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3.77 AVERAGE
3.77 AVERAGE
Ratings are so difficult to decide on...I think 4.25 stars?? Quarter stars make me feel crazy sometimes, but I'm just trying to be as accurate as possible.
I bought this book late last month and shelved it and couldn't stop staring at it. Every time I walked past my bookshelf, it caught my eye. I finally picked it up, deciding it would be a good slightly creepy October read.
I was so weirdly right about that. It has spells and possibly real magic and a lot of it happens at night, in the forest, on the rain, or a combination of those things.
The Irish countryside setting was an unexpected bonus. Maybe it's on the jacket? But I usually read summaries when I decide whether I want to read a book, then forget almost everything it says immediately. I think it's really fun to just jump into a story without really knowing where it will go. I wish I'd done that when I read The Valiant by Lesley Livingston, because the quote on the cover and the jacket summary give away just about everything in the damn book. But! I digress. I'm 25% Irish, a tiny bit German, and all the rest Italian. When I was little and we did heritage day type things, we always had to pick the thing we were the MOST and research/learn about that. After like 4+ years of reading about being Italian, I wanted to know about Ireland. But, of course, I always had to choose Italian. So needless to say, I love learning about Irish culture. I also love reading stories set in small towns in the south or midwest. I grew up in a suburb in northern New Jersey, just outside stupid NYC. I graduated high school in a class of 315 idiots, and there were some kids I barely knew - I just recognized their names. So small towns where everyone knows each other are really interesting. To me! I assume if that's your life, you would care to read about cities. Who knows.
WHY AM I NOT TALKING ABOUT THE BOOK?!?!
Semi-organized rambling about things I enjoyed:
• I like reading multiple perspectives. I typically struggle with first person present tense, but this was done really well. The one in past tense made lots of sense too. Hazel, Olive, and Laurel were all completely different narrators, and I had no trouble distinguishing between them. Hooray!
• Jude was such a pretentious douche. Laurel saw through him a bit, but also still fell under his spell for a while. I was much less interested in their stories once he showed up.
• Hazel is such a beautiful mess. She has all this guilt and regret and she does things she wants to stop doing but doesn't know how. Most characters like that make me angry because they feel more like symbols than real people. The token messed up friend. The kid from the wrong side of the tracks. Basically, this character seems like a cliche to me. I think it's the little things that make Hazel seem different. Her random tattoos that aren't at all random. How she falls in love too easily even though she's had almost no proper love in her life. When random strange girls show up in her life when it's raining and she keeps lending them her dry clothing without ever having been asked.
• Possible time travel?! Yes please. I wonder if the blond boy really was from the past. And if Olive's mom was the one kissing him before he disappeared, or if Olive was the one he was kissing.
• I don't know how to explain it, but I think Olive was my favorite. I loved Emily and Max, and all the dogs with food names, and her dad. Her dad! I love that he woke them all up every morning by throwing open their doors and reciting poetry. And EVEN MORE after reading the author's note/acknowledgements, I love knowing that there's an actual dad who did this.
• Seriously, read the author's notes always. Such good stuff in there.
• I loved that the author included "kill your darlings" in here...even though she did not, in fact, kill any of her own darlings.
• This feels like a slice of life type of story. Which, of course, I love. It's nice to see characters grow so much because of things that happen over the span of about ten days(?). But I also like the mystery. Who knows what will happen after the end of this book?
• I like the random questions left unanswered. Did the blond boy stay, or was Olive just seeing a flash of the past like when she saw the oak tree? What happened to Cathal and does anyone actually care if he's dead or missing? (Lol for real though). Are they ever going to tell Ivy that Hazel and Rowan are her half siblings? Did Ash (and Holly?) actually recover and pull their shit together?
• The dialogue was believable. Teenagers say "like" all the time. And sometimes they say really clever, witty things that should always be in books! It was done well. No one sounded pretentious or precocious except stupid Jude. Seriously.
• Olive's rant on page 228 about virginity:
"Why doesn't everyone understand that the very idea of virginity is a hetero-patriarchal concept invented to make women fee bad about sex"
was hysterical and spot-on. High five, Olive. Extra high five to Rowan for going along with it, lol.
Things I didn't love:
• All the sexy times. They were brief, and not too cringey. I was invested in the relationships!! Which is rare. But it seemed like everyone was kissing and then suddenly they're almost or completely naked?? That's not at all how my teenage relationships went.
