A review by lasolady
Girls of Little Hope by Sam Beckbessinger, Dale Halvorsen

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

The writing style in this reminds me of Stephen King. Well, if he wrote YA. Because this is essentially what this is: A YA horror novel. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not conflating Stephen King with Horror, it just is very evident that the authors are influenced by King: the way we circle through POVs, and the way (I personally feel) none of the characters are entirely sympathetic, that's what King is to me. 
Anyway. The YA-ness stems from, I think, the use of the present tense, or the way all of the POVs are basically from someone with a teenager's mind
(Yes, Marybeth, you're not mature, no matter how much trauma you have gone through)

I did like the mixed-media approach, even though it is a bit annoying to read on a kindle-for annotations and readability, I feel a physical copy might work better. I tested it on my phone, and yeah, the readability of those pages just sucks on an e-ink display. So if you want to read it, I would recommend not doing so on a kindle. 
Now the plot... its very intriguing to me, and it really picks up in the second half. It is a very readable book, but unfortunately, towards the end, it kind of relies on clichés too much for me:
creepy children moving in unison, the hivemind, love conquering everything, and finally, the government cover-up.
I would have preferred more grotesque body horror, less reliance on clichés. 
I did like getting the
POV of the monster
, and the question the novel brings up:
If I take someone's body and their memories, am I them? How much of them would I have to take before I am more than just a copy?

Overall, I enjoyed the book, but to me its a little too much YA and cliché. I would recommend this book to teens who would like to read their first horror novel.