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3.45 AVERAGE
3.45 AVERAGE
Not a fan. Greer was annoying, she kept (wrongly) changing her mind about obvious things and that was frustrating. She kept pointing out how bad a feminist she was and how she knew she shouldn't do things but did them anyway... and I get that humans are flawed and so it's okay that characters make the wrong decisions but I think that Greer is SO completely wrong all of the time and even though she knew that and she did it anyway that frustrated me - there was no growth to her character, as soon as you think oh look she's learned from her mistakes that's good, she goes and undoes it all and trusts the wrong people again.
However I do think that Henry's character is written brilliantly. He was perfectly despicable, and exactly right in his old-money culty ways. The descriptions of Longcross and the Huntin' Shootin' Fishin' was good, and the story itself could be quite enjoyable, it's just an unlikeable main character that lets it down. Definitely had potential to be great but falls quite short.
Finally there is no resolution at the end? I felt like it all wrapped up nicely and quickly - too good to be true! And then a cliffhanger of an ending on the final page, but it was rushed and felt like it was left open just for a sequel that is completely unnecessary.
So much potential that it just didn't quite reach unfortunately!
However I do think that Henry's character is written brilliantly. He was perfectly despicable, and exactly right in his old-money culty ways. The descriptions of Longcross and the Huntin' Shootin' Fishin' was good, and the story itself could be quite enjoyable, it's just an unlikeable main character that lets it down. Definitely had potential to be great but falls quite short.
Finally there is no resolution at the end? I felt like it all wrapped up nicely and quickly - too good to be true! And then a cliffhanger of an ending on the final page, but it was rushed and felt like it was left open just for a sequel that is completely unnecessary.
So much potential that it just didn't quite reach unfortunately!
TL;DR – There was way too much clumsy foreshadowing. The plot wasn’t as exciting as it initially sounded. Characters were just…meh. Pass.
I had pretty high hopes for this book. If you’ve been reading my blog, you know that I have a strangely specific passion for books about unique boarding schools. This book also sounded like it had some Hunger Games elements to it so I was all in. Unfortunately, I don’t think that the writing was up to par the entire time and the plot was a little weak.
The way the book is written, Greer is essentially narrating the events to the reader. She drops a lot of “hints” throughout the book as to what is actually happening. But instead of creating suspense, as maybe the author hoped, it destroys it and becomes more than a little annoying. There is a time and a place to use foreshadowing effectively, but it was just too heavy-handed in this book–not at all subtle and definitely overkill. Greer keeps referencing how the weekend ends and she makes it seem like a really big deal. By the time we actually get to that point, I was a little let down. It almost didn’t seem like as big a deal as Greer had made it out to be throughout the book.
Like I said earlier, the plot was intriguing to me going in, but once I was actually in the book, it started to make less sense. I understand how the entire plot comes together in the end, but it still seems a little bit of a stretch–just not very believable. I’m not saying that every plot has to be super believable, but in this case, a believable plot would have made the book seem a lot more interesting. I don’t want to get too much into it because of spoilers, but I feel like this same plot could have been done in a much more intriguing and clever way.
The characters themselves were just okay. I don’t really feel like any of them were fully fleshed-out, not even Greer. That made it hard to really care for any of them. It didn’t really matter to me if they made it out alive or not. I think it would have been a lot more interesting if Greer hadn’t been the object of a certain character’s affections. The author made it seem like he might like someone else at the beginning and I think following through with that would have been a lot more unexpected and interesting. And wouldn’t have had a huge impact on the story line.
Overall, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this book. There were so many parts of it that just dragged. I was really hoping this book would be so much better than it was.
Overall Rating: 2
Language: Moderate
Violence: Moderate
Smoking/Drinking: Moderate
Sexual Content: None
Note: I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Read more of my reviews on my blog!
I had pretty high hopes for this book. If you’ve been reading my blog, you know that I have a strangely specific passion for books about unique boarding schools. This book also sounded like it had some Hunger Games elements to it so I was all in. Unfortunately, I don’t think that the writing was up to par the entire time and the plot was a little weak.
The way the book is written, Greer is essentially narrating the events to the reader. She drops a lot of “hints” throughout the book as to what is actually happening. But instead of creating suspense, as maybe the author hoped, it destroys it and becomes more than a little annoying. There is a time and a place to use foreshadowing effectively, but it was just too heavy-handed in this book–not at all subtle and definitely overkill. Greer keeps referencing how the weekend ends and she makes it seem like a really big deal. By the time we actually get to that point, I was a little let down. It almost didn’t seem like as big a deal as Greer had made it out to be throughout the book.
