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aimsmeee's review
1.0
God, I wanted to love this book. Queer girls! Narratives about the cycle of abuse! Monsters! And I did have a good time with the first half, but then the second started to realllllllly drag.
As other reviewers have said - way too much purple prose. So many times I wished I could have been the book's editor to try and cut back on the pages/minutes of description where a sentence or two would have done. By the time I got to the end, my only thought was 'I don't care, I don't care, I don't care' on an aggressive loop.
And the queer girl representation.... ehhhh. Yes, it's good that we don't put up with aphobia, but for the ace character to then out a lesbian and talk about her sex life to a third party while the lesbian character is visibly deeply uncomfortable and unhappy with the conversation - that's fine apparently?? Ugh.
As other reviewers have said - way too much purple prose. So many times I wished I could have been the book's editor to try and cut back on the pages/minutes of description where a sentence or two would have done. By the time I got to the end, my only thought was 'I don't care, I don't care, I don't care' on an aggressive loop.
And the queer girl representation.... ehhhh. Yes, it's good that we don't put up with aphobia, but for the ace character to then out a lesbian and talk about her sex life to a third party while the lesbian character is visibly deeply uncomfortable and unhappy with the conversation - that's fine apparently?? Ugh.
seymone's review
3.0
3.25 stars
I was really enjoying this book until the end. What in the patriarchal hell? On another note, I was able to figure out the solution the characters would take, pretty quickly.
I was really enjoying this book until the end. What in the patriarchal hell? On another note, I was able to figure out the solution the characters would take, pretty quickly.
jaxness's review
3.0
3.7
That was kinda weird, and interesting.
The writing drew me in I couldn't stop reading.
That was kinda weird, and interesting.
The writing drew me in I couldn't stop reading.
rereader33's review
1.0
*finishes book*
*sets it down*
*goes over to wall and proceeds to bang head against it whist screaming*
*finally calms down after leaving a bloody dent in the wall*
Alright, time to rant!
Words cannot express how utterly PISSED OFF I am about this novel. Look, I know the reviews were polarizing before reading this, but I love me some horror and I love me some monsters, so I was down to try it anyway. And at first, I was disappointed because the writing drove me UP THE FUCKING WALL (we'll get to that in a bit) and the characters annoyed the FUCK out of me (again, we'll get to that), but I was still willing to give this the benefit of the doubt. And then the story dual wielded it's problematic LGBTQPAI+ hammer and cringey feminist bat and beat me into the ground until I was an angry puddle.
Let's start with the writing because my gripes with it are quick. There's TOO MUCH FUCKING DESCRIPTION. Legrand, seriously, you don't need to write WHOLE PARAGRAPHS describing what happens to someone and how they feel afterwards. One sentence description of what happens, then maybe two sentences about their feelings. THAT'S. IT. I shouldn't have to wade through pages and pages of description when a couple of sentences will do. Please, for the love of all that's holy and good, STOP DOING THIS.
I'm not going to bother talking about the actual plot at length because, frankly, I stopped giving a shit about it really fuckin' quick. If this had stuck to being a "small town horror" story then I would have been fine. But nooooo, it had to become so fucking ridiculous and be bigger than it was willing to go into that I stopped caring. Here's the deal, folks; if you're NOT writing a series or duology, then keep your plot contained into ONE BOOK. With what was revealed, you'd think this would become an epic series, especially with what Zoey wants to do towards the end, but nope! It's just a standalone. Fuck. That. Shit.
But now, everyone, it's time to move on to the biggest issue with this novel and why it burns me up so bad-the characters, specifically Zoey. Wow, these were some of the worst characters Legrand could have conjured up to push this narrative and it's message along. You know how this is SUPPOSED to be about girls rising up together, about them putting aside petty differences and working together? Haha, NOPE! There is so much girl hating and shaming in this novel that it makes me wonder how this is supposed to be uplifting to young girls. I've seen other reviews state that Zoey is the best character and as much as she made me want to punch her every time she was on the page, I have to agree with them because she had the most fight out of all of them. But don't mistake that for her being a good character, because she wasn't. I have said this multiple times and I will say it for the rest of my days, but A FEMALE CHARACTER CAN BE STRONG WITHOUT BEING AN ASSHOLE. "Strength" is a fairly subjective word and it is possible for female characters to be strong without being an asshole. And unfortunately, Zoey dashes right past strong into asshole pretty much from the start. She's rude, disrespectful, dismissive of other's problems, is verbally and physically aggressive, and has no respectful for other's feelings.
