Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.84 AVERAGE
3.84 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This feels like a one and done, but I could be wrong. Essentially, this end up being about a small band of kids who've been living in a mobile commune waking up to find that all the adult figures are gone, and them trying to figure out what the hell is happening, interspersed with some flashbacks. There are also a few moments of very direct fourth wall breaking that I'm still trying to parse how I feel about, but the lines that are used are amazing. Definitely worth your time this summer.
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
One-Sentence Review: _Fuck_ man.
Thank you to the publishers for providing me with this ARC through Netgalley! This review will, of course, be honest. I think 3 stars is the rating I'm going to land on, I enjoyed the book but there were definitely moments that lowered the rating for me:
I have to admit upfront that I was hesitant going into this, I've dnf-ed two other books by the author due to being unable to really get into them despite the cool concepts and worried that it would be the same with "We Can Never Leave". However! I did get into this! For the most part, I really enjoyed reading this book and the story that was being told. I've always found Edgmon's concepts for their stories to be really cool, and this was no different!
Overall, I thought the premise was really good. I enjoyed the chapters with the different perspectives and the "Before" chapters, I think they gave a nice touch to the worldbuilding and setting up everything that happened, well, before. I liked seeing the characters' perspectives of the events, I always enjoy when the cast of characters has a chapter for each view.
Of course, I said I enjoyed this for the most part. There were things I did not enjoy.
The thing that kept taking me out of the story being told was the author insertion moments where I was addressed directly. I genuinely think that something like that could be cool, but the way it was done just kept taking me out of the story every time it happened. Including lines like "No one is paying me to write a D.A.R.E. campaign" and "Okay, pause. Hello again, reader." (and frankly the entire section that follows that line specifically) just didn't ... vibe with the way the story was being told. Again, I do genuinely think that telling a story in this way and having the author be part of it like this could be cool, but the way this was done just really took me out of it. I think, sometimes, letting the reader think things for themself is good and you don't need to jump in as The Author and tell me what I should be thinking at this current moment.
Another thing that I can never get behind was the pop culture references. Don't get me wrong, I love Hozier, I am hopelessly addicted to TikTok, but making mention of that is ... a choice...! I had similar complaints with "The Witch King", though, so I guess I can't be too surprised that there are more pop culture references in this too.
I think the ending was ... interesting! Maybe dampened a little by all of the author notes about the specific character, but still interesting!
And for what it's worth, I liked Felix. I feel bad for him. For all of them, really, but for him.
All that to say, I did genuinely fine "We Can Never Leave" interesting and I'm glad I was hooked enough to actually finish it! In one sitting no less! Again, thank you to the publishers for reaching out to me with this ARC and thank you to Netgalley for making it available to me!
I have to admit upfront that I was hesitant going into this, I've dnf-ed two other books by the author due to being unable to really get into them despite the cool concepts and worried that it would be the same with "We Can Never Leave". However! I did get into this! For the most part, I really enjoyed reading this book and the story that was being told. I've always found Edgmon's concepts for their stories to be really cool, and this was no different!
Overall, I thought the premise was really good. I enjoyed the chapters with the different perspectives and the "Before" chapters, I think they gave a nice touch to the worldbuilding and setting up everything that happened, well, before. I liked seeing the characters' perspectives of the events, I always enjoy when the cast of characters has a chapter for each view.
Of course, I said I enjoyed this for the most part. There were things I did not enjoy.
The thing that kept taking me out of the story being told was the author insertion moments where I was addressed directly. I genuinely think that something like that could be cool, but the way it was done just kept taking me out of the story every time it happened. Including lines like "No one is paying me to write a D.A.R.E. campaign" and "Okay, pause. Hello again, reader." (and frankly the entire section that follows that line specifically) just didn't ... vibe with the way the story was being told. Again, I do genuinely think that telling a story in this way and having the author be part of it like this could be cool, but the way this was done just really took me out of it. I think, sometimes, letting the reader think things for themself is good and you don't need to jump in as The Author and tell me what I should be thinking at this current moment.
Another thing that I can never get behind was the pop culture references. Don't get me wrong, I love Hozier, I am hopelessly addicted to TikTok, but making mention of that is ... a choice...! I had similar complaints with "The Witch King", though, so I guess I can't be too surprised that there are more pop culture references in this too.
I think the ending was ... interesting! Maybe dampened a little by all of the author notes about the specific character, but still interesting!