• Probably this is just a me thing, like I said about my relationships. But I was a good kid - a good teenager. I'm not just saying that. I read books and never snuck out. I didn't even know drinking alcohol was a thing you could do in high school. And I certainly didn't have sex or even think about actually wanting to. Maybe it's just me being a 33 year old still pretty tame in my debauchery, but I have trouble relating to teenagers who were so drastically different than I was at that age. It's tricky because I'm interested, but I still find it unbelievable in a way. *shrug*
• Casual inclusion of rape and abuse and being in love with someone who you might later find out is your half sister?! I just wasn't ready. I guess the genre is really just fantastical contemporary. But I like my magical realism books more on the magical side than the real one. Again, just personal preference.
Overall, a really enjoyable read! Slightly creepy but with depth. Just enough magic to make things confusing and interesting. And delightfully messed up characters who I adored. I'd highly recommend this one!! 😊
I bought this book late last month and shelved it and couldn't stop staring at it. Every time I walked past my bookshelf, it caught my eye. I finally picked it up, deciding it would be a good slightly creepy October read.
I was so weirdly right about that. It has spells and possibly real magic and a lot of it happens at night, in the forest, on the rain, or a combination of those things.
The Irish countryside setting was an unexpected bonus. Maybe it's on the jacket? But I usually read summaries when I decide whether I want to read a book, then forget almost everything it says immediately. I think it's really fun to just jump into a story without really knowing where it will go. I wish I'd done that when I read The Valiant by Lesley Livingston, because the quote on the cover and the jacket summary give away just about everything in the damn book. But! I digress. I'm 25% Irish, a tiny bit German, and all the rest Italian. When I was little and we did heritage day type things, we always had to pick the thing we were the MOST and research/learn about that. After like 4+ years of reading about being Italian, I wanted to know about Ireland. But, of course, I always had to choose Italian. So needless to say, I love learning about Irish culture. I also love reading stories set in small towns in the south or midwest. I grew up in a suburb in northern New Jersey, just outside stupid NYC. I graduated high school in a class of 315 idiots, and there were some kids I barely knew - I just recognized their names. So small towns where everyone knows each other are really interesting. To me! I assume if that's your life, you would care to read about cities. Who knows.
WHY AM I NOT TALKING ABOUT THE BOOK?!?!
Semi-organized rambling about things I enjoyed:
• I like reading multiple perspectives. I typically struggle with first person present tense, but this was done really well. The one in past tense made lots of sense too. Hazel, Olive, and Laurel were all completely different narrators, and I had no trouble distinguishing between them. Hooray!
• Jude was such a pretentious douche. Laurel saw through him a bit, but also still fell under his spell for a while. I was much less interested in their stories once he showed up.
• Hazel is such a beautiful mess. She has all this guilt and regret and she does things she wants to stop doing but doesn't know how. Most characters like that make me angry because they feel more like symbols than real people. The token messed up friend. The kid from the wrong side of the tracks. Basically, this character seems like a cliche to me. I think it's the little things that make Hazel seem different. Her random tattoos that aren't at all random. How she falls in love too easily even though she's had almost no proper love in her life. When random strange girls show up in her life when it's raining and she keeps lending them her dry clothing without ever having been asked.
• Possible time travel?! Yes please. I wonder if the blond boy really was from the past. And if Olive's mom was the one kissing him before he disappeared, or if Olive was the one he was kissing.
• I don't know how to explain it, but I think Olive was my favorite. I loved Emily and Max, and all the dogs with food names, and her dad. Her dad! I love that he woke them all up every morning by throwing open their doors and reciting poetry. And EVEN MORE after reading the author's note/acknowledgements, I love knowing that there's an actual dad who did this.
• Seriously, read the author's notes always. Such good stuff in there.
• I loved that the author included "kill your darlings" in here...even though she did not, in fact, kill any of her own darlings.
• This feels like a slice of life type of story. Which, of course, I love. It's nice to see characters grow so much because of things that happen over the span of about ten days(?). But I also like the mystery. Who knows what will happen after the end of this book?
• I like the random questions left unanswered. Did the blond boy stay, or was Olive just seeing a flash of the past like when she saw the oak tree? What happened to Cathal and does anyone actually care if he's dead or missing? (Lol for real though). Are they ever going to tell Ivy that Hazel and Rowan are her half siblings? Did Ash (and Holly?) actually recover and pull their shit together?
• The dialogue was believable. Teenagers say "like" all the time. And sometimes they say really clever, witty things that should always be in books! It was done well. No one sounded pretentious or precocious except stupid Jude. Seriously.
• Olive's rant on page 228 about virginity:
"Why doesn't everyone understand that the very idea of virginity is a hetero-patriarchal concept invented to make women fee bad about sex"
was hysterical and spot-on. High five, Olive. Extra high five to Rowan for going along with it, lol.
Things I didn't love:
• All the sexy times. They were brief, and not too cringey. I was invested in the relationships!! Which is rare. But it seemed like everyone was kissing and then suddenly they're almost or completely naked?? That's not at all how my teenage relationships went.
