ARC #Review: Ryan and Avery by David Levithan

Goodreads/Amazon/B&N

+++Contains Amazon affiliate link

Synopsis

From the New York Times bestselling author of EVERY DAY, this is a queer love story for the ages–told over the course of a couple’s first ten dates.

When a blue-haired boy (Ryan) meets a pink-haired boy (Avery) at a dance–a queer prom–both feel an inexplicable but powerful connection. Follow them through their first ten dates as they bridge their initial shyness and fall in love–through snowstorms, groundings, meeting parents (Avery’s) and not (Ryan’s), cast parties, heartbreak, and every day and date in between.

Review

3 Stars

***I received this ARC as a gift in exchange for an honest review via NetGalley & Random House Children’s, Knopf Books for Young Readers

+++Any quotes are from a proof copy and may appear different in the published novel.

“…the closer you get to a person, the more you leave behind with them when you have to be apart; the feeling of reunion that comes when you are back together is not only a reunion with the person you love, but also a reunion with the part of yourself you left behind”.

“Queerness is stolen moments and stolen victories. It is stolen time and stolen glances. It is the thrill of the theft, for sure, but also the knowledge deep in your heart that none of the stealing is wrong. It is, in fact, the most honest thing you can do”.

For some strange and unexpected reason, this was my first David Levithan book. As an avid YA reader my whole life, I’d always heard of David Levithan, but had never actually picked any of his novels up. This is crazy because he’s been a bestselling YA author for as long as I’ve been a reader. Going into this story, I didn’t know what to expect. I thought it would be a cutesy love story with the complexities of gender and identity mixed in with a small town vibe. It was not that. Ryan and Avery were two characters in David Levithan’s popular book Two Boys Kissing. This is their spinoff story.

What I loved about Ryan and Avery was just how introspective and deep the characters were. Ryan and Avery are both trying to figure out how they fit in the world and more so, if the world will accept them as they are. There’s plenty of fear, but more than that, there’s yearning for acceptance and hope that they will be welcomed without question and judgement. At the same time, there are heavy doses of reality that not everyone can move past their understanding of gender conformity and the expectations tied to biology.

There were many moments in this story where I had to reread a line and let it sink in. David Levithan writes in a way that is eye-opening but so subtle that it borders on profound. The way little moments are captured and the nuances of emotions are written with such clarity, you kind of wish everyone could see the world with David Levithan’s eyes. It would be a much nicer place.

I appreciated that this was not a story about discovering your gender. This was a story of two boys going through the very nerve-wracking emotional rollercoaster of dating as a teenager when you really, really like someone and desperately want it to work out. Told through 10 dates, out of order, Ryan and Avery discover what they mean to each other. While some people might dislike that this was told out of order, I actually felt that it enhanced the development between Ryan and Avery. Their growth as a couple is not linear. There are ups and downs, and challenges to their relationship that worked well with a skewed timeline.

Ryan and Avery encompass all that awkward, heavy, and real nervousness-the uncertainty of what to say and if the person you like will judge you. The conflict over wanting to open up and share, but being scared of saying too much or burdening someone new with your baggage. These delicate feelings happen in every relationship and David Levithan writes about them in a way that everyone can identify with, no matter your age or gender.

While I liked this book, I felt like something was missing. Ryan and Avery were so much in their own heads that I feel like even though there were 10 dates, a lot of the focus was on how others would see them or what was going on in the background. I wish there was more focus on JUST Ryan and Avery. I would have loved a world of only their emotions and their interactions with each other as they blossomed into more complete versions of themselves. But at the same time, that’s unrealistic and inauthentic. It’s impossible to block out the world around you, even when the person sitting across from you, on the perfect date, has become your whole world. Maybe I just wanted more. The pacing was also a little slow for me.

Overall, if you’re looking for a raw, honest portrayal of two teen boys falling into something like love and wading through all the emotions that come with it, this is for you.

ARC #Review: The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White

Goodreads/Amazon/B&N*

Release Date: September 5, 2023

Synopsis

Mors vincit omnia. Death conquers all.

London, 1883. The Veil between the living and dead has thinned. Violet-eyed mediums commune with spirits under the watchful eye of the Royal Speaker Society, and sixteen-year-old Silas Bell would rather rip out his violet eyes than become an obedient Speaker wife. According to Mother, he’ll be married by the end of the year. It doesn’t matter that he’s needed a decade of tutors to hide his autism; that he practices surgery on slaughtered pigs; that he is a boy, not the girl the world insists on seeing.

After a failed attempt to escape an arranged marriage, Silas is diagnosed with Veil sickness—a mysterious disease sending violet-eyed women into madness—and shipped away to Braxton’s Sanitorium and Finishing School. The facility is cold, the instructors merciless, and the students either bloom into eligible wives or disappear. So when the ghosts of missing students start begging Silas for help, he decides to reach into Braxton’s innards and expose its rotten guts to the world—as long as the school doesn’t break him first.