And for what it's worth, I liked Felix. I feel bad for him. For all of them, really, but for him.
All that to say, I did genuinely fine "We Can Never Leave" interesting and I'm glad I was hooked enough to actually finish it! In one sitting no less! Again, thank you to the publishers for reaching out to me with this ARC and thank you to Netgalley for making it available to me!
I had high hopes for this book because I've read others by H. E. Edgmon. But alas, I stopped reading around the 27% mark. The book had a lot of intriguing ideas, and I liked the mysterious air of the book. I really liked how the characters had unique abilities too. But I couldn't get past the high level of anger that many of the characters carried. I read for escape and enjoyment, and having to read through all of their anger actually made me really anxious, and thus the reading experience wasn't enjoyable. I also really did not like the narration of this book. Ever chapter was told from 3rd person limited, but would switch to a different character every chapter. Then there were all their time jumps to the past to explain the backstories of the characters. The backstories were the most enjoyable part for me because they felt like a real plot. But then the book would jump to the present and whatever was happening in the present was weighed down by a slog of 3rd person internal dialogue. I was uninterested and bored with all of that, and it took away from what was actually happening in the moment. And then, the narration changed to 2nd person, and the narrator was talking directly to the reader, which I was not a fan of. That's when I said, "you know what, I don't have to finish this", and put the book down. There are too many good books out there to struggle through something you're not enjoying. So sorry, H. E. Edgmon, but this book wasn't it for me.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
So many questions and this answers none of them. The concept had so much potential but the execution fell short on many fronts.
~~Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC!~~
This one just . . . confused and bored me, to say the least.
The beginning was strong, with the adult disappearance set up and showcasing the group dynamics (i.e., everyone hating each other), but so much of the middle chunk is dedicated so much to poetic writing that made visualizing the scene very difficult for me. I can tell that there is something meaningful wrapped up in the pretty prose, themes regarding gender, sexuality, outcasts, humanity, etc., but nothing properly is given time to breath and explain. Plus, the rules of the Caravan and the society aren't fully explored and the whole issue just drops in on itself by the end.
I can be all for unlikable characters, especially when they're deeply traumatized like our leads here, but it just doesn't work for me here. It really doesn't help that the five separate POVs are being torn between the past and future in a little over 300 pages; so much is rushed through or not explained enough in order for me to clearly understand all these kids and their motivations. Besides the brief flashback snippets, we don't know anything about these characters other than they argue constantly, which makes them so stagnant and boring. The book keeps saying there's sexual tension / soul mate connection between Bird and Hugo, but I never thought that at all. Cal could have been more interesting if she was given the proper time, Eamon was barely there and felt borderline invisible, and Felix - the whole thing with him should have been properly developed more before the end; that's all I'll say.
There actually is something that elicited some passion in me, but all for the wrong reasons. In a couple chapters in Felix's POV, Edgmon, disguised as the narrator, straight up condescendingly explains the point of the story, and not so subtly foreshadows the ending, to the reader. I know people think YA readers are dumb and don't understand literary analysis, but I never would expect that attitude straight from a YA author. This really got on my nerves so much because I despise authors who look down on their reader base like that.
All in all, while it may be a well-intentioned book, the lack of story and character development really dragged it down. I'm probably gonna read whatever Edgmon outs out next, though.
This one just . . . confused and bored me, to say the least.
The beginning was strong, with the adult disappearance set up and showcasing the group dynamics (i.e., everyone hating each other), but so much of the middle chunk is dedicated so much to poetic writing that made visualizing the scene very difficult for me. I can tell that there is something meaningful wrapped up in the pretty prose, themes regarding gender, sexuality, outcasts, humanity, etc., but nothing properly is given time to breath and explain. Plus, the rules of the Caravan and the society aren't fully explored and the whole issue just drops in on itself by the end.
I can be all for unlikable characters, especially when they're deeply traumatized like our leads here, but it just doesn't work for me here. It really doesn't help that the five separate POVs are being torn between the past and future in a little over 300 pages; so much is rushed through or not explained enough in order for me to clearly understand all these kids and their motivations. Besides the brief flashback snippets, we don't know anything about these characters other than they argue constantly, which makes them so stagnant and boring. The book keeps saying there's sexual tension / soul mate connection between Bird and Hugo, but I never thought that at all. Cal could have been more interesting if she was given the proper time, Eamon was barely there and felt borderline invisible, and Felix - the whole thing with him should have been properly developed more before the end; that's all I'll say.
