diagram. (Oh, and by the way, Anya's right: it will hurt your eyes. Don't do this for too long wearing contacts; and if you tend to have seizures, don't look at the screen while fast-forwarding or rewinding).

** [[WesternAnimation/CorpseBride A girl named Emily who comes back from the dead involved in a love triangle]] and a [[Literature/SweetValleyHigh popular blonde girl named Elizabeth...]] Where have we seen this before...

* SmokingIsCool: Anya and Siobhan think so at the start. Anya begins to realize it just makes her look like a jerk [[spoiler:when seeing Emily smoke.]]
* SoulJar: Of a sort. Emily can't move very far from her skeleton, so Anya ends up [[LoopholeAbuse carrying a bone from her little finger]] so they can move about together.
* SuckySchool: According to Anya, the private school she goes to is the third-worst in the state. It seems to be a pretty normal high school otherwise, cliques, mild bullying, and premature sex included.
* SympathyForTheDevil: Anya feels this for [[spoiler:Emily after she takes control of her own skeleton and drags herself out of the well, bones falling apart and incapable of even forming any words with her decommissioned jawbone. Anya admits to her that she understands what it's like to want another person's life, but that neither of them can actually know what's going in someone else's head, and that they might be hurting just as much as you. She comes closer, puts her arm out, and gently tells her that what she wants, a chance to live again vicariously through Anya, doesn't even exist. [[TearsOfRemorse Emily sheds silent tears]] and dissipates herself into the night sky.]]

* TamperingWithFoodAndDrink: [[spoiler: With her growing strength, Emily puts rat poison in the dinner Anya's mother was cooking. Anya saves them by "accidentally" dropping the food.]]
* UnfinishedBusiness: [[spoiler: A rather selfish example of this trope. Emily never got to finish chasing boys around and living her life, so she begins controlling Anya's life instead.]]

* TheUnpronounceable:
** Anya's last name is Borzakovskaya. Her biology teacher has trouble pronouncing it, which makes the other students snicker.
** Anya's mom makes ''syrniki'' cheese dumplings/pancakes for breakfast. They're never referred to as anything but сы́рники, making them look unpronounceable to the English audience.
* VitriolicBestBuds: Siobhan is Anya's best (human) friend... She just has a funny way of showing it. Then again, Anya's got a funny way of showing it too.
* WeightWoe: Despite not being particularly overweight and even considered pretty by some characters, Anya sees herself as fat and refuses to eat her mother's homemade cheese dumplings because they're too greasy, even though she loved them when she was a little girl. Some of her dialogue implies that this is the result of being bullied as a child, as well as the elders at her church telling her she's too fat "while their ankles are spilling over their orthopedic shoes."

--> '''Dima:''' We're looking for a murder [[spoiler: by a person named Emily Reilly, right?]]

* WhamShot: The newspaper article that Anya comes across as she researches Emily's murder, [[spoiler:which shows that ''Emily'' was a ''murderer'', not a victim. The subsequent pages show her ''burning a couple alive'' before she falls down the well and dies.]]
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Sean and Elizabeth aren't seen again after the party and Dima isn't seen again after helping Anya research Emily's past.
* WhatYouAreInTheDark: [[spoiler:Anya is in love with Sean. But when she gets an opportunity to have sex with him, right after finding out that Elizabeth knows he sleeps with other girls and lets him do it, she can't bring herself to go through with it.]]

* WomanScorned: [[spoiler: Emily, after the boy she likes calls her ugly and goes off with another woman, burns their house down with both of them inside.]]

* AnAesop:
** Everyone has problems. Even the person or couple you envy for being "perfect", [[BeneathTheMask could in reality have bigger issues than you have.]]
** Even if somebody else ''does'' have it better than you do, hurting them won't make your own life better. All you can do is try to improve yourself and your lot in life.

* FaceHeelTurn [[spoiler: Though it's debatable if she was a Heel to begin with, Emily becomes more overtly controlling after Matt's party and later starts threatening Anya's family when Anya finds out the truth about her death.]]

* GhostlyGoals: Anya discusses with Emily trying to help solve her murder, planning to research what happened to her killer so she may be able to rest in peace; Emily agrees it might be worth a try. [[spoiler:The truth is, though, that Emily's real goal is to live a perfect life she never got to have, and she plans to do this by living vicariously through Anya--making her chase after boys, dress up, and be popular.]] Ultimately, Emily is only able to rest in peace after [[spoiler:she understands that the perfect life she wants doesn't exist, and there's no point to envying other peoples.]]

* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: Emily is this to when it comes to romance. [[spoiler: It's one thing when she makes a simple assumption that Sean will make a good match for Anya, as she didn't know what he was like at the time. It's another thing when, after witnessing him cheat on his girlfriend ''with his best friend's girlfriend'', she tries to shoehorn Anya to go out with Sean anyway because he was "interested" in her (despite that he was 'interested' in her [[AllMenArePerverts in all the wrong ways]].]]