The best example of the later is the scene that made me so angry I actually had to pace around my room to calm myself down. Something that I have failed to mention up until now is that there is a fair amount of LGBTQPAI+ rep in this novel and I believe, in my humble opinion, that it's terrible rep. Why? Because Marion is, from what I can gather from the book, bisexual and Zoey is asexual but we'll get into why that isn't handled well either. Anyway, Marion ends up having sex with Val. Even though she knows Zoey hates Val because of what happened to her best friend Thora. Now, while I understand Zoey's perspective, she doesn't get to tell every one who the fuck they should be with. Anyway, after Marion has sex with Val, she tells Zoey and Zoey flips out, which is understandable. As the conversation heats up, Marion makes an aphobic comment to Zoey and is called out by both her and later Grayson, Zoey's best male friend. Later, the three of them are talking about Grayson's findings, and not only does Zoey out Marion to Grayson, but ALSO TELLS HIM MARION AND VAL HAD SEX.
*has to take in another deep breath* You're telling me that it's not okay to make an aphobic comment, but you can out someone AND tell the other party they had sex? How the FUCK is that okay?! Seriously, someone fucking explain to me how that's okay, because to me it FUCKING ISN'T. This is what drives me nuts about YA novels with sexuality representation, there always seems to be this hierarchy of which is more important and should be respected more than others. Spoiler alert, folks, THERE FUCKING ISN'T! Every sexuality is important, valid, and should be treated with respect. Oh, and when Marion tells Zoey she didn't want others knowing about that, how does Zoey respond? Effectively (because I don't have the entire quote), "well, we're running out of time and we need to know everything". No apology, no remorse, and she's never called out for it. This one scene enraged me so much that if I didn't have to finish this for a work review, I would have dropped it. Instead I had to suffer through the rest of this horseshit.
Now, I briefly brought up why Zoey's asexuality is represented poorly, and it's because, like a lot of authors, Legrand couldn't do five seconds of research to learn what asexuality actually is. So, to clear the air *picks up megaphone, turns it on* ASEXUALITY IS A LACK OF SEXUAL ATTRACTION! IT. DOES. NOT. MEAN. ASEXUALS. DON'T. WANT. SEX! *turns off megaphone, sets it down*. I straight up do NOT understand why this misconception is still going on and why Legrand couldn't have been bothered to do a five second Google search that would have told her EXACTLY WHAT I JUST DID. Holy shit, if you're not going to do the rep right, then don't do it at all. Period.
In regards to Marion and Val, I don't have much to say about them other than they were boring and lacking characterization. Marion had no interests or hobbies and Val was meant to be the "horrible person that does horrible things but gets redeemed in the end," but her redemption is handled so poorly that it doesn't seem to work. Whatever, I don't care, I'm so done with this.
Oh, I guess I should discuss the themes really quick. Basically, this story is a "girls rising up against the patriarchy!" and all that shit, but it fails in that regard, too. All of the men (except for Grayson, because of course we need one token nice guy) are either useless or cartoonishly misogynistic and condescending. Because this is a female empowerment novel, how ELSE are the men supposed to behave? And again, the girls rising up aspect would have worked better if I felt like these girls could work together without being assholes to each other, and I'm still puzzled as to how they pulled this off. Sheer willpower and determination, I guess.
I would talk about whether I recommend this book or not, but I think I've made myself clear. Thank you for making it through my rant, have a nice day.
*sets it down*
*goes over to wall and proceeds to bang head against it whist screaming*
*finally calms down after leaving a bloody dent in the wall*
Alright, time to rant!
Words cannot express how utterly PISSED OFF I am about this novel. Look, I know the reviews were polarizing before reading this, but I love me some horror and I love me some monsters, so I was down to try it anyway. And at first, I was disappointed because the writing drove me UP THE FUCKING WALL (we'll get to that in a bit) and the characters annoyed the FUCK out of me (again, we'll get to that), but I was still willing to give this the benefit of the doubt. And then the story dual wielded it's problematic LGBTQPAI+ hammer and cringey feminist bat and beat me into the ground until I was an angry puddle.
Let's start with the writing because my gripes with it are quick. There's TOO MUCH FUCKING DESCRIPTION. Legrand, seriously, you don't need to write WHOLE PARAGRAPHS describing what happens to someone and how they feel afterwards. One sentence description of what happens, then maybe two sentences about their feelings. THAT'S. IT. I shouldn't have to wade through pages and pages of description when a couple of sentences will do. Please, for the love of all that's holy and good, STOP DOING THIS.
I'm not going to bother talking about the actual plot at length because, frankly, I stopped giving a shit about it really fuckin' quick. If this had stuck to being a "small town horror" story then I would have been fine. But nooooo, it had to become so fucking ridiculous and be bigger than it was willing to go into that I stopped caring. Here's the deal, folks; if you're NOT writing a series or duology, then keep your plot contained into ONE BOOK. With what was revealed, you'd think this would become an epic series, especially with what Zoey wants to do towards the end, but nope! It's just a standalone. Fuck. That. Shit.