Review

4 Stars

+++I received this ARC as a gift in exchange for an honest review via NetGalley & Peachtree Teen

+++Content Warning: gore, graphic medical procedures, abortion, physical abuse, sexual abuse, violence, miscarriage, transphobia, forced confinement

Per the author via Goodreads:

“Content Warnings
* Graphic violence
* Sexual assault – implied, attempted, and on-page
* Medical gore, including an on-page Cesarean section
* Transphobia (explicit misgendering, dead-naming, transphobic violence/conversion therapy)
* Anti-autistic ableism
* Medical/psychiatric abuse, including dubious diagnosis and treatment
* Gaslighting and abuse
* Minor discussions of miscarriage”

If you’re a fan of The Diviners by Libba Bray and are looking for a darker, more edgy, and all around more graphic story of spirits, revenge, identity, and survival, this is it.

I can never resist a good period piece. Give me Jane Austen vibes with a twist and I will devour the story in a handful of hours. To be honest, I picked this book based on the cover. Across between a fun gothic print and a tarot card, I couldn’t pass it up. I had no idea what I was getting into so when I got to the author’s note that explained the history and provided a content warning that was quite expansive, I was intrigued. I’m never one to step away from anything graphic, horror, historical, or medical. That being said, this was a whirlwind of a book and one I could not put down. I’m not going to sugarcoat it; this could be an offensive book and definitely should have a content warning. It is not for the faint of heart. There are many descriptive medical procedures that could make someone with a good imagination and a weak stomach queasy. Some of the actions are written in a jarring, shocking, and matter of fact way that had me rereading because it was so shocking. Sometimes the main character’s feelings about motherhood, the female anatomy, the womb, fetuses, are so blunt and harsh that it makes you pause because your brain doesn’t really know how to process this. And that’s kind of the point. The author does such a good job expressing the views of the main character and the social constructs, the biological expectations for females, and layers it with a magical twist that doubly reinforces a woman’s place in society during the 1800s.

Due to the graphic nature and sheer content, it makes me a little uncomfortable that this is a YA book. Definitely not for the younger YA. I think this could easily find a home in adult fiction.

This was my first book ever dealing with a trans character and I apologize if I use any terms incorrectly. Please correct me. Silas (or Gloria as forced to be called by those who label by biological sex and not gender) Bell is an engaging and gripping character. Silas’ emotions are potent and expansive. There’s depth and complexity that is built throughout the story and really encompasses the internal conflict faced when being told you are female and knowing, without a doubt, you are male. Despite anatomy, despite how everyone refers to you, that is your truth and self-awareness. This was powerful for me to read. The reality of it is, unless you are exposed to people of different genders, it’s almost something in the background that is not given any thought.

One of the things I truly appreciated about this book was the acceptance Silas found. In a little school of horrors, in a world where anatomy and eye color trump emotions and agency, finding that small glimmer of hope by being welcomed gave Silas the strength to keep going. That in itself was a beautiful thing.

The secondary characters were memorable and all had a purpose.

The story itself was a gripping tragedy based in history. The experimentation on people placed in asylums is one of the darkest parts of human history and really only ended less than 100 years ago. The horrific reality of what these medical doctors were allowed to do to human lives for the sake of a “cure” for insanity is appalling and repulsive. Andrew Joseph White does an amazing job capturing this historical truth.

This is one of those books that you will feel overwhelmed by because it’s hard to process all the feelings. There are so many things that I want to say and this review has come nowhere near all of them.

Comment if you have any questions 🙂

+++Contains Amazon affiliate link

ARC #Review: Have You Seen My Sister? by Kirsty McKay

Goodreads/Amazon/B&N

Release Date: September 5, 2023

Synopsis

Gaia Gill is the last person in the world anyone would expect to go missing. Beautiful, athletic, and recently accepted to a prestigious college, she has everything to look forward to—but the night of her going-away party at the Moon Mountain ski resort, she disappears.

Gaia’s younger sister Esme is supposed to be flying back to England with her family after the party, but she can’t leave with Gaia missing—especially because nobody remembers Gaia leaving the party. Or if they do, they’re not saying. Everyone at the lodge has their own secrets: the little rich girl, the ex-boyfriend, the ski instructor, the failed reality star.

Esme’s out of her depth searching the dark, dangerous forests and icy slopes of Moon Mountain, until she teams up with a local boy who promises to help her. The clock is ticking, and it’s down to Esme to piece the clues together and work out who—if anybody—is telling the truth.

Review

3 Stars

***I received this ARC as a gift in exchange for an honest review via NetGalley & Sourcebooks Fire

Overall, this was an okay YA mystery.