• Probably this is just a me thing, like I said about my relationships. But I was a good kid - a good teenager. I'm not just saying that. I read books and never snuck out. I didn't even know drinking alcohol was a thing you could do in high school. And I certainly didn't have sex or even think about actually wanting to. Maybe it's just me being a 33 year old still pretty tame in my debauchery, but I have trouble relating to teenagers who were so drastically different than I was at that age. It's tricky because I'm interested, but I still find it unbelievable in a way. *shrug*
• Casual inclusion of rape and abuse and being in love with someone who you might later find out is your half sister?! I just wasn't ready. I guess the genre is really just fantastical contemporary. But I like my magical realism books more on the magical side than the real one. Again, just personal preference.
Overall, a really enjoyable read! Slightly creepy but with depth. Just enough magic to make things confusing and interesting. And delightfully messed up characters who I adored. I'd highly recommend this one!! 😊
adventurous
Actual rating: 3.5
It took me awhile to get into this book when I started it. I picked this book up as an audiobook, and honestly I think that might've been a mistake. It wasn't an issue of narrator, I happened to enjoy all the separate narrators for the different points of view. But I had a hard time getting all the characters straight, and I think being able to read the words physically on a page would've helped that. Each main character is named after a type of tree or another plant found in nature (there's Ivy, Hazel, Rowan, Olive, Rose, Ash, Laurel and Holly). While listening to the audiobook they all kind of got jumbled together and I'd have to pause and regroup to figure out who was connected to who.
But there's this plot twist about 3/4 of the way through and OH MY GOD it rocked my world. I loved it so much. I really enjoy magical realism and Moira Fowley-Doyle did it extremely well in this book, and now I'm interested to pick up her other book (which I believe is also magical realism, but I could be wrong). The cast of characters is diverse and fun to read about and overall I really enjoyed this story, and I do recommend it, just maybe not the audiobook.
It took me awhile to get into this book when I started it. I picked this book up as an audiobook, and honestly I think that might've been a mistake. It wasn't an issue of narrator, I happened to enjoy all the separate narrators for the different points of view. But I had a hard time getting all the characters straight, and I think being able to read the words physically on a page would've helped that. Each main character is named after a type of tree or another plant found in nature (there's Ivy, Hazel, Rowan, Olive, Rose, Ash, Laurel and Holly). While listening to the audiobook they all kind of got jumbled together and I'd have to pause and regroup to figure out who was connected to who.
But there's this plot twist about 3/4 of the way through and OH MY GOD it rocked my world. I loved it so much. I really enjoy magical realism and Moira Fowley-Doyle did it extremely well in this book, and now I'm interested to pick up her other book (which I believe is also magical realism, but I could be wrong). The cast of characters is diverse and fun to read about and overall I really enjoyed this story, and I do recommend it, just maybe not the audiobook.
”Embrace the unexplained. Embrace the uncertain. Embrace the magic.”
4 stars
TW: toxic relationship, sexual assault
Rep: f/f relationship, fat side character, bisexual & hard of hearing MC, bi side character, lesbian & indigenous MC
review also available here
This book was recommended to me when I asked for f/f books and this book definitely delivers on that front. But it also delivers on so many other fronts that it's hard to keep track. The writing is atmospheric, the setting is magical, the characters are all so beautifully fleshed out. Everyone needs to read this. NOW.
The Writing
The writing was lush and lyrical and so so atmospheric. I absolutely loved the way it managed to convey the story’s feelings. There were also times, however, when I found that the additional description was not necessary and rather made the story drag a bit, turning it a bit more boring. I would have appreciated less detail in some parts because I don’t exactly always want to know the exact color of the leaves and the exact mixture of scents in the air. It’s a matter of finding that balance, and here, at least for me, that balance was missing.
The Plot/Pacing
As a result of the writing sometimes being overly descriptive, the plot did drag a bit in the beginning and I found it hard to get into at first. Additionally, you don’t really understand what’s happening in the beginning, so it gets more confusing when it’s paired up with the overly detailed writing. HOWEVER, once you get a bit into the book and you finally start understanding the magic system and how it works and how the different stories all twine together, you get so invested in the story that it’s actually impossible to put the book down. Additionally, we get multiple slow burn romances in here, which was such a joy to see for someone who appreciates slow burn romances way too much for my own good. And the fact that one of them was a sapphic romance? FUCK YEAH!! Also, I’m absolutely in love with both of the girls in that ship, but that’s completely irrelevant. Oh, also, this book is set in IRELAND!!! And the plot twists in this book,,, I,,, was shocked.