Like I said earlier, the plot was intriguing to me going in, but once I was actually in the book, it started to make less sense. I understand how the entire plot comes together in the end, but it still seems a little bit of a stretch–just not very believable. I’m not saying that every plot has to be super believable, but in this case, a believable plot would have made the book seem a lot more interesting. I don’t want to get too much into it because of spoilers, but I feel like this same plot could have been done in a much more intriguing and clever way.
The characters themselves were just okay. I don’t really feel like any of them were fully fleshed-out, not even Greer. That made it hard to really care for any of them. It didn’t really matter to me if they made it out alive or not. I think it would have been a lot more interesting if Greer hadn’t been the object of a certain character’s affections. The author made it seem like he might like someone else at the beginning and I think following through with that would have been a lot more unexpected and interesting. And wouldn’t have had a huge impact on the story line.
Overall, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this book. There were so many parts of it that just dragged. I was really hoping this book would be so much better than it was.
Overall Rating: 2
Language: Moderate
Violence: Moderate
Smoking/Drinking: Moderate
Sexual Content: None
Note: I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Read more of my reviews on my blog!
Would've given this book 3 stars if it hadn't been for some personal issues I had with it, and the way too many unnecessary movie references.
Huntin' Shootin' Fishin'
I love love love boarding school young adult books. I wanted to be a school boarder when I was younger - don't ask me why, I think it was to do with all of the midnight feasts I was promised with Enid Blyton that probably would never happen in real life - and I'm still fascinated with the idea of living at school during the week or even during the term.
I'm also a huge fan of mystery books set in schools, including clique style mysteries such as Pretty Little Liars and the Privilege series by Kate Brian. With this in mind, once I saw S.T.A.G.S on the shelf of my local bookstore, I snapped it up, hoping to be dragged into a world of suspenseful school mystery.
It was strange that almost immediately, the main characters leave the school and the majority of the action takes place at one of the popular students' estate during a weekend away. I was hoping for there to be a little bit more based in the school. But instead we are thrust into the fabulous home of Henry, where technology doesn't exist and there are no adults to monitor the kids, only servants to offer their services throughout the weekend.
Greer and two other lower ranking students are invited to Longcross, where they are promised the chance to up their popularity and perhaps become 'Medievals' in the school next year (similar to school prefects, I guess.) However, instead of this being a fun weekend of upper class jollys, things take a frightening turn and Greer and her new friends have to work out whether they are the hunters or the hunted.
I mostly enjoyed this book. I found the start to be a little slow at times, and I was hoping for a little more action to hook me as the reader in. However, I do no regret pursuing this, as I felt like the story kicked in towards a third of the way through and continued right up until the very end. In fact the twist right at the end was brilliantly done, even though I had a small inkling that it would happen (although it did surprise me as I thought the time for the twist had come and gone!) and I thought it was so good I bumped the book up a whole star rating.
My main issue was with the character of Greer. I hate to judge books by their main characters, as I feel like sometimes they are not supposed to be likable. But Greer clearly is. And so, some things she does and says really annoyed me. For example, she was constantly comparing every situation to films she had seen - I don't know if, in that situation, that would be one of the first things I'd think to do, and I'm a bit of a film buff myself. There's a real chance she and her friends might die and in her head is a commentary from a film she watched years ago. Why? Also, I didn't like the way she kept saying she was a bad feminist. She was a rubbish feminist because the first thing she noticed about a guy was that he was hot... What does that have to do with feminism? Or humanism? That's just appreciation, in my opinion. If you call yourself a feminist or a humanist or whatever, you still find people attractive as that is just human nature.
Apart from Greer getting on my nerves at points, overall I found the story to be fun and fast paced after a slow start and I am massively looking forward to checking out the next book in the series. That twist has got me hooked!
I love love love boarding school young adult books. I wanted to be a school boarder when I was younger - don't ask me why, I think it was to do with all of the midnight feasts I was promised with Enid Blyton that probably would never happen in real life - and I'm still fascinated with the idea of living at school during the week or even during the term.
I'm also a huge fan of mystery books set in schools, including clique style mysteries such as Pretty Little Liars and the Privilege series by Kate Brian. With this in mind, once I saw S.T.A.G.S on the shelf of my local bookstore, I snapped it up, hoping to be dragged into a world of suspenseful school mystery.