Prior to reading this book, I’d never heard of dyspraxia. Learning about this condition helped to see Esme through the lens of her condition vs. as a spazzy teen who is so clumsy it’s comical. It was a nice way to bring awareness to a condition that is likely unfamiliar to most readers.

Esme was a fun character. She’s feisty, devoted, and willing to do anything to find her sister. She’s a very young heroine navigating the world of romance while bulldozing through crime scenes and interrogating persons of interest. She gets embarrassed, makes mistakes, and fumbles through flirting. She’s oddly relatable and someone you want to root for.

The pacing was so-so. I kept reading because I needed to know what happened-if Gaia was alive or dead, and who was behind the whole disappearance.

But, if I’m honest, my main motivation was the blossoming romance between Esme and Bode. Their adventures together as they chased down clues and got in trouble had me speeding through pages. Every interaction was cute-sometimes shy, sometimes flirty. I loved it.

The ending was anticlimactic. It was over quickly and everything was resolved in a handful of pages. It felt abrupt and less calculated than the rest of the book. Almost rushing to an ending. There was a twist, but somehow it felt less exciting than the culprit everyone suspected all along (and who the clues pointed to).

What’s strange and partially why this book felt off the mark is because the book is centered on the disappearance of Gaia but we really barely learn anything about her. Even when Esme, her family, and the cops are asking around to get a feel for what might have happened, there’s not much to go on. I feel like had there been flashbacks to build a connection with Gaia or to establish the relationship between Gaia and Esme, the reader would have been more invested in whether Gaia was found alive or dead. There would have been more of an emotional impact and sense of urgency. Instead, Gaia is almost like a stranger. Esme is hopeful that Gaia is okay and so focused on finding her sister that the emotions don’t really hit like they should. The reader is just pushed along without the ability to take a breath or to witness Esme truly deal with the possibility that Gaia might be dead.

I was kind of disappointed with the story because it felt less thriller than the cover suggested and more Nancy Drew.

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ARC Review: This Terrible True Thing by Jenny Laden

Goodreads/Amazon/B&N

Release Date: September 5, 2023

+++This post contains affiliate links

Synopsis

In this heartbreaking multimedia debut–filled with drawings, poems, and journal entries–author Jenny Laden draws on her own experience to create a story of grief and transcendence, perfect for fans of Francesca Zappia and Jennifer Niven. Danielle Silver is a Philadelphia high school senior at the dawn of the ’90s. Ever since her parents split up, she has known her father was gay, but she never expected to be hit with the bombshell that he is HIV positive. As he sickens, and AIDS starts to claim the lives of his friends, Danielle searches for silver linings while trying to balance paralyzing fear, grief, her social life, and schoolwork–capturing all the feelings as adolescence and some hard facts collide.

Review

3 Stars

***I received this ARC as a gift in exchange for an honest review via NetGalley & Blackstone Publishing

This book is heavy.

This is the kind of book that consumes and makes you think. The kind that inspires the reader to open up their minds as well as their eyes to injustices that are blatant but people avoid because it’s easier than trying to fight what seems like an insurmountable battle.

At its heart, this is a coming of age story of a girl on the cusp of adulthood, who thought she had everything figured out until she had her whole world come crashing down around her. A story of loss, self-discovery, and taking ownership of mistakes, Danielle navigates her reality in a messy, authentic way that is raw and powerful. Her processing, her grief, her anger, all resonate throughout the story in perfect unity with her passion, spirit, and love for those around her.

I had a hard time writing this review or really, trying to figure out how to rate it. I almost didn’t give it a rating. On one hand, this book is important. It’s eye-opening and necessary. People didn’t really talk about AIDs in the 1990s and they still don’t today. It’s like Danielle so aptly notes in the book, a monster that is lurking in the shadows that with continued ignorance we won’t know how to face or defeat. But we need to talk about it. We need to bring awareness and educate so that people can not only be safe, but accepting of difference without prejudice. On the other hand, it took me a lot of persistence to get into it, but I’m glad I did. The pacing was slow at first, and some of Danielle’s commentary about the division between the art students and the jocks was off-putting, just because it felt like her perception was so one-sided and almost arrogant at times. There was a moment in this story that I cringed so hard and was so angry at Danielle. Angry at her selfishness and sense of self-righteousness that caused others to be hurt. At the same time, this was perfect for a coming of age story-learning the hard way and reevaluating how the character perceives the world.

The book contains drawings and poems, mixed in with the narrative. The chapters are named after songs. I’m not sure how to feel about the multimedia approach. In some ways, the drawings brought the characters to life and other ways, they were abstract pieces that encompassed Danielle’s internal conflict. I preferred the poems to the drawings. They were where the emotion really soared and Danielle’s feelings were on full display. The words of Danielle’s heart, where she could be honest with herself.

