HUSHED has been on my Kindle for a while but I wasn't in the right mental state to read it. Now that I've finished, I'm glad I waited, because this is one of those risk-taking books that kind of challenges the constraints of the genre its written in, and it does it for the best.
Archer is a stoic and damaged young man who is just starting college. He's incredibly withdrawn and depressed, and reads a little like an incel but without the sexism that goes hand in hand with that. He's desperately in love with his childhood friend, Vivian, an emotionally manipulative young woman who keeps getting into bad relationships where Archer ends up sidelined until she drops the guy and decides she needs him again. This is the forever cycle the two of them are locked into until Archer meets another guy named Evan.
This love triangle from hell would be toxic enough if Archer weren't also a murderer. Because he and Vivian basically grew up as brother and sister, and when they were still both kids, Archer saw Vivian's brother and all his friends sexually assault Viv. Now he's been slowly killing them off, one by one. And if Vivian-- or Evan-- ever finds out what he's been doing, there might be hell to pay.
HUSHED is a great book. It's one of the darker YA books I've ever read, which keeps the content from being darker than it probably would have been if it were an adult novel. The psychological elements are really well done and I was really impressed at how all of the characters were drawn. The whole thing is plotted like a movie, and I'm honestly shocked it doesn't have more ratings than it does. Any of the dark romance girlies who are also into M/M are going to LOVE this book. It has all the same beats.
This is one of my favorite YA titles I've read this year. I actually don't really like horror that much, but apparently I do like horror as long as it's folk horror and the dog doesn't die. WHAT WE HARVEST is a gorgeous, lyrical novel about four magical founding farming families: one of them raises red horses and dogs, one ghost melons that glow in the dark, one glittering golden yams, and the last, a field of rainbow wheat that each has its own distinct flavor.
For years, they've been the toast of the farming community, world-renowned and celebrated, but Hollow's End holds a dark secret. A mysterious quicksilver blight has overtaken the crops and whatever it touches doesn't come back the same. Strange animals watch from the woods with glowing white eyes, tinged by rot. If Wren and her family can't figure out how to hold the blight at bay, their farm and their loved ones will all fall into corrupt and blackened ruin.
I loved this book so much. There were things about it that pushed my suspension of disbelief a little, but the story was so good that I didn't care. It has all the elements I love: magic-realism, dark family secrets, childhood friends to lovers, angst, sinister rituals, and high stakes danger. Some YA feels like it's pandering to the parents, rather than its teen readers, but this book was beautifully teen, whether it was the wistful longings for adulthood, or the mistakes we make while impetuously trying to be adults.
I can't wait to read more from this author. This was an INCREDIBLE debut.
GODDAMN. This book is everything I want out of the YA genre. Richly atmospheric, darkly feminist, with a sexy queer romance between two girls who are tired of men being shits. READER, I MURDERED HIM is a Jane Eyre retelling told from the POV of Jane and Edward's adopted daughter, Adele, and it's an interpretation I've never seen before and didn't know I needed.
Adele in this book is the daughter of a prostitute. When she comes to Thornfield, she is haunted by the ghostly appearance of Bertha, and the sickly, miasmic influence of the house's sinister influence. When she's shipped off to an all girls' boarding school, that's when she comes into her own and learns not just the value of female friendship, but also the harsh truths of inequality in the world, and how men use and abuse their privilege to take advantage of vulnerable women. Obviously, this means triggers for everything from SA to homophobia, but I thought the author handled everything really well, and Adele always had agency.
And that twist at the end, OH MY GOD.
I had chills.
This is a vigilante story but it's a really good one. The story isn't as heavy-handed as I first feared it might be (I thought it was going to be edgy-for-the-sake-of-edgy). There were so many passages that I wanted to highlight the shit out of. If you like dark coming-of-age stories, chaotic queer women, and strong female protagonists, you'll love this book. I'm honestly shocked that this has such low ratings, because the writing and story were everything. This is the third Jane Eyre retelling that I've read this week and as much as I love the source material, I loved this interpretation.
My only qualm is that the epigrams with lyrics from modern pop songs are so cheesy and really ruin the atmosphere of the book. As much as I love the artists, Brandi Carlile, Beyonce, and Kate Bush have no business being in a Victorian novel.
I'll be recommending this book to everyone I know, and you can bet I'll be checking out this author's other books.
I just know this is going to end up as one of my favorite books of 2024. It is fantastic. I felt lukewarm about her earlier book, HOUSE OF SALT AND SORROW, but SMALL FAVORS takes everything I did like about that book and heightens it: strong and flawed heroine, culty and claustrophobic small town, folk horror, fairytale retellings, feminism, and the seductive lure of evil and danger.