There actually is something that elicited some passion in me, but all for the wrong reasons. In a couple chapters in Felix's POV, Edgmon, disguised as the narrator, straight up condescendingly explains the point of the story, and not so subtly foreshadows the ending, to the reader. I know people think YA readers are dumb and don't understand literary analysis, but I never would expect that attitude straight from a YA author. This really got on my nerves so much because I despise authors who look down on their reader base like that.
All in all, while it may be a well-intentioned book, the lack of story and character development really dragged it down. I'm probably gonna read whatever Edgmon outs out next, though.
DNF @ 37% - 2 stars for a really strong concept
I think I just need to accept that this book is a DNF. At this point I’ve read three books since putting this one down and I’ve had no desire to pick this one back up. Honestly it’s such a shame because this story had such an interesting premise, but it was just not being executed well. I love the idea of group of kids that are basically fantasy creatures trying to solve the sudden and unexplainable disappearance of the rest of their people. The way the author made them half human half mythical beings was well done and seeing their internal struggles to accept either side of them was also very interesting. However, these personal struggles and the personal problems between all of the kids seemed to be completely overtaking the story. I really wanted to get into the plot and see them go on this adventure to get their families back, but instead we just got pages and pages of internal monologue. Based on other reviews this doesn’t seem to get better and the overall plot just kind of gets forgotten. For some books this may be fine, but personally I started finding the main characters incredibly annoying. They were just whining and whining the whole time about everything but never doing anything to fix it. Also, I know this is going to sound bad, but it started feeling like the diversity olympics. You know that meme “diversity final boss” and it’s that drawing of the solo polyamorous hijabi amputee? That’s what this book was. Each character was fighting to be even non-binary, non-cis, non-straight, non-white than the next. I 100% support diversity and it is absolutely necessary to see it in all of our media. These books filled with only straight, cis, white characters are extremely unrealistic and ultimately harmful to our perception of the world. But when that is all your book is about and it is not delivering on the actual plot it promises, then that becomes unrealistic. Identity is important, but people are more than their labels. They have personalities, they have complex relationships with others, they have goals and motivations, and they deserve to be seen as more than their outward appearance. If there was a good balance between these kids exploring their identities and an actual plot, then this wouldn’t be an issue, but as I said, the plot was abandoned.
And oh my god, don’t even get me started on the weird author interjections in some of the chapters. They were all so millennial-coded and I needed to put down the book for a little bit after every one. It was written so childishly that I would almost say this is a middle-grade book if it wasn’t for the few somewhat explicit scenes. There was just a really weird tonal difference from one scene to the next, which greatly disrupted the flow of the story.
Again, there was a really strong base here and the beginning of the book was really interesting, so I’ll give the book credit there, but I realized that what I enjoyed about the story was going nowhere and I needed to give up on it.
I think I just need to accept that this book is a DNF. At this point I’ve read three books since putting this one down and I’ve had no desire to pick this one back up. Honestly it’s such a shame because this story had such an interesting premise, but it was just not being executed well. I love the idea of group of kids that are basically fantasy creatures trying to solve the sudden and unexplainable disappearance of the rest of their people. The way the author made them half human half mythical beings was well done and seeing their internal struggles to accept either side of them was also very interesting. However, these personal struggles and the personal problems between all of the kids seemed to be completely overtaking the story. I really wanted to get into the plot and see them go on this adventure to get their families back, but instead we just got pages and pages of internal monologue. Based on other reviews this doesn’t seem to get better and the overall plot just kind of gets forgotten. For some books this may be fine, but personally I started finding the main characters incredibly annoying. They were just whining and whining the whole time about everything but never doing anything to fix it. Also, I know this is going to sound bad, but it started feeling like the diversity olympics. You know that meme “diversity final boss” and it’s that drawing of the solo polyamorous hijabi amputee? That’s what this book was. Each character was fighting to be even non-binary, non-cis, non-straight, non-white than the next. I 100% support diversity and it is absolutely necessary to see it in all of our media. These books filled with only straight, cis, white characters are extremely unrealistic and ultimately harmful to our perception of the world. But when that is all your book is about and it is not delivering on the actual plot it promises, then that becomes unrealistic. Identity is important, but people are more than their labels. They have personalities, they have complex relationships with others, they have goals and motivations, and they deserve to be seen as more than their outward appearance. If there was a good balance between these kids exploring their identities and an actual plot, then this wouldn’t be an issue, but as I said, the plot was abandoned.