I wasn’t fully invested in the characters themselves but I was invested in the story. I felt as though I couldn’t connect with Danielle but I could empathize with her situation. As someone who lost her father suddenly and unexpectedly, all of Danielle’s consuming and confusing emotions felt like reliving the past. The sense of loss, of distorted reality, of things happening far too quickly and trying to figure out how to function in a new reality where a hole exists where a person who made up your whole world should be. It’s heartbreaking and real. Anyone who has lost someone they loved will recognize everything Danielle is going through. Honestly, I knew it was coming but I still felt gutted by these scenes. Maybe it was too soon for me.

All in all, this was a read that will definitely ignite feelings but what those feelings will be depends on the reader.

ARC #Review: Together We Rot by Skyla Arndt

Goodreads/Amazon/B&N

+++This post does contain Amazon affiliate links

Release Date: August 29, 2023

Synopsis

A teen girl looking for the truth about her missing mother forms a reluctant alliance with her former best friend…in exchange for hiding him from his cult-leading family.

Wil Greene’s mom has been missing for over a year, and the police are ready to call the case closed—they claim she skipped town and you can’t find a woman who wants to disappear. But she knows her mom wouldn’t just leave…and she knows the family of her former best friend, Elwood Clarke, has something to do with it.

Elwood has been counting down the days until his 18th birthday—in dread. It marks leaving school and joining his pastor father in dedicating his life to their congregation, the Garden of Adam. But when he comes home after one night of after a final goodbye with his friends, already self-flagellating for the sins of drinking and disobeying his father, he discovers his path is not as virtuous as he thought. He’s not his father’s successor, but his sacrifice. For the woods he’s grown up with are thirsty, and must be paid in blood.

Now on the run from a family that wants him dead, he turns to the only one who will believe him: Wil. Together, they form a reluctant partnership; she’ll help him hide if he helps her find evidence that his family killed her mother. But in the end they dig up more secrets than they bargained for, unraveling decades of dark cult dealings in their town, led by the Clarke family.

And there’s a reason they need Elwood’s blood for their satanic rituals. Something inhuman is growing inside of him. Everywhere he goes, the plants come alive and the forest calls to him, and Wil isn’t sure if she can save the boy she can’t help but love.

Review

4 Stars

***I received this ARC as a gift in exchange for an honest review via NetGalley & Penguin Young Readers

+++Trigger warnings for: violence, cults, physical abuse, alcoholism

What I loved:

• The cover. Equal parts creepy and whimsical, this cover is a MUST have for any horror lover’s shelf. The skeletal boy, the wispy plant tendrils, the bright moths, and butterflies give cottagecore meets the coroner vibe. And yet, there’s a soft and romantic mood in the way the characters hold each other. I’m obsessed and will openly admit that I requested this book based on the cover alone.
• The premise. A fanatical cult mixed with their own brand of lore that’s tied to the forest. How could you not want to read this?
• The dual POVs. Wil and Elwood are such a contrast. Wil is full of fiery anger and determination to take down the church that she know’s has something to do with her mother’s disappearance. She’s jaded and hurt. She lashes out at almost everyone and incinerates people’s feelings with her sharp comebacks. The evolution of her character as the story progresses is bittersweet, because it takes so much to embrace her softness and let down her defenses. I adored her headstrong perseverance and loved more when she realized that sometimes there’s strength in letting people you care about see your vulnerability.
• Elwood is so scared of his parents. He radiates a quiet, almost doomed energy, like he’s accepted his fate that he’s destined to live for everyone BUT himself. It’s heartbreaking. The yearning he has to be accepted and loved by his family and the horrific abuse he gets in return. The way he sees Wil is honestly, poetic. Your heart will definitely flutter.
• The secondary characters were memorable and just fleshed out enough to be interesting but not overshadow the main characters.
• The setting is perfect for this kind of story. Small town with secrets.
• The paranormal twist. No spoilers but this is the kind of ending I live for. This is one of the best YA books I’ve read in a long time.
• If you’re a fan of Dawn Kurtagich (And the Trees Crept In, The Dead House), April Genevieve Tucholke (Wink Poppy Midnight), and Kim Liggett (Blood and Salt) this is right up your alley.

What could have been better:

• The pacing. Everything happened all at once. So much of the story is based on the past-past events, past relationships, the history of the cult. The now is so rushed it somehow doesn’t meld well.
• There wasn’t enough of the sinister, goosebumps inducing feeling that makes you wonder what’s lurking in the shadows. Morguewood is a terrifying place. And it becomes more so as the story progresses. However, there’s no real build up. Had there been little incidents that were unsettling sprinkled throughout, it would have upped the horror vibe. For a lot of the story, yes, the woods smell terrible, yes, they’re kinda creepy like any woods are at night and/or covered in snow, but beyond that, it felt like normal woods.
• The cult. Everything about Garden of Adam is revealed in a very short span of time. Had there been more moments of discovery and reveals in small chunks, it would have built up and really hit hard when the truth was out.

