A review by spauffwrites
Scout's Honor by Lily Anderson

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Take Troop Beverly Hills and mix it with Stranger Things and you get this heartfelt, adventurous YA novel about a tribe of scouts who protect their community from monsters that spawn from strong emotions. Prudence Perry is a legacy Lady Bird scout. She and her fellow scouts drink tea, host community car washes and patrol their neighborhoods for mullygrubs, creatures from another universe only Ladybirds can see. Mullygrubs mostly feed on strong emotions — fear, anxiety, sadness and joy — but when they get too big, they become carnivorous and eat humans. When a carnivorous mullygrubs kills a her friend and fellow Ladybird, Prue swears off scouting forever — until her mother makes her train a new group of scouts as punishment for sneaking out. Prue is determined to keep her trainee scouts safe and focused only on tea parties and knitting. But there’s a new monster lurking in the neighborhood that only scouts can fight. I loved the world-building in this novel, how the author turns grief into a monster that Prue fights — literally and figuratively— until she learns not to be afraid of feeling. The fight scenes are so well-described, putting you right in the action. And I adored Prue’s scrappy, eclectic band of trainee scouts. I’d love to see this novel as a comic book or a Netflix series.