In the town of Amity Falls, people live like frontier men and women, harvesting based on the season and going by wagon when they need bulk supplies. But something in the surrounding woods has changed. Animals come out and they don't look right. And there are whispers of creatures with silvery eyes.
Ellerie, our narrator, stands at the forefront of this tale. And when tragedy strikes, she finds herself forced not just as protector for her siblings but possibly bearing the burden of saving the entire town. If they even want to be saved, that is.
Evil is, after all, a most seductive mistress.
I am just blown away by how good this was. It's easy, I think, as an author to feel the need to handhold your younger audience when you write YA. But this book doesn't do that. I'm glad it wasn't an adult story because it was so intense that I think it would have actually been too much if it were more graphic. Craig deftly handles serious and disturbing themes that are probably, unfortunately, relatable to some members of her young audience: sexism, emotional abuse, religious abuse, gaslighting, hard choices regarding right vs. wrong, and the perils of first love. Ellerie is allowed to be selfish and flawed but it's clear from the get-go that she's a good person. I loved her so much and her growth over the book is as much as a coming of age tale as it is a hero's journey.
My only qualm is that I wish there had been an epilogue or something because the ending felt the teensiest bit abrupt and I was curious what ended up happening with the parents/baby.
The best retellings renew your appreciation of the original work while also making you fall in love with the story all over again with brand new eyes. ANNE, for me, was exactly that. It's a modernized version of ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, where Anne is interested in art and zines (instead of reading) and falls in love with her best friend, Diana.
I thought the author did a great job maintaining the core of who Anne was as a person. Matthew and Marilla were wonderful and I thought it was very clever to turn Avonlea into an apartment complex in Canada called Avon-Lea. Also, in keeping with modern perceptions about bullying, there are now discussions about why Gilbert's behavior isn't okay and how it isn't fine to harass someone even if you're doing it because you like them.
This is just such a wonderful adaption. I actually teared up a little while reading it because it was so good and so cute.
Whoa. I'm honestly kind of shocked that this has such low ratings because it seems like it's a pressure cooker of everything that the YA community claims to love: mature voice, lyrical writing, chaotic sapphic energy, morally grey characters, poison, and court intrigue. Even better yet, I read this hot on the heels of another work of Elizabeth Bathory fanfiction, THE BLOOD CONFESSION, and I actually think this one might be better!
Less is more going in but I'll try to give a brief summary. Anna Darvulia is a midwife's daughter who lives in a home with an abusive father. She and her mother barely scrape enough together to earn a living with the father drinking all his profits, so when she catches the eye of Countess Bathory and earns her favor, it seems too good to be true. Anna and Elizabeth eventually grow close, developing an almost romantic bond. And as Anna falls deeper and deeper under her spell, it seems like there's nothing she won't do to keep her status as Elizabeth's "dove."
The writing in this book is great and I thought the author did a really great job managing that historical tone without being too verbose. Once the book started rolling along, it had me clutching the book with white knuckles, desperate to find out what happened next. It's pretty violent for a YA and the fraught relationship between Anna and Elizabeth reminded me of some of the 1970s bodice-rippers I read, where the "hero" was actually blatantly unapologetically evil, and I think this is the first F/F book I've read that captures that same energy-- although this is not a romance.
I'll definitely be checking out more from this author because this was slipping-off-the-edge-of-my-seat good.
A moment of appreciation for that early-2010s cover. It is beautifully cheesy and I love how terribad it is. I'm not even being mean. Seeing those badly Photoshopped covers fills me with so much nostalgia for the YA I greedily consumed as a teen because oh my GOD, have you seen what early-2000s YA covers looked like? I rest my case.
ALBATROSS was a book I'd never heard of before, but I'd just read FAKING FAITH by this author and while perusing my friends' reviews, I happened to notice that my GR friend, Donna, had mentioned that this book was even better in her review of FF. When I went to check out her review, I was SOLD. A realistic and gritty portrayal of an emotionally abusive relationship where the heroine is allowed to sometimes be a bad person? That sounds kind of amazing.
And this book IS amazing. Tess is a teenage girl whose life has been badly uprooted. She and her mom have just left her emotionally abusive dad and both of them are still kind of reeling from it, still unsure about what to do without the tight leash of his control. Tess is lonely and isolated: she has band, but misses her Chicago friends, and nobody in her new school has the kind of connection that years and years of friendship can give.
When she sees Micah, she's intrigued because he's a loner boy and a bit of an emo, and everyone in the school seems to think he's a bad person. Everyone except Daisy, his manic pixie dreamgirl girlfriend, who is regarded kindly by the rest of the student body as school slut. But when Tess starts talking with Micah, she learns that he doesn't really care all that much for Daisy, either. Even though he says he plans on marrying her one day, he refers to her, charmingly, as his "albatross."