ARC #Review: Welcome to Camp Killer by Cynthia Murphy

Goodreads

Release Date: September 7th, 2023

Synopsis

When an American-style residential camp is set up in the grounds of an English stately home, the teenage camp counsellors are looking forward to a fun summer of activities.

But right from the outset, things don’t feel quite right at Camp Miller. Rumours circulate of a tragedy that took place in the grounds and there are unexplained sightings of a ghostly presence.

Then the incidents begin – a near-drowning out on the lake, a fatal fall from a cliff-face … Are these tragic accidents or is there something more sinister going on at Camp Killer?

Review

1.5 Stars

***I received this ARC as a gift in exchange for an honest review via NetGalley and Barrington Stoke

I swear, I blinked and this book was over. Woefully short at just under 130 pages, this is more like a novella.

The premise behind this story is classic B movie, camp horror that centers around a legend told around a bonfire at summer camp. The stuff of urban legends, it has all the horror film tropes and is more reminiscent of Scream than Friday the 13th in that sense.

The pacing starts slow, but then bulldozes forward to a spiraling twist of an ending. I kept reading because I wanted to know the identity of the killer and whether this would actually have a paranormal edge.

The foundation of this story is solid and as an avid YA horror reader, it left me wanting more. I loved the idea behind this book. A modern YA summer camp thriller. Perfect. But it was more of a skeleton of a story than a fleshed out work.

There were several characters-the camp counselors, all connected by the fact that their parents attended camp together in the past. These characters had some identifying characteristics sprinkled in, like one had a girlfriend and had pronouns “they/them” or another one was a lifeguard or training for the Olympics. However, these things were all offhand mentioned. There wasn’t any real deep dive into the characters; they were all lacking development. There’s a serious lack of description throughout the book. There are basic and I mean, BASIC, descriptors like that there’s a lake or a castle-like building, or some cabins around a bonfire. That’s it. No more. Even the murders have minimal description and it takes away the whole horror of the situation. Had there been more description, I feel like the overall mood would have been more spooky and unsettling-instead, it fell flat. It was hard to build any connections with the characters or feel any emotion when they died because there was not enough time to actually care.

The ending was abrupt and cut off quickly, almost like snuffing out a candle, with a single line meant to hint at a cliffhanger.

This just wasn’t it for me.

If you’re looking for a quick read to get you hyped up for spooky season, this might be a fun start.

ARC #Review: Sign of the Slayer by Sharina Harris

Goodreads/Amazon/B&N

Release Date: August 29, 2023

***This YA is on the mature side. Contains sexual situations, violence, and profanity.

+++This post contains an Amazon affiliate link.

Synopsis

via Goodreads

Full Metal Alchemist meets Vampire Diaries in this fun and clever dark academia series…

High school is supposed to be about studying, socializing, and marching-band practice. Not fighting vampires. Then one night flipped my world inside out―now, my life sucks. But it isn’t all bad. I’m at a slayer academy, learning things like the real origin of vamps and how to make serious weapons out of thin air.

Every last one of them will pay for what they did. I’m doing great.

Until I come face-to-face with the actual vampire prince…and I’m not sure of anything anymore. Vampires are supposed to be soul-sucking demons. But Khamari is…something else. He’s intelligent and reasonable―and he seems to know things about me that could change everything.

He’s also hiding something big, even from his own kind. And when a threat from an ancient evil is so extreme that a vampire will team up with a slayer to take it down, it isn’t just my need for revenge that’s at stake anymore.

It’s the whole damn world.

Review

3.5 Stars

***I received this ARC as a gift in exchange for an honest review via Entangled Teen and NetGalley

Get this book if you’re looking for a fiery female protagonist that slays with sass almost as well as she slays vampires.

Get this book if you’re looking for a diverse lead with internal demons and trauma that that threaten to overwhelm but make the protagonist stronger and more real.

Get this book if you LOVE Buffy the Vampire Slayer but were never a perky cheerleader, instead, you were the girl in the school band, a little rough around the edges, with a hidden dark side.

Sign of the Slayer is the vampire book I was waiting for in theory but unfortunately it did not deliver in execution. The kind that is NOT entirely centered around romance-this definitely has its share of steamy, mature moments, and flirty banter- but the growth of the main character and world-building. This reads like an urban fantasy geared towards a younger audience. I was insanely intrigued by the world-building in this book. The mix of mythology with history and ancient cultures was fascinating and mixed well with the alchemy elements. Honestly, the science nerd in me would have loved more alchemy. There was A LOT going on with the history of vampires, slayers, other paranormal beings and their origin stories and instead of the reader being eased into the world and given time to adjust, it jumped from one revelation to the next. There were some components that had tons of explanation and others that were mentioned and then hopped over. There are a handful of vampire clans and different types of slayers and not enough of a breakdown to truly get a feel for the differences between each group. Had these been explored a little more, the politics and why each sect hated on each other would have been stronger. At the same time, Raven aka Texas is living in a chaotic and ever-changing environment and we are learning the intel as quickly as she does. This creates a sense of urgency and confusion for both the reader and Raven.

