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mistydawnwaters's review against another edition
5.0
Incredible
This tale was impressive and gripping, start to finish. I'm dying to spend more time in Sparrow with its atmospheric mystery and charm. This is one of those books I'll be reading over and over again.
This tale was impressive and gripping, start to finish. I'm dying to spend more time in Sparrow with its atmospheric mystery and charm. This is one of those books I'll be reading over and over again.
mokleberry's review against another edition
5.0
I loved this book! The story was fun and paced really well. I loved the characters. There were good twists and turns. I cried and literally yelled NO WAY at one point. There is one super mild sex scene. But there were probably about half a dozen f-bombs. That's really my only complaint which is why it still gets 5 stars.
aseaofbirds's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
fast-paced
- Diverse cast of characters? No
2.5
would say it’s “too YA”, but not in a bad way - soft, careful and naive story; neatly written and performed. nothing too deep, can be read very quickly - although I think it’s too repetitive in most instances (going through sisters’ story again and again, constant reminders throughout chapters) and also the romance part is so so rushed it doesn’t feel real…
harleyrae's review against another edition
3.0
Overall I enjoyed this book, but I had guessed just about everything from the very beginning.
qkat's review against another edition
5.0
A beautifully written story about witches, murders that spanned over 200 years and a love story that broke my heart. I couldn’t put it down. A fast, but magical must read.
nitzanschwarz's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This book had the potential to be incredible, but the last 30 percent undid a lot of that.
Let's start with what I liked about it. I absolutely loved the writing and the atmosphere. With her words, Ernshaw crafts a town that is dreary yet alive. For better or worse. While reading, I could feel the veil of darkness, death, and hatred fall upon me as certainly as it did the town of Sparrow. The secrets and mysteries of Sparrow haunted me to solve them just as they did Bo.
I haven't read many YA novels for the last few years, mostly because many of those I tried felt excessively young to me in their writing. The curse of getting older, I guess. The Wicked Deep didn't have that problem. Not because it dealt with mature themes--though it certainly did--but because of how it was written.
But what problems did this novel have?
Well, for starters, the romance in this novel is very much an insta-love. It's among the better cases of this trite trope, but I still didn't like it. Our heroine, Penny, and her beu Bo have known each other for mere weeks. At first, it was okay because Ernshaw wasn't making them wax poetry about each other. She didn't (initially) make it, in her writing, into life-altering, all-consuming emotions, which is the worst part about insta-love in my mind. Yet.
By the end of these weeks, they speak of love, love strong enough tobreak a 200-year-old curse, to cure a vengeful spirit from her desire for revenge, to tether a boy to a bleak small town for life . And that's where this romance broke apart for me because I didn't believe that.
But there were worse things I didn't believe by the end of this book. In the spirit of full disclosure, I spoiled myself on a significant twist relatively early on, which gave me the pleasure of noticing many of the clues Ernshaw had woven in while reading. This part was highly enjoyable. However, I didn't really know how this twist was going to be written, and in the end, I don't think it was written well.
For this twist to work, this book needed to have been written in third person POV. But it wasn't, making it contrived.If Hazel had been our main character for the majority of our story, why is she pretending in her head to be someone else? It makes no sense that her thoughts would hide her identity just for the sake of a shocking reveal. It would make no sense for her to talk as Penny while being fully aware of being Hazal.
I had thought that perhaps we would find out that Penny and Hazel had merged three years ago, that she never returned to the sea when she was supposed to, and that Hazel was present—but certainly not at the helm the whole time—resulting in this beautiful mix of subconscious thoughts and clues throughout Penny's narrative. That would have been brilliant. But once the truth — that Hazal had been our MC almost all along — was revealed, everything suddenly felt so forced and contrived.
I guess Ernshaw tried to address it somewhat, but I'm sorry. No amount of "I tend to have a hard time separating myself from my host" nonsense could excuse this. Why weren't we seeing her freaking out upon learning she had killed his brother? Why was she talking about the Swan Sisters — about Hazal — not as her sisters and herself in her own mind? Why was she hiding the fact she had killed Penny's father... all in her own head! It simply doesn't make sense.