And oh my god, don’t even get me started on the weird author interjections in some of the chapters. They were all so millennial-coded and I needed to put down the book for a little bit after every one. It was written so childishly that I would almost say this is a middle-grade book if it wasn’t for the few somewhat explicit scenes. There was just a really weird tonal difference from one scene to the next, which greatly disrupted the flow of the story.
Again, there was a really strong base here and the beginning of the book was really interesting, so I’ll give the book credit there, but I realized that what I enjoyed about the story was going nowhere and I needed to give up on it.
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Waking to find themselves all that remains of their traveling community of not-quite-humans, five teenagers work together, however begrudgingly and while trying to keep their secrets, to figure out what’s happened in H.E. Edgmon’s We Can Never Leave.
To read this, and other book reviews, visit my website: http://makinggoodstories.wordpress.com/.
A traveling community, the Caravan is a haven for the inhuman creatures found across the world, often abandoned, and with no memories of who they are or where they have come from; they may not be able to return to the lives they once led or reside alongside humans, but within the Caravan they find comfort in one another and build a form of home among those who are most like and most likely to understand them. When all but five members of the Caravan mysteriously disappear overnight, questions of what happened, what to do next, and why they were left behind hound those who remain: Bird, a half-human who has returned to the Caravan after attempting to live in the human world but shined too brightly; Hugo and Felix, brothers co-dependent upon one another with the former stirring up fiery trouble while the latter calms it; Calliope, a girl who craves affection but whose inhuman abilities leaves her venomously dangerous to others; and Eamon, a new addition to the Caravan whose memories are vague suggestions and disquieting like his shadows. Though their relationships are fraught with secrets, the five come to realize that they’re bound together, and while in close quarters their secrets surface, forcing them to confront what they’ve kept hidden and, in the process, it reveals that what happened is about them.
With a sense of mystery and magic woven throughout, a narrative builds by layering bits of the story as it’s currently developing with background from “Before” to provide deeper context for the kind of environment the Caravan is and provides as a haven, as well as the sort of beings who reside and find their way there, with both the Caravan and its people shrouded in secrets, some of which are dark and terrible. Chapters rotate through the five characters who remain from the Caravan as the story unfurls, with some additions that expand the scope, which includes a few other characters in “Before” chapters, notably Bird’s grandmother as a leader of the Caravan, and the author/narrator, who addresses the reader directly, which is intriguing but is done inconsistently and from only one character’s chapters so that it becomes incredibly suspicious, even beyond the words said, for that particular character’s involvement in the overall scenario – a fascinating premise with immense potential but the execution was lackluster. Thoroughly depicting an impression of yearning for acceptance and belonging at differing levels through the characters, each of whom is distinctly and/or visibly Other through their inhuman traits, they long for something that’s seemingly just out of their reach whether that be to fit in within the more traditional human world, attain the affection of another without traumatic complications, or simply understand their obscured origin and missing memories. Each character carries within them traumas, from first-hand experience or generationally inherited, to be confronted, and while the attitudes and behaviors they exhibit toward one another demonstrate an evident reluctance to openly discuss their secrets and burdens, perhaps for fear of the judgment they’ll face, the progress to understanding the mystery the five teenagers have found themselves in is reliant upon doing so, perhaps as a reflection of how sharing burdens with others can lessen the impact of the load you carry.
*I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
If you like your fantasy to be mainly character driven as opposed to plot, you might love it. It does feature multiple POV + flashbacks, found family, and queer characters!
This one probably just wasn't for me. The majority of the book is written as the different POV arguing with each other, and each POV sorta blended with the last. They are all rather unlikeable, and honestly, I think they all hate each other as well. There was essentially no plot, just a long journey and lots of tension from the constant arguing. I wanted to love this one, but it's just not my preferred type of fantasy. I truly appreciate the opportunity to read and review!
This one probably just wasn't for me. The majority of the book is written as the different POV arguing with each other, and each POV sorta blended with the last. They are all rather unlikeable, and honestly, I think they all hate each other as well. There was essentially no plot, just a long journey and lots of tension from the constant arguing. I wanted to love this one, but it's just not my preferred type of fantasy. I truly appreciate the opportunity to read and review!