The characters are developed and have interesting back stories. I would have liked to see more of Raven’s story before she entered the Slayer Academy. The story literally starts with Raven at a high school event, getting attacked by vampires, and then her new life begins. There’s not a whole lot about Raven before she was thrust into this world and I feel like a lot of who she was is lost because of this. Raven mentions dreaming of becoming a composer and loving her time in band, but there’s really not a lot about her other than her trauma and her love for her grandmother Lou. While Raven has an extremely sarcastic, witty, and compelling voice that kept me laughing and wanting to read more, we don’t get a sense of the Raven before, only who she’s forced to be. I think these aspects of her character would have made her seem a little softer, a little more human, and built a connection with the reader.

What shines in this story is love for family and friendship. The deep and compelling desire to protect loved ones at all costs, and the sacrifices that inevitably will need to be made when stakes are so high.

The romance. Where do I even begin? It reads like instalove but as the story progresses it evolves into something more (no spoilers here). Khamari radiates sex appeal and has a charming, sinful way about him that burns through the pages. The interactions between him and Raven are a series of fire and ice, of temptation and resistance. This tug of war is fun to read and definitely on the mature side. There’s a lot of sexual tension and a handful of adult scenes.

Khamari’s character has many layers. On one hand, he’s torn between his devotion to his brother and his role as the prince of his clan. His love for Raven further complicates things. While some might have been turned off by the dual POVs in this story, I loved Khamari’s internal dialogue. It really helped to wade through his reasoning behind his actions.

The secondary characters were lively and developed enough to be memorable and make an impact on the reader-they weren’t just filler characters like in so many books lately.

Despite the urgency of the situation, the plot kind of lagged. I had to really push through some parts. It wasn’t for lack of interest, but maybe too much going on at one time? It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why it felt that way. It also seemed like the timing was rushed. Raven accelerates fast and then like next day is on a mission and then this potentially world-ending event occurs and then they’re being whisked off to another continent.

Overall, this was an action-packed, fun read with a fierce main character, diverse cast, and interesting world-building.

ARC Review: The Reunion by Kit Frick

Goodreads/ Amazon/B&N

Release Date: August 29, 2023

Synopsis

From the author of I Killed Zoe Spanos comes a YA thriller in the vein of The White Lotus and Karen M. McManus’s The Cousins following a doomed family reunion gone wrong at a posh Caribbean resort, where old grudges and dangerous secrets culminate in murder.

Eleven Mayweathers went on vacation. Ten came home.

It’s been years since the fragmented Mayweather clan was all in one place, but the engagement of Addison and Mason’s mom to the dad of their future stepbrother, Theo, brings the whole family to sunny Cancún, Mexico, for winter break. Add cousin Natalia to the mix, and it doesn’t take long for tempers to fray and tensions to rise. A week of forced family “fun” reveals that everyone has something to hide, and as secrets bubble to the surface, no one is safe from the fallout. By the end of the week, one member of the reunion party will be dead—and everyone’s a suspect:
The peacekeeper: Addison needs a better hiding place.
The outsider: Theo just wants to mend fences.
The romantic: Natalia doesn’t want to talk about the past.
The hothead: Mason needs to keep his temper under control.

It started as a week in paradise meant to bring them together. But the Mayweathers are about to learn the hard way that family bonding can be deadly.

Review

3 Stars

+++I received this ARC as a gift in exchange for an honest review via NetGalley and Margaret K. McElderry Books

***Contains Amazon affiliate links

If you’re looking for a quick, end of summer read that will keep you guessing and taking notes, this is for you.

The Reunion follows a wealthy family deeply rooted in secrets and favoritism on a vacation in Cancún meant to celebrate an engagement and welcome “outsiders” into the exclusive Mayweather clan. The story is told from multiple POVs, hotel news updates, and police interviews. For a little more than half of the book, we do not know the identity of the victim but we do learn that everyone on the trip has something to hide-even the adults.

Three years ago, cousins Natalia, Addison, and Mason were inseparable, until a secret drove them to their breaking point and lead to consequences that would eventually fester and alter their lives forever. This secret hangs over the story and isn’t revealed until the last couple of chapters. There’s a dark kind of foreboding, that puts suspicion on each of these characters and makes the reader question what could have been so bad that it caused a wedge in their tight-knit family.