It was strange that almost immediately, the main characters leave the school and the majority of the action takes place at one of the popular students' estate during a weekend away. I was hoping for there to be a little bit more based in the school. But instead we are thrust into the fabulous home of Henry, where technology doesn't exist and there are no adults to monitor the kids, only servants to offer their services throughout the weekend.
Greer and two other lower ranking students are invited to Longcross, where they are promised the chance to up their popularity and perhaps become 'Medievals' in the school next year (similar to school prefects, I guess.) However, instead of this being a fun weekend of upper class jollys, things take a frightening turn and Greer and her new friends have to work out whether they are the hunters or the hunted.
I mostly enjoyed this book. I found the start to be a little slow at times, and I was hoping for a little more action to hook me as the reader in. However, I do no regret pursuing this, as I felt like the story kicked in towards a third of the way through and continued right up until the very end. In fact the twist right at the end was brilliantly done, even though I had a small inkling that it would happen (although it did surprise me as I thought the time for the twist had come and gone!) and I thought it was so good I bumped the book up a whole star rating.
My main issue was with the character of Greer. I hate to judge books by their main characters, as I feel like sometimes they are not supposed to be likable. But Greer clearly is. And so, some things she does and says really annoyed me. For example, she was constantly comparing every situation to films she had seen - I don't know if, in that situation, that would be one of the first things I'd think to do, and I'm a bit of a film buff myself. There's a real chance she and her friends might die and in her head is a commentary from a film she watched years ago. Why? Also, I didn't like the way she kept saying she was a bad feminist. She was a rubbish feminist because the first thing she noticed about a guy was that he was hot... What does that have to do with feminism? Or humanism? That's just appreciation, in my opinion. If you call yourself a feminist or a humanist or whatever, you still find people attractive as that is just human nature.
Apart from Greer getting on my nerves at points, overall I found the story to be fun and fast paced after a slow start and I am massively looking forward to checking out the next book in the series. That twist has got me hooked!
↠ 4.5/5 stars
I think there's a pretty clear reason why I liked this and rated it so highly. If Tartt's The Secret History and Stiefvater's The Raven Boys had a lovechild, it might look something like this book. It undoubtedly takes more after The Secret History in terms of narrative, but it has key themes that both TSH and TRB share: wealthy youths; private schools; youths doing ill-advised things and taking advantage of their affluence; a newcomer to a group of glittering, enigmatic people.
An enjoyable YA thriller that focuses on British heritage, class and the ever-revolving debate of 'old vs. new' with a chatty female lead and enjoyable secondary characters.
For a lengthier review, come visit my blog (It's worth the trip, I promise!)
I think there's a pretty clear reason why I liked this and rated it so highly. If Tartt's The Secret History and Stiefvater's The Raven Boys had a lovechild, it might look something like this book. It undoubtedly takes more after The Secret History in terms of narrative, but it has key themes that both TSH and TRB share: wealthy youths; private schools; youths doing ill-advised things and taking advantage of their affluence; a newcomer to a group of glittering, enigmatic people.
An enjoyable YA thriller that focuses on British heritage, class and the ever-revolving debate of 'old vs. new' with a chatty female lead and enjoyable secondary characters.
For a lengthier review, come visit my blog (It's worth the trip, I promise!)
Before reading this book I didn’t really know what ‘blood sports’ were so I wasn’t really expecting a book about a group of posh, aristocratic teens hunting deer, shooting pheasants and catching fish. I had to adjust my expectations a little as the term ‘blood sports’ and not knowing what it meant skewed my expectations a bit. I hope I’m not the only one who didn’t know what blood sports are…
The first few chapters of the book were written in a way that included a lot of summary, which I struggled to get into. Although reference to a murder on the first page certainly caught my interest. Fortunately, it didn’t continue with lots of summary and I enjoyed the writing more when the book got going.
I liked that it was set in England, that made a nice change, and how Greer often thought in terms of films as she has watched a lot of them with her dad, so her sphere of reference fit her interests. I enjoyed Greer’s character and her narration. Other characters, however, were not given much personality. The ‘villains’ of this book were very one-dimensional, quite clichéd, and given no individual motivations. They’re rich and evil and that’s basically it.