** Also, [[spoiler: even though she's [[BrutalHonesty brusque]] about it, Shioban turns out to be right about Sean being a creep.]].

* MessyHair: Emily's is described as 'dandelion-like.'

** Anya is jealous of and greatly resents popular girl Elizabeth Standard. She has a crush on Elizabeth's boyfriend Sean and plans to steal him from her. Anya hates how everything about her is utterly nice, making her wish Elizabeth would show just once that she can be imperfect too. Elizabeth appears to be completely in the dark about how Anya feels about her, and treats her nicely. Anya later lets go of her jealousy and resentment of Elizabeth when she learns that Sean is a creep who sleeps around with other girls, while Elizabeth allows him to cheat on her because she is miserable and insecure without him - Elizabeth is willing to do anything to keep him in her life because he makes her happy.
* OneWingedAngel: A mild form of this [[spoiler: at the climax, when Emily hauls her bones up from the well in a last-ditch attempt to kill Anya. She looks like a ghostly silhouette with a tangible skeleton underneath.]]

* YouCanBarelyStand: Almost said word-for-word when [[spoiler: Emily crawls out of the well, bones and all, to try and drag Anya down with her. But it's obvious it's taking all she has just to move her remains. Her apparent weakness and anguish make this scene a bit of a Tear Jerker.]]

''Anya's Ghost'' is a single-issue graphic novel by Vera Brosgol. It features Anya: an [[OrdinaryHighschoolStudent insecure, dowdy teenager,]] a Russian immigrant (although she's lost the accent), who finds herself struggling with the day-to-day trials of highschool life, like her crush Sean and [[DeadpanSnarker mouthy]] friend Siobhan. One day, she falls down an abandoned well and discovers the bones of a young girl who fell down there before her... As well as the ghost of said girl, still haunting the well she died in ninety years prior. [[CuteGhostGirl The ghost, Emily, turns out to be pretty friendly,]] and the two eventually become good friends, as well as partners in crime. (Anya uses her invisible buddy to [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatPerks cheat on tests, keep watch while she's smoking and spy on classmates.]]) Of course, these sort of things rarely end well, and soon Emily proves more of a problem than a friend.

** Even if other people have it better than you do, hurting them won't make your own life better. All you can do is try to improve yourself and your lot in life.

** Anya has posters of various alternative/indie groups like Music/{{Weezer}}, Music/BelleAndSebastian, and Camera Obscura in her room.

** Anya has a Domo-kun plushie in her bedroom. It can be seen on pages 41 and 93.

* ForeignCussWord: Anya's mother when she twists her ankle: "Oy...bleen...my leg!"

** Anya's mom makes ''syrniki'' cheese dumpling/pancakes for breakfast. They're never referred to as anything but сы́рники, making them look unpronounceable to the English audience.

* BoringReligiousService: Anya describes Orthodox church as "long, boring and full of Russians", and tries to make excuses not to go whenever she can. However, it's hinted that the real reason she hates church is because the elders always tell her she's too fat.

-->'''Anya:''' He talked to me yesterday. He was really nice as a matter of fact.

--> '''Siobhan:''' You have a crush on ''Sean''? He's the kind of guy you crush on in a bad teen movie! Has he even talked to you?
-->'''Anya:''' Yes, he has!

* {{Foreshadowing}}: [[spoiler: The cover. At first glance it just looks like Anya with the Emily we're first introduced to, but look closer and you'll see Emily's hairstyle is different. It's the hairstyle she gets when she first begins to reveal her true self to Anya.]]

* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: [[spoiler:Emily. She had her heart broken so she destroyed her life and the lives of two other people.]]

''Anya's Ghost'' is a single-issue graphic novel by Vera Brosgol. It features Anya: an [[OrdinaryHighschoolStudent insecure, dowdy teenager,]] a Russian immigrant (although she's lost the accent), who finds herself struggling with the day-to-day trials of highschool life, like her crush Sean and [[DeadpanSnarker mouthy]] friend Siobhan. One day, she falls down an abandoned well and discovers the bones of a young girl who fell down there before her... As well as the ghost of said girl, still haunting the well she died in ninety years prior. [[CuteGhostGirl The ghost, Emily, turns out to be pretty friendly,]] and the two eventually become good friends, as well as partners in crime. (Anya uses her invisible buddy to [[MundaneUtility cheat on tests, keep watch while she's smoking and spy on classmates.]]) Of course, these sort of things rarely end well, and soon Emily proves more of a problem than a friend.

* MacGuffin: The finger bone, which Emily is attached to. She can travel wherever one of her bones is.

* PantyShot: Anya gets one when she trips and falls in the middle of a run in gym class.