While this was my major qualm with the novel, I did have several smaller ones by the end that would've felt less critical if I hadn't been so disappointed by the twist. For example, for a book all about a cursed town that even ventures into the past's POV, we get shockingly little about the curse. How did it happen? Why did it manifest as it did? I mean, were the sisters forced to kill, which is what the story alluded to, and if so - why? Why does it break the way it did?
We also learn little about the sisters and their bond. We are told that they were very devoted to each other in life, but we see a completely different image of them in the present Sparrow. What led to this fracture between them? Many things are shallowly explored, if at all.
That said, I did enjoy this novel, and I am certainly interested in reading more from Ernshaw.
Let's start with what I liked about it. I absolutely loved the writing and the atmosphere. With her words, Ernshaw crafts a town that is dreary yet alive. For better or worse. While reading, I could feel the veil of darkness, death, and hatred fall upon me as certainly as it did the town of Sparrow. The secrets and mysteries of Sparrow haunted me to solve them just as they did Bo.
I haven't read many YA novels for the last few years, mostly because many of those I tried felt excessively young to me in their writing. The curse of getting older, I guess. The Wicked Deep didn't have that problem. Not because it dealt with mature themes--though it certainly did--but because of how it was written.
But what problems did this novel have?
Well, for starters, the romance in this novel is very much an insta-love. It's among the better cases of this trite trope, but I still didn't like it. Our heroine, Penny, and her beu Bo have known each other for mere weeks. At first, it was okay because Ernshaw wasn't making them wax poetry about each other. She didn't (initially) make it, in her writing, into life-altering, all-consuming emotions, which is the worst part about insta-love in my mind. Yet.
By the end of these weeks, they speak of love, love strong enough to
But there were worse things I didn't believe by the end of this book. In the spirit of full disclosure, I spoiled myself on a significant twist relatively early on, which gave me the pleasure of noticing many of the clues Ernshaw had woven in while reading. This part was highly enjoyable. However, I didn't really know how this twist was going to be written, and in the end, I don't think it was written well.
For this twist to work, this book needed to have been written in third person POV. But it wasn't, making it contrived.
I had thought that perhaps we would find out that Penny and Hazel had merged three years ago, that she never returned to the sea when she was supposed to, and that Hazel was present—but certainly not at the helm the whole time—resulting in this beautiful mix of subconscious thoughts and clues throughout Penny's narrative. That would have been brilliant.
I guess Ernshaw tried to address it somewhat, but I'm sorry. No amount of
While this was my major qualm with the novel, I did have several smaller ones by the end that would've felt less critical if I hadn't been so disappointed by the twist. For example, for a book all about a cursed town that even ventures into the past's POV, we get shockingly little about the curse. How did it happen? Why did it manifest as it did?
We also learn little about the sisters and their bond. We are told that they were very devoted to each other in life, but we see a completely different image of them in the present Sparrow. What led to this fracture between them? Many things are shallowly explored, if at all.
That said, I did enjoy this novel, and I am certainly interested in reading more from Ernshaw.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death and Murder
Minor: Sexual content
ifollowedthatrabbit's review against another edition
4.0
Ha sido una grata sorpresa. No me lo esperaba. Definitivamente me ha gustado mucho. Cada vez que retomaba su lectura no podía parar de leer.
La historia en sí me ha parecido original e interesante, pero sobre todo la historia de las hermanas Swan.
Creo que muy pronto leeré el otro libro de esta autora: [b:Winterwood|43822698|Winterwood|Shea Ernshaw|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1549309592l/43822698._SY75_.jpg|62284064].
La historia en sí me ha parecido original e interesante, pero sobre todo la historia de las hermanas Swan.
Creo que muy pronto leeré el otro libro de esta autora: [b:Winterwood|43822698|Winterwood|Shea Ernshaw|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1549309592l/43822698._SY75_.jpg|62284064].