But now, everyone, it's time to move on to the biggest issue with this novel and why it burns me up so bad-the characters, specifically Zoey. Wow, these were some of the worst characters Legrand could have conjured up to push this narrative and it's message along. You know how this is SUPPOSED to be about girls rising up together, about them putting aside petty differences and working together? Haha, NOPE! There is so much girl hating and shaming in this novel that it makes me wonder how this is supposed to be uplifting to young girls. I've seen other reviews state that Zoey is the best character and as much as she made me want to punch her every time she was on the page, I have to agree with them because she had the most fight out of all of them. But don't mistake that for her being a good character, because she wasn't. I have said this multiple times and I will say it for the rest of my days, but A FEMALE CHARACTER CAN BE STRONG WITHOUT BEING AN ASSHOLE. "Strength" is a fairly subjective word and it is possible for female characters to be strong without being an asshole. And unfortunately, Zoey dashes right past strong into asshole pretty much from the start. She's rude, disrespectful, dismissive of other's problems, is verbally and physically aggressive, and has no respectful for other's feelings.
The best example of the later is the scene that made me so angry I actually had to pace around my room to calm myself down. Something that I have failed to mention up until now is that there is a fair amount of LGBTQPAI+ rep in this novel and I believe, in my humble opinion, that it's terrible rep. Why? Because Marion is, from what I can gather from the book, bisexual and Zoey is asexual but we'll get into why that isn't handled well either. Anyway, Marion ends up having sex with Val. Even though she knows Zoey hates Val because of what happened to her best friend Thora. Now, while I understand Zoey's perspective, she doesn't get to tell every one who the fuck they should be with. Anyway, after Marion has sex with Val, she tells Zoey and Zoey flips out, which is understandable. As the conversation heats up, Marion makes an aphobic comment to Zoey and is called out by both her and later Grayson, Zoey's best male friend. Later, the three of them are talking about Grayson's findings, and not only does Zoey out Marion to Grayson, but ALSO TELLS HIM MARION AND VAL HAD SEX.
*has to take in another deep breath* You're telling me that it's not okay to make an aphobic comment, but you can out someone AND tell the other party they had sex? How the FUCK is that okay?! Seriously, someone fucking explain to me how that's okay, because to me it FUCKING ISN'T. This is what drives me nuts about YA novels with sexuality representation, there always seems to be this hierarchy of which is more important and should be respected more than others. Spoiler alert, folks, THERE FUCKING ISN'T! Every sexuality is important, valid, and should be treated with respect. Oh, and when Marion tells Zoey she didn't want others knowing about that, how does Zoey respond? Effectively (because I don't have the entire quote), "well, we're running out of time and we need to know everything". No apology, no remorse, and she's never called out for it. This one scene enraged me so much that if I didn't have to finish this for a work review, I would have dropped it. Instead I had to suffer through the rest of this horseshit.
Now, I briefly brought up why Zoey's asexuality is represented poorly, and it's because, like a lot of authors, Legrand couldn't do five seconds of research to learn what asexuality actually is. So, to clear the air *picks up megaphone, turns it on* ASEXUALITY IS A LACK OF SEXUAL ATTRACTION! IT. DOES. NOT. MEAN. ASEXUALS. DON'T. WANT. SEX! *turns off megaphone, sets it down*. I straight up do NOT understand why this misconception is still going on and why Legrand couldn't have been bothered to do a five second Google search that would have told her EXACTLY WHAT I JUST DID. Holy shit, if you're not going to do the rep right, then don't do it at all. Period.
In regards to Marion and Val, I don't have much to say about them other than they were boring and lacking characterization. Marion had no interests or hobbies and Val was meant to be the "horrible person that does horrible things but gets redeemed in the end," but her redemption is handled so poorly that it doesn't seem to work. Whatever, I don't care, I'm so done with this.
Oh, I guess I should discuss the themes really quick. Basically, this story is a "girls rising up against the patriarchy!" and all that shit, but it fails in that regard, too. All of the men (except for Grayson, because of course we need one token nice guy) are either useless or cartoonishly misogynistic and condescending. Because this is a female empowerment novel, how ELSE are the men supposed to behave? And again, the girls rising up aspect would have worked better if I felt like these girls could work together without being assholes to each other, and I'm still puzzled as to how they pulled this off. Sheer willpower and determination, I guess.
I would talk about whether I recommend this book or not, but I think I've made myself clear. Thank you for making it through my rant, have a nice day.
yami_24's review against another edition
medium-paced
3.5
Content Warnings
Minor: Violence and Suicidal thoughts
ezwolf's review against another edition
Just really not in to it. It’s right on the edge of what I can handle when it comes to body horror/injury. And at nearly 50% of the way through, I am not at all invested enough to finish it.