Tess gets involved with Micah despite his girlfriend and she starts to really hate Daisy, even though Micah is the one who leaves her off-balance and emotionally reeling from his surprisingly cruel remarks. In fact, the way that he makes her feel is uncomfortably similar to how her dad's abusive tirades used to... and there's a voice in her head, getting louder all the while, telling her that she should get away.
I knew right from the beginning I was going to love this book. There's something super angsty about aughts-era YA. Maybe because we were all super miserable back then? I know I was. And the baby internet that existed back then left us all feeling way more isolated (although I don't know if that's better than the fishbowl that TikTok has plunged today's teens into). Like the heroine, I was also in band, and music was one of the few ways that I, as a super awkward teen, really felt like I was allowed to shine. I was also in a relationship that was kind of like the one she had with Micah (although nowhere near as bad), and I remember all the second-guessing and obsessing and hating of the other girl I did. So not feminist.
I'm giving this five stars because it did some amazing things. First, Tess's growth is just such a personal and deep read, and so uniquely tailored to her as a character, that I couldn't help but love it. Second, Tess does not end up with a boy, and the boy friend she does have does not act as her savior from Micah. The girl saves herself in this one-- and then, she saves somebody else. Third, she has some AMAZING lines. By the end of the book, I wanted to stand up in some bleachers, football game style, and scream into a megaphone "GO TESS." It was such a cathartic and satisfying moment.
It makes me sad that this author isn't getting more attention because she has such a knack for writing flawed and believable female characters, and boy, can she serve up the drama. Most of her books are either super cheap or on KU, too, so there's really no excuse for not checking them out.
Holy shit, you guys. What in the name of Mr. Ripley was this. You know, it's totally appropriate that this author's name is Kim Savage because this book was SAVAGE. Brutal. Is this really YA? Because IN HER SKIN was basically everything I love in a thriller, except with characters who are, like, half the age of the ones I usually read about. And normally I think YA authors find themselves curtailed when writing edgy thrillers, because they're like okay, but how edgy can I really be when writing for kids? Kim Savage found a way.
Jolene Chastain has just lost her mother. Or, to be more specific, her mother was just murdered by one of her sleazy boyfriends. Jo and her mom were semi-homeless con artists, and now Jo is all alone. While sitting next to a rich girl at a library, who looks kind of like her, she gets the idea to steal her identity. But when she looks the girl up (after stealing her ID), she figures out an even better plan: the girl, Temple Lovecraft, was childhood friends with a girl who's been missing for years, Vivienne Weir. She can become the friend instead.
So Jo becomes Vivi and learns that in the years since her disappearance, Vivi's parents have both died, and in the event of their deaths, Vivi was meant to live with the Lovecraft family instead. They are super rich and give Vivi basically anything she could ever want, and mysterious, brooding Temple quickly develops a close and toxic bond with Jo (that's kind of a little sexual, too). But there's something this family is hiding that goes beyond your typical levels of jaded rich person ennui. And by taking up the Vivienne Weir mantle, Jo might just have put herself in danger.
I'm surprised IN HER SKIN has such bad reviews, but also not really. One, even though this book has some sapphic moments, it wasn't really branded or tagged that way by readers, so the people who would love a book about dark, morally chaotic girls-who-love-girls don't know it exists. Two, everyone in this book is awful. And I've noticed that a lot of people who claim to like "villain characters" just want romantic villain characters, like the Darkling, and get angry when presented with actual sociopaths. Both Jo and Temple are terrible people, and part of the fun, especially in the last act, is seeing what they do next. Lastly, it's cheesy. This is the YA version of a Lifetime movie, okay? Or like V.C. Andrews but without all the incest and underage stuff. If a gothic melodrama is what floats your boat, reading this is going to have you cracking open the champagne on deck.
I personally LOVED this book and now that I see that Kim Savage has penned a couple other edgy-looking YA mysteries, I'm going to have to find a way to get my hands on them.
When I saw that HURRICANE CHILD was on sale for an incredibly affordable seventy-five cents in the Kindle store, I was all over that like white on rice. Especially since it's written by Kacen Callender, one of my favorite YA authors. They always write about dark and serious issues, but they do it with heart and nuance, so I never feel like I'm being lectured at or pandered to: they allow the characters to tell their own stories simply by dint of being themselves.
HURRICANE CHILD is the story of a young girl named Caroline, who lives on Water Island, one of the Virgin Islands, a mere boat away from Saint Thomas (which I believe is where the author comes from). She was born during a hurricane, which according to island superstition means a lifetime of bad luck and no happiness. Right now, for her, it feels like it's true. Her mother disappeared when she was young, she's bullied at school for being willful and having dark skin by students and faculty alike, and she's filled with an anger that seems to come from feeling very, very depressed.