As the story progresses, more secrets, more skeletons in the closet are revealed but only to certain characters, increasing the certainty that one of the cousins are dead but the reason is more cloudy than ever. There are so many possible motives, but none of them really seem strong enough for murder for the majority of the plot.

Kit Frick does a good job of building the family image, the prejudice, the backstory, and little bits of their history that made secret-keeping a Mayweather pastime. Money, lies, and family all come to head when characters begin to question what’s more important: the Mayweather name, money, or blood ties, and if losing all the benefits that come with being a Mayweather are worth killing for.

I enjoyed the mystery, the subtle clues, the red herrings that kept me guessing what lies were important and not just which Mayweather could be dead, but why.

There were five POVs. The characters each had their own characteristics, secrets, and issues they were dealing with but their voices weren’t as strong as I would have liked them to make them distinct or to make me care about who lived or died. The emotional connection wasn’t there for me.

The ending was a bit of a letdown. It hit the climax and crashed down so quickly, and then was resolved within a handful of pages. There’s definitely an opening for another book about the Mayweathers.

Overall, this was a fun read, perfect for relaxing on the beach or sunbathing by the pool.

ARC Review: What Happened on Hicks Road by Hannah Jayne

Goodreads/Amazon/B&N

Release Date: August 29, 2023

+++Post contains Amazon affiliate link

Synopsis

Those eyes. Wide. Ice blue. A swath of blond hair illuminated in headlights. Then, blackness.

Thump!

“We hit something.”

Lennox Oliver is loving her new life in California. For the first time, she feels normal. She has friends, and a maybe boyfriend and best of all no one knows the truth about her past and what happened to her mom.

But everything changes the night after a party when a drive on the supposedly haunted Hicks Road turns deadly and Lennox hits something…or someone.

Her friends say it was nothing, at worst, a deer in the road. But Lennox can’t shake the vision of the girl in the headlights: bloody hair, wide, terrified eyes, lips parted in a scream. When she goes out to investigate, there’s a slight dent in the car, but that’s it: no body, no blood.

Lennox wants to go to the police—but how can she? She shouldn’t have been driving, and as her friends remind her, there’s no evidence that she actually hit anything. All Lennox wants to do is go back to her boring, normal life. But when a note saying FIND ME is slipped through her window, she fears that there was a girl she hit on Hicks Road that night …or she’s slipping deeper into the illness that took her mother.

via Amazon

Review

3 Stars

***I received this ARC as a gift in exchange for an honest review via NetGalley & Sourcebooks Fire

Who doesn’t love urban legends? The kind of haunting and sinister tales locals whisper about on cold nights around campfires or with friends late at night. The kind of telephone game based on reality that evolves into something more grotesque and terrifying.

What Happened on Hicks Road is the subtle tingling heightening your senses. The underlying certainty that someone or something is watching, lurking in the shadows. This was a good, fast read. The kind of story that keeps you enthralled wondering how it’s going to end and questioning the narrator. Despite many problematic elements, I couldn’t put it down.

Let me preface this by saying that the Goodreads summary of this book has the main character under the name of Sadie, but in the version I read, her name is Lennox, so that’s how I will refer to her in this review.

The Hicks Road urban legends are real urban legends stemming from the San Jose area. There are many variations and tellings of these legends. For anyone who was interested in the legends, did a little research, and thought this would be a retelling based on local lore, you’re going to be disappointed. If you enter this book without those expectations, you’re in for something definitely chilling and mysterious, but lacking cannibals and vampires. The Hicks Road urban legends are an undercurrent running through this story. They’re the foundation of the setting and create a small town feeling where whispers of the ghostly and paranormal lurk down a dark road on the outskirts of town. The atmosphere is perfect. There are a few scenes that are jarring and creepy, adding to the thriller vibe.

Lennox Oliver is a new girl in town. She’s finally getting a sense of normalcy after moving countless times with her father for his job as a traveling nurse. She’s never had the opportunity to make good friends or even date. For the first time, she feels like she belongs, until a simple mistake leaves her reeling and questioning her sanity. Lennox is an interesting character with a strong voice. She’s artistic, funny, and honest with herself.

The most compelling aspect of this whole book is Lennox’s real fear of becoming her mother. Lennox’s raw, emotional feelings of being a ticking time bomb, questioning her own memory, reprimanding herself for her paranoia, all of these become an overwhelming weight on Lennox’s shoulders that she can’t escape. Hannah Jayne does a fantastic job of channeling these very real fears to make us question whether Lennox has a firm grip on reality. While this book does deal with mental health-specifically acute schizophrenia, there is not really a lot of discussion about the actual diagnosis. There are examples of what some behaviors can look like and the knowledge that it can be hereditary, but nothing to spur discussion or reduce the stigma around schizophrenia.

The characters all felt under explored. There were subtle things here and there to flesh them out, like an alcoholic parent or too many siblings or lists of their jobs, but not anything substantial. There could have been more development.