The novel is told retrospectively, from Greer looking back on events, giving her an awareness in her narration of what is going to happen next, with the ‘hook’ (non-intentional fishing pun…) of the book always being references to a murder (right from the beginning this is mentioned). There were often suggestions that something worse was going to happen in the next chapter. This is a good way to keep a reader’s interest, but the problem is you build it up so much that it’s hard to live up to the expectation you’ve built up in the reader.
There was no romantic connection between any of the characters, yet two end up together at the end (no spoilers as to who), which feels put in just for the sake of it, to tick the romance box, rather than because there was actually any chemistry between them. It would have been better if they had just been left as friends.
The ‘twist’ that came a couple of chapters from the end was a bit farfetched to me. I don’t want to give any spoilers so I won’t linger, but it wasn’t one of those exciting, heart-stopping twists. It was a ‘really?’, rolling my eyes kind of twist. It was too sudden, there was no set up for it, so it felt forced. The epilogue was very choppy and all over the place like it was thrown together. The twist in the epilogue did surprise me a bit more, but was kind of an obvious decision to make.
There was an incredibly clichéd therapist at the end that just made me sigh. Why do authors keep reverting to stereotypes and clichés for these characters? At least have a realistic therapist, not just some hippy caricature (yes, that is what is in this book).
One thing I did like (because I seem to have said a lot of negative things so far) is how the book explores the issue of technology, how it dominates our lives, and the idea of living without it. The contrast between the ‘Savage’ world and the absence of technology in the ‘Medieval’ world is really interesting.
Nothing really surprised me about this book. It’s pretty obvious what the ‘sinister’ stuff going on is fairly early on. I think the author could have gone darker with this, could have made it so much more suspenseful than it was. The idea had a lot of potential. Perhaps my hopeful expectations of this being an amazing book were too high, but I was left kind of disappointed and deflated.
The first few chapters of the book were written in a way that included a lot of summary, which I struggled to get into. Although reference to a murder on the first page certainly caught my interest. Fortunately, it didn’t continue with lots of summary and I enjoyed the writing more when the book got going.
I liked that it was set in England, that made a nice change, and how Greer often thought in terms of films as she has watched a lot of them with her dad, so her sphere of reference fit her interests. I enjoyed Greer’s character and her narration. Other characters, however, were not given much personality. The ‘villains’ of this book were very one-dimensional, quite clichéd, and given no individual motivations. They’re rich and evil and that’s basically it.
The novel is told retrospectively, from Greer looking back on events, giving her an awareness in her narration of what is going to happen next, with the ‘hook’ (non-intentional fishing pun…) of the book always being references to a murder (right from the beginning this is mentioned). There were often suggestions that something worse was going to happen in the next chapter. This is a good way to keep a reader’s interest, but the problem is you build it up so much that it’s hard to live up to the expectation you’ve built up in the reader.
There was no romantic connection between any of the characters, yet two end up together at the end (no spoilers as to who), which feels put in just for the sake of it, to tick the romance box, rather than because there was actually any chemistry between them. It would have been better if they had just been left as friends.
The ‘twist’ that came a couple of chapters from the end was a bit farfetched to me. I don’t want to give any spoilers so I won’t linger, but it wasn’t one of those exciting, heart-stopping twists. It was a ‘really?’, rolling my eyes kind of twist. It was too sudden, there was no set up for it, so it felt forced. The epilogue was very choppy and all over the place like it was thrown together. The twist in the epilogue did surprise me a bit more, but was kind of an obvious decision to make.
There was an incredibly clichéd therapist at the end that just made me sigh. Why do authors keep reverting to stereotypes and clichés for these characters? At least have a realistic therapist, not just some hippy caricature (yes, that is what is in this book).
One thing I did like (because I seem to have said a lot of negative things so far) is how the book explores the issue of technology, how it dominates our lives, and the idea of living without it. The contrast between the ‘Savage’ world and the absence of technology in the ‘Medieval’ world is really interesting.
Nothing really surprised me about this book. It’s pretty obvious what the ‘sinister’ stuff going on is fairly early on. I think the author could have gone darker with this, could have made it so much more suspenseful than it was. The idea had a lot of potential. Perhaps my hopeful expectations of this being an amazing book were too high, but I was left kind of disappointed and deflated.
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
YES TO YA THRILLERS AND CULTS! Only wish the ending twist was elaborated on more throughout the story. Please recommend me all the books that have elements like this.
This was insane.
Coed boarding school cults. That's everything I've been needing in YA.
Coed boarding school cults. That's everything I've been needing in YA.