That changes when they get a new girl on the island from Barbados. Like Caroline, she has dark skin and natural hair, but Kalinda also has a confidence and a charisma that Caroline does not, and when she shuts down a first attempt to bully her by the Queen Bee herself, she ends up skyrocketing in popularity. Caroline is fascinated by Kalinda and wants to be her friend, but she also feels more than that, too. It's a sort of fascination that moves beyond jealousy or obsession, into the sort of desires that can make you want someone to be a part of your life forever. The bond between the two girls shifts and changes as they take each other into their confidence and Kalinda becomes involved in the mystery of Caroline's disappearance, but honesty, like mystery, can sometimes open doors through which there is no turning back, no matter how much you regret what you find on the other side.
So I loved this book. The magic realism element is way more underplayed than I was expecting but I think it worked for the story. It actually makes me sad how many people were criticizing the heroine for being selfish and unlikable. Caroline actually reminded me a lot of the heroine in I AM NOT YOUR PERFECT MEXICAN DAUGHTER, which shows how depression can manifest itself differently in different cultures, often taking the form of anger in places where it might not be acceptable to publicly show weakness or emotion. I felt like that was the case here. Caroline had a lot of emotional trauma and seemed to be sublimating it into anger, since that was a more acceptable and comfortable emotion for her to feel. I know some readers through this was too dark for MG but I honestly don't think it is, for the right readers. It captures the pure and innocent first crush from a LGBT+ perspective, just like how ANNIE ON MY MIND did, and it's not explicit. It's just sweet and bittersweet and kind of sad.
I also think that, like HOUSE ON MANGO STREET, the magical realism and fairytale like elements of the story allow the author to be vague about the darker subject matter. They do a really good job leaning back at the right times, and only giving enough information for what the story requires. I think HURRICANE CHILD was Kacen Callender's debut novel but it's just as good as their later works.
P.S. Since this was a debut, some copies have the author's dead name on the cover. Make sure you don't use it when talking about the work. The author goes by Kacen now and uses they/them pronouns.
I was so excited when I saw the blurb for SILENT STALKER because it kind of sounded like a YA-friendly version of this author's adult horror novel, BLOOD ROOTS, which if you've been following for a while, you probably know is one of my favorite horror novels OF ALL TIME. Do I even care if it's derivative? Nah. If I love the story, I'll happily reread various iterations of it in perpetuity. I'm a sucker for trash that hits right. How you feel about this book is going to depend a lot about your thoughts on teen girl melodrama and gothic romance. I personally love both those things, so this was an instant win for me.
Because right from the beginning, SILENT STALKER doesn't disappoint. I loved the imagery of the heroine and her father driving through the woods on a stormy night, in search of the replica castle that a crazy eccentric family had built in mirror image of their English ancestral home. This felt like such a classic horror/retro gothic scene, and when they're met at the driveway by a man who won't show his face, who shines his flashlight over Jenny in a rather suggestive way, I knew this was probably going to have at least one hot bad guy in it. YAS. And mere instants later, we're treated to more fan service as Jenny meets a mysterious man in old clothes who tells her that he wants to TORTURE her.
Me: lying on the floor, with the ghost of my feminism floating above my deceased form
SORRY I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER MY LOVE OF TOXIC TRASH
The owner of the castle is a man named Sir John, who has three sons: Wit, Malcolm, and Derreck. They're here to perform in the Medieval Festival, so they're all in costume when Jenny and her father show up. Wit's the jester, Malcolm is a knight, and Derreck is a carnival performer. Also, they're all HOT. And kind of evil. I don't remember other YA horror pulps having such spicy dialogue, but this one does. I really wished that the author had written this one as an adult horror romance like BLOOD ROOTS and SCARECROW because she actually writes really good smut, but the sexual tension here is off the charts good. A+. Also it's refreshing that the characters are older. The brothers are all college-age and Jenny is an older teen. They all sound like that too. Which I really liked.
But it's not just suggestive glances and double-entendres. Someone wants to play a game with Jenny. A game that will let them own her forever. Which probably will make you think of another YA pulp with a heroine named Jenny. And you wouldn't be wrong. The comparison is apt. And even though the twist for this book kind of came out of nowhere, I didn't even care. The build-up, the atmosphere, and the tension were excellent. I think this is easily one of the best vintage YA thrillers I've ever read. In fact, it felt like something I would write. Or that I'd want to write, since I feel like Cusick is a much better writer than I am. And let me just tell you that the jealousy you feel when you read a book that you wish you'd written, as an author, is a bittersweet feeling that still ends up being surprisingly satisfying.