Much of the story centered on Lennox’s conviction that she did hit a person on Hicks Road and that she needed to find the body. While everyone else around her is dismissive, Lennox can’t rest until she knows for sure that she’s innocent, despite trying to forget and act “normal”. While some other readers considered this repetitive and too much, I felt like it helped build Lennox’s hysteria and increased the tension.

The ending. After hundreds of pages of questioning and uncertainty, the ending took a handful of pages. There was enough foreshadowing and hints sprinkled throughout to take some of the surprise out of the twist. It felt rushed and underwhelming. And if we’re being real, unfinished. The story basically ends on an incomplete conversation. I actually flipped to the next page expecting an epilogue or something, but it was just acknowledgements. Many things were left unresolved.

ARC Review: Gimmicks and Glamour by Lauren Melissa Ellzey

via Goodreads

Goodreads/Amazon/B&N

+++Contains Amazon affiliate link

Release Date: August 15, 2023

Synopsis

Ashly Harris has a secret she’s been keeping all her life.

To everyone else she’s just a seventeen-year-old party girl and problem senior at Hackley High School. She has always felt alone, and not just because she’s biracial and openly bisexual. Ashly sees faeries all around her, all the time. She has learned to hide her Sight, but that doesn’t change the fact that she is constantly taking the blame for the havoc that the faeries wreak. The only person who knows about Ashly’s ability is her eccentric, yet level-headed best friend, Caris, who might be playing along while also playing with Ashly’s feelings.

As Ashly speeds toward graduation with few future prospects on the horizon, she must protect the classmates she claims to hate from an evil that no one else sees.

Review

3 Stars

***I received this ARC as a gift in exchange for an honest review via NetGalley & Bold Strokes Books

+++This is an ARC so all quotes are subject to change before publication

“In some small way, faeries are a lot like humans, even if they would scoff at the thought. We are all a mess of struggle and triumphs. Whether through gimmicks or glamour, we are faking our way to good times”.

I had a hard time rating this book. It definitely packs a punch because it makes you think about how we shape our identity. The main character, Ashly, has such a strong and sometimes aggressive voice. She almost violently flips through her emotions because she is so full of anger and hurt and loneliness. She feels unaccepted and judged, like she can’t lift herself up from the ashes of all the bridges she’s burnt because people just make assumptions about her instead of giving her the benefit of a doubt. Ashly is navigating her unique identity as biracial, bisexual, and the fact that she sees faeries. On top of that, her identity is complicated by all the strong expectations of what people think she should be based on her physical appearance. Ashly pushes people away before they can get too close or she fully listens to their advice. She’s at the point where she thinks she’s heard it all before and no one takes a chance on her, so why should she even bother? It’s hard to be entirely on her side as an outsider looking in. She’s not initially a likable character, but she’s a real one. She’s messy and confused, and wading through all these perceived failures. She’s unabashedly herself and I appreciated that about her character.

The plot itself is simple. It could have used more development. It was almost like an afterthought at some moments. Ashly is so used to living with the faeries around her that they don’t really have a purpose other than causing her problems, and really it was only occasionally. It felt like the story was torn between wanting to be a modern fantasy or a contemporary and it became a tug of war for the the reader. There could have been more description. The story itself is fueled by character voice and powerful emotions, but really only for Ashly. The other characters needed to be more fleshed out. Jasmine was a stereotypical mean girl rival and Brad was a playboy jock. Everyone else paled in comparison because Ashly was so strongly written. Jasmine and Brad both showed more depth towards the end, but it was brief. For two characters that had a big impact on Ashly’s high school perspective, their true colors were summarized and needed more processing.

There were so many different faeries. I wanted more. I wanted description that could lift them from the pages and make them vibrant and bright in my mind, but maybe because Ashly wanted to avoid looking at them, the reader also wasn’t given a lot to go on and much of it was left to the imagination.

Caris is Ashly’s best friend and love interest. She’s a strange one. A little quirky, often in her own world. She is sarcastic and cryptic and sometimes sweet. For Ashly, she’s the world. She makes everything have meaning and spends her time waiting for the moments she can spend with Caris. As a character, Caris is not talkative. She doesn’t reveal a whole lot about herself and when she does, it’s in a matter of fact way. It seems like who Caris is and what she feels is at the surface level and largely based on how Ashly views her vs. Caris having her own voice. I couldn’t form any strong feelings about Caris.

Ashly and Caris do have some sweet moments. Ashly broadcasts her feelings so strongly that every touch, every kiss, is magnified tenfold.

I’m conflicted because I wanted to be more invested than I was. Everything was resolved pretty quickly, even things that should have been climactic. Had this story been a hundred pages longer, with more description and world-building, I think it would have kept me invested and interested in the characters.

If you’ve read this, let me know what you think.