The Characters
All of the characters were a) so diverse and b) so different from one and another and c) so different from typical YA characters. Each of them has something to deal with, something they need to get over, or something they need to come to terms with. The way multiple heavy subjects are explored through different characters and the way the topics of self-hate, not being defined by your parents, etc. are handled was so well done and I love it. Also, two leads are sapphic girls. And we have a sapphic side character. Two of the three identify as bisexual and it’s ON PAGE!! And one of them ends up in an f/f relationship and the other one ends up in an m/f relationship and it was so nice to see that they never questioned their bisexuality and no one accused them of being “fake bisexuals” and I’m so in love with this rep, I love it so much. It was just really nice to see a bisexual girl end up in a relationship with a guy and still identify as bi. Okay, rant over.
The relationship between the characters were all so well developed and the characters themselves went through so much growth and I loved seeing it so much.
Overall
This book was creepy and atmospheric and absolutely beautiful and the characters were amazing and I will recommend this book to everyone ever until the day that I die.
~~~
This was a creepy little book and I loved it very much.
it's irish, has gays & magic what more can you ask
Absolutely phenomenal. I love the mix of fantastical imagery and this absolutely gorgeous style of writing. The way that she blends fantasy and reality is simply astounding.
Also I loved how all the threads of different stories end up intertwining and it just draws you into this other world of mystery, magic and secrets.
To sum up, this is another brilliant book from the dark horse of YA.
Also I loved how all the threads of different stories end up intertwining and it just draws you into this other world of mystery, magic and secrets.
To sum up, this is another brilliant book from the dark horse of YA.
This book was so intense! I'd heard people say it was good and was hooked by page 9. From then on, whenever I had any sort of break, I read and devoured this fantastic book in about six hours. The plot (or plots) are compelling and spellbinding while the characters are realistic, diverse and so beautiful! Certain parts of this book had me jumping (especially Mags- she spooked the hell out of me) which made it the perfect read for nearly Halloween.
I have no complaints at all about this book (though that may just be how fast I read it). It was a richly woven, intense and beautiful book and I recommend anyone who likes magic, mystery and a touch of creepiness to put it on their tbr list.
I have no complaints at all about this book (though that may just be how fast I read it). It was a richly woven, intense and beautiful book and I recommend anyone who likes magic, mystery and a touch of creepiness to put it on their tbr list.
I don't even think I have the right words to describe this book. It was so weird but super cool and unique.
It took me a while to get into the story though. It is told from the perspectives of three girls who have no relations with each other. Throughout the story, they all come together and it was really neat. I was surprised quite a few times.
This book reminded me a lot of the Raven Cycle. I haven't read All the Crooked Saints yet, but I think it is similar. It isn't the plot that makes them similar though. It is the feeling and the way that the book is written. It's the weird paranormal thing where everything is so real but you know that there is some kind of magic going on. Of course, that obviously comes along with a book about a bunch of teenagers who find a Spell book. I think the best way to describe how I felt while reading was enchanted. All of the characters (have names that are plants) were so compelling and I loved all of them. Although I didn't really think Ivy was too important. For a lot of the time, it seemed like she didn't have a personal investment in the lost things and she kind of just existed.
I love the idea of lost things. The book description wasn't exaggerating when it says that everybody lost something. I love how their is a full range of lost things from mundane objects like a silver hair clip to diary pages all the way to something like virginity and abstract things like a train of thought or a mother's trust. I loved how the lost and found things were woven throughout the entire story.
The book also takes place in Ireland where they have different phonetics. There is one person who ended up being an important character and I didn't know how to pronounce their name. I feel like if I did know how to say it, I would have been able to guess the 'plot twist' sooner.
It took me a while to get into the story though. It is told from the perspectives of three girls who have no relations with each other. Throughout the story, they all come together and it was really neat. I was surprised quite a few times.
This book reminded me a lot of the Raven Cycle. I haven't read All the Crooked Saints yet, but I think it is similar. It isn't the plot that makes them similar though. It is the feeling and the way that the book is written. It's the weird paranormal thing where everything is so real but you know that there is some kind of magic going on. Of course, that obviously comes along with a book about a bunch of teenagers who find a Spell book. I think the best way to describe how I felt while reading was enchanted. All of the characters (have names that are plants) were so compelling and I loved all of them. Although I didn't really think Ivy was too important. For a lot of the time, it seemed like she didn't have a personal investment in the lost things and she kind of just existed.
I love the idea of lost things. The book description wasn't exaggerating when it says that everybody lost something. I love how their is a full range of lost things from mundane objects like a silver hair clip to diary pages all the way to something like virginity and abstract things like a train of thought or a mother's trust. I loved how the lost and found things were woven throughout the entire story.
The book also takes place in Ireland where they have different phonetics. There is one person who ended up being an important character and I didn't know how to pronounce their name. I feel like if I did know how to say it, I would have been able to guess the 'plot twist' sooner.