If I were being picky, which I'm obviously not given my rating, I'd complain that Jenny's father is almost unbelievably stupid (but sadly not entirely unbelievably-- he definitely has the selfish and distracted academic role down pat), and the twist stretched my suspension of disbelief. But mostly this book just made me want to take Ms. Cusick out for coffee and be her best friend, so I can pick her brain and learn from her talent and also hear the stories and experiences that gave her inspo for her ideas.
It's AAPI month and I've been trying to read as many Asian-authored books on my Kindle as possible. THE MAGIC FISH was a book I was really excited about because it's a graphic-novel that interweaves fantasy with the story of a boy's coming of age.
Tien is the son of Vietnamese immigrants. His parents are loving, but they had to struggle for and give up a lot to become U.S. citizens, and their English isn't very good. Sometimes, it feels like there is an emotional barrier between him and them, because Tien feels like his struggles are nothing compared to theirs. He also knows he's gay and he's afraid of coming out to his parents and having him reject that or not accept him.
In between all of this, we see Tien and his parents and friends interact on a day to day basis, interwoven with all of these beautiful fairytales, like Cinderella or the Little Mermaid, but with a little twist. It's fascinating how the stories parallel the events going on in the main timeline and I just loved how intricate that was.
This is such a beautifully emotional book. It made me tear up several times. Sometimes the fairytales could be a little horrific-- especially the Cinderella one towards the end-- but I think a lot of fairytales are pretty morbid. Tien was a very likable character and so were his mom and dad. I really liked when we started getting these little snippets that showed them as people, outside of being parents.
I've not read a lot of books by Shannon Hale because, to me, her works often feel very self-insertiony and watered down. I know she has a devoted following but her style of writing really doesn't work for me, whether she's writing for a kid or an adult audience. That said, when I found her graphic novel memoir in a Little Free Library, I was intrigued. Not only is it set in the 1980s, it's also a story about navigating the perils of the changing social scene of adolescence, and a bit of an inside peek about how she got into writing.
Now that I've read BEST FRIENDS, I think I can pretty safely say that this is one of the best things I've ever read or will read from Hale. The 80s setting is so vivid-- the clothes, the songs (and part of that goes to LeUyen Pham for her illustrations). The way that Hale describes mean girl friendships and social pitfalls is honestly so on-point. And then there are inserts from the (yes, self-insertiony) stories that she wrote to escape. Perhaps most meaningful for me, though, was writing about what it's like to be a kid with anxiety. Whether it's chronic stomachaches or fear of rollercoasters, I honestly felt so scene when she wrote about this stuff.
Some of the reviews I get the most hate for are middle grade. There are people out there who seem to believe that writing for kids gets you a free pass from all the pedants out there like me who moan about things like "characterization" and "complex storylines." Because, you know, kids don't care about any of that shit. Throw on Ryan's World or even just jangle your keys at them, and they'll be entertained! I don't think these nay-sayers realize how utterly fucking condescending that is, implicitly suggesting that kids don't have the cognitive wherewithal to recognize a good story from a bad one.
That said, I do get how middle grade suffers under the delightful paradox of being one of the most difficult age groups to write for and also the most maligned. Authors who write for middle grade have to produce material that will appeal to kids just entering their teens while also not getting outraged phone calls from the parents of kids who are still in the single digits. It's a tough balancing act, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to do it. And despite all that, a lot of people are pretty dismissive of children's literature as a whole. Perhaps only the romance genre gets more shit from critics.
BEST FRIENDS really does a good job of straddling that line, though, being real-world relatable while also holding back just enough to kind of leave things to the reader to decide. I think many girls and boys are going to find this incredibly comforting. I wish it had been around when I was a kid.
ALL THE STARS AND TEETH was overly written and felt like the work of an author who was trying to prove herself. BELLADONNA, on the other hand, feels like the work of an author who knows that she doesn't have to. That she is, in fact, it. I can't think of many authors where I gave one of their books a one star review only to come back and give one of their later ones a five, but Adalyn Grace is that rare case and she pried all five of those stars from my stingy little fingers with BELLADONNA.
This is everything I never knew I wanted in YA fantasy and I honestly don'tthink the reviews do it justice. I mean, with YA fantasy being a dime a dozen these days, and everyone off to the races to write The Next Big Thing, what makes this one stand out? What is it like? Well, BELLADONNA is beautifully written and features an awkward, sort of Tim Burton-y heroine, like a female counterpart to Victor Van Dort from Corpse Bride. The writing is beautiful and ornate without being overdone and it has a wonderfully Gothic pseudo-Victorian setting replete with ghosts, poison, and murder. There's a very cinematic feel to both the writing and the story-telling and it's darkly whimsical and utterly addicting, because even though it doesn't really do anything different, the characters and the setting are all so vivid that they seem to come alive.
Signa has changed hands multiple times every since her mother was Red Wedding'd at a baby shower. Signa was the only survivor but Death left his mark on her and now she can consume poison without succumbing to it and people around her have the disconcerting habit of dropping dead. When her aunt dies, Signa taken in by her uncle as ward, where she will live with her cousins, Blythe and Percy. Just one problem, their mother was recently Red Wedding'd herself and Blythe, with her mysterious illness, appears close to death herself. And instead of living out the days to her inheritance peacefully in the countryside, Signa ends up involved in a dastardly murder plot where she, and everyone she holds dear, may be in danger. Also, the family is in-fighting over petty and non-petty dramas, and the uncle, mad with grief (or guilt?) is hosting elaborate parties like he thinks he's Jay Gatsby, or something.
So let's talk about why this book was great. The writing was good. The setting was wonderful-- creepy and atmospheric, with body horror and real stakes. Honestly, there were some moments in this book that made me glad I wasn't reading it at night. The heroine was delightfully awkward and it wasn't portrayed as too quirky or twee. I could sense her inability to fit in and her loneliness, and the author showed us instead of telling us. Part of the book is watching Signa grow and blossom, like a dark orchid, in a hothouse full of society people who don't quite know how to deal with her.
There's also a love triangle, of sorts, and some genuinely sensual scenes. Sometimes sex in YA can be yuck, but the heroine is older (19) and the author did such a good job making things romantic and vague, rather than explicit. I think the last YA book I read that managed this balance so well was Holly Black's CRUEL PRINCE. I just love me a really good romance, okay? Especially if it makes me swoon and the hero is just the tiny bit dangerous. Which is maybe why this just kind of feels like a love ode to goth girl media. There's elements of Labyrinth, Tim Burton, Secret Garden, classic fairytales... basically everything I loved as a kid but grown up and wearing a fancy dress and falling in love for the first time.
Someone needs to make this a movie. And also give me the sequel. Not necessarily in that order.
I bought BEYOND THE RUBY VEIL on impulse a couple months ago when it went on sale, not realizing it was dystopian or sapphic. I'm a simple woman-- show me a fantasy novel with a gorgeous cover, and I willingly part with my cash like a sucker. I decided to make this one of my Pride Month picks and color me shocked when, despite rather mixed and unenthusiastic feedback from some of my friends, this ended up rocketing up my favorites list when I finished it in a day.
The plot of it sounds super cheesy. It's one of those water wars-type books, where the premise revolves around scarcity of resources. The heroine, Emanuela, lives in a pseudo-Renaissance Italy setting called Occhia, where water is obtained by a blood sorceress called the watercrea who takes people away when they get these mysterious lesions called "omens" and then drains them dry of blood.
On the day of Emanuela's wedding to her closeted best friend, she gets a lesion and is taken away by the watercrea. But Emanuela, who is a ruthless sociopath who will stop at nothing to get what she wants, is not about to let some old woman determine when she will die. She kills the watercrea, thus putting an end to her city's dwindling water source. And they aren't happy about it.
I don't want to say too much about this book, but it ended up going in a direction I wasn't expecting, and towards the end it gets very, very dark. Like, why-did-I-read-this-while-eating dark. In some ways, this reminded a bit of Kerri Maniscalco's KINGDOM OF THE WICKED crossed with Claire Eliza Bartlett's THE WINTER DUKE, but it's much darker than either of those two books, and the heroine is way more ruthless. Also, those books were a little more focused on the romance, and while there is gay yearning in BEYOND THE RUBY VEIL, and two potential LGBT+ relationships are kind of set up here, nothing is set in stone by the end of the book. So in that way, it's kind of more like Crystal Smith's BLOODLEAF, a YA book that took some serious risks with world-building and consequences.
I can't wait to get my hands on the sequel. I want to learn more about the cities and the mysterious aerial veil that shrouds the city and I want to see who Emanuela is going to torment next (probably everyone).
HOUSE OF HOLLOW is one of the best horror stories I've ever read. I don't even normally like horror because I am a soft and jellied wimp, but I do like fairytales, and this is like the darkest of the lot: a story of three girls who went missing at the stroke of midnight while their parents fretted and worried, only for them to return, not quite the same, with matching scars on their throats and discolored hair and eyes. Ten years later, Vivi, Grey, and Iris Hollow are beautiful and exceptional girls, but beneath all of the gloss is the dark shadow of their shared pasts and the truth of why they really went missing.
Part of what made this such a win for me is the beautiful prose. It's like biting into a truffle, only to find it filled with rot. The exquisite writing masks the horrors until it's too late to run and by that point, you're so invested, you probably won't even want to. And don't be fooled by the dreamy teen narrator and the flowers on the cover: this book has triggers of all kinds, with many scenes of body horror, and some pretty emotionally devastating blows. There's one scene towards the end that really wrecked me and nearly made me cry.
I would recommend this to people who like really dark stories that explore deep topics and horror that goes beyond splatterpunk and gore. The whole time I was reading this book, I kept picturing it as a movie, with the same visuals as movies like Velvet Buzzsaw, Paradise Hills, and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. I think if you enjoy those things, you'll probably like this book, too.
The first time I read this book was as an ARC when it first came out and I couldn't stop thinking about it. THE SUMMER PRINCE was one of the first diverse sci-fi-fantasy books I ever read and it totally blew me away. It's set in a dystopian matriarchal society in a futuristic Brazil, where all of the leaders are women and everyone old expects to live to two hundred. They elect their kings in an elaborate, Hunger Games-like ceremony every five years, and the king, in turn, chooses his new queen one year later: on the day of his sacrificial execution.
Our heroine, June, is an activist/artist, kind of like a female Banksy. She does all of these elaborate art pranks and one of these is at the very beginning, with her friend Gil, to help elect the underdog choice: a boy from the very worst parts of Palmares Tres named Enki. The prank works and the three of them end up first as glamorous poster children for the opulent party scene, and then as icons of rebellion. As the year goes on, the three of them become incredibly close: Gil and Enki become lovers and June starts to fall for him too, all the while, his fate hangs over the three of them like the sword of Damocles.
I think I loved this book just as much the second time. I loved the way Brazilian culture and the Portuguese language are woven into the story. I liked the heroine's passion for art, and how it ends up taking a more political bent as she sees more of the injustice that's inherent in the system that she's been blind to because of her privilege. I liked how there wasn't really a lot of slut-shaming, and how all of the characters in this book felt like real people making real decisions in this fantastic backdrop. It takes a while to get into, but I think the heroine sells the world-building, and her melancholy and wistfulness end up making this a pretty devastating read, especially as the story winds to the end.
I was a bit torn on whether to give this a four or a five. It's not a perfect book, but it's still a very, very good one, so I've decided to round up because I've never read anything like it before and I still love it.
This is my second time reading RAMPANT and I think I actually enjoyed it just as much as I did the first time. RAMPANT is the story of a girl named Astrid Llewellyn who is descended from unicorn hunters. Her mother, Lilith, is obsessed with them and has been teaching Astrid her whole life that unicorns are evil. Astrid thinks her mom is pretty crazy until she's out in the woods with her boyfriend and the two of them are attacked by a rogue unicorn.
After that, Astrid is sent off to a special unicorn killing school in Italy that's masquerading as a religious order. Once there, she meets other girls who are descended from other lines of unicorn hunters. They even have a pet "house unicorn" named Bonegrinder. Astrid learns that there are different kinds of unicorns, ranging from the small, goat-like zhi to the Persian karkadann, which is the size of a tank. All unicorn hunters are apparently descendants of Alexander the Great, who rode to victory on a giant karkadann of his own: Bucephalus.
I loved this book so much. Sometimes the mythology didn't really make sense but most of it, I was like, okay, I can roll with this. I loved the Italian setting and the bond between the girls. This is surprisingly diverse for the time it came out: one of the girls is Black and the other is Singaporean Chinese. The way they rally together and train together and fight and protect one another was so well done. You just don't really see many YA fantasy books these days with that kind of theme of sisterhood, which made me enjoy this book even more than I did.
I think if you enjoyed VAMPIRE ACADEMY, you'll enjoy this book. It has the same themes: kick-butt girls, dangerous paranormal threats, secret magic schools abroad, forbidden love. I'm honestly surprised the reviews for RAMPANT are so mixed because it feels like the type of book so many readers are begging for. The only things that I think would put people off are a few throwaway remarks about sexuality that don't age well, rape (off-page, but the victim is gaslighted by an authority figure, although the main character stands up for her and a pretty interesting and heartfelt discussion follows), and the fact that the heroine is kind of spoiled and bratty (but in an age-appropriate way, tbh).
I LOVED this book and can't wait to read book two. Thank goodness I already own it!
UGH. What do I even say about this book? Talking about things I love is so hard because I just want to be like, "It's amazing. Read it." Which is obviously not helpful, but I've already expended SO MUCH BRAIN POWER into the feels this book made me feel, and now I have to relive that all over again as I try to explain in coherent words why you should read this blistering emotional mess of a book.
First, I just want to say that I actually was bullied in high school. My bullying was just as intense as Emma's was and like Emma's, it occurred online and offline. The idea of writing from the bully's POV is not exactly novel and I think far too often it comes across as apologist. What I liked about TEASE is that it's pretty clear (well, to everyone except our MC Sara) that what the "heroine" did was wrong. Is she a total cackling villain of a girl? No, but most bullies aren't. There were shades of nuance to her life and being around her meaner friends made her a much worse person. I think that's probably true. It was the case with my own bullies: one of them was much meaner than the other and the less mean one eventually wrote me a (very nice) apology letter years later saying she was sorry for what she did.
The premise of TEASE is simple and complicated all at once. Emma has taken her own life after months of continuous bullying and now the parents are taking the kids involved to court. There are two timelines. One is in the present day, with the approaching court date. The other is in the past, building up to the inciting event. Emma is a pretty girl who hooks up with a lot of boys-- allegedly. There's definitely some unreliable narrator business going on and it's not exactly clear whether some of these boys are just friends who aren't discrediting the salacious rumors, or, you know, the opposite. Sara and Brielle hate Emma straight out of the gate, but when Emma starts getting close to Sara's boyfriend, Dylan, things start getting really bad. Sara, an insecure mess, can't stand the idea of this pretty girl with the bad reputation hanging out with her man. So she starts to make Sara's life a living hell.
This is paced like a thriller, even though it isn't. The characters all behave like real teens and they talk like real teens and they make bad decisions like real teens. Once I got into the book, I read through it in a single day. Even though I didn't like her as a person, I loved how the heroine of the story was a true morally ambiguous character and I liked how complex the author made her as a person. I think that's part of the reason the reviews for this book are pretty low. Most people want a character they can feel comfortable rooting for and Sara, who is the literal villain in her own story, is anything but that.
If you like YA with mature themes that deep-dives into serious issues, I think you'll really like TEASE. The hilarious blurb for this book on Goodreads says, " If you gulped through reading or streaming 13 Reasons Why, Tease is the book for you." What does "if I GULPED" mean? Like, if I swallowed nervously? I actually think that comparison is kind of bad because 13RW is more of a revenge fantasy and the hero of that book is more of a generic nice guy character. TEASE, on the other hand, feels like it's more about exploring serious issues with nuance while also holding people accountable. One is a vigilante story and the other is an analysis of morality and justice. They feel different to me, IDK.
Anyway, this book was awesome and if you can stomach the content, you should read it.
Oh my God, this was so good. So the premise of this book is basically "Bad Girl gets sent to Bad Kid School for stabbing her douchebag ex in the hand with a pencil for calling her younger brother the R-word. Finds love-- and herself." Which sounds cheesy as fuck, but it was really, really, really well done.
Really!
With books I really love, I almost can't be bothered to write a normal review because I just want to scream incomprehensibly in numbers and letters, so I usually do a bullet list so I can squeal over all of my favorite things.
As you may know, I'm doing a project where I reread some of my adolescent favorites, so when I saw a copy of THE TRUE CONFESSIONS OF CHARLOTTE DOYLE sitting in a little free library, I knew I just had to pick it up and give it a read because this was one of my favorites as a young teen.
One of my favorite literary tropes is spoiled heroines who end up undergoing a redemption arc. Charlotte Doyle is a very proper young miss, class-conscious and prone to airs. When we meet her, she is dressed to the nines and about to board a ship to return to her New Englandian family from English boarding school. She's also such a laughable prude; definitely, she is the type of girl who would be the villain in anyone else's story but her own. Ugh on wheels.
Right away, things are super sus. Men refuse to work as porter for her luggage once they find out the name of her ship and its captain. The other two families she was supposed to be traveling with have mysteriously dropped out. And she's given several warnings from the crew-- including the gift of a knife from the preacher/cook Zachariah. Perhaps most sinisterly of all is when she takes tea with the captain and he tells her to be his eyes and ears and to inform him if she ever spots a round robin:
A symbol of mutiny.
TRUE CONFESSIONS is a fantastic story of betrayal and redemption. Even though it is young adult/middle grade, it imparts lessons about social class and morality that have stuck with me for over ten years. It is truly chilling in parts and had me breathlessly turning pages late at night with a flashlight when I was a kid. Perhaps best of all, it is a tale of adventure on the high seas with a heroine who is rife with agency and is permitted to be flawed and unlikable at times, because that is what it is to be human.
If you enjoy stories about strong female protagonists, this is a must-have. It really held up, and I thought it was fun that the author included a ship diagram and a recipe for duff.
Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨
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