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A review by bottomofthebookshelf
The Scapegracers by H.A. Clarke
2.0
*Thank you to Netgalley and Erewhon Books for giving me a digital ARC copy in exchange for an honest review*
I had high hopes for this one after reading the premise; a witchy tale involving queer girls in modern times? I’m so here for it. I was excited to see what was going to happen to this group of girls. In the end though, I just felt like the story fell flat. It felt like nothing really happened in the story, and by the time I got to the end it felt like everything exciting was being saved for a sequel. The whole book seems to revolve around the girls wanting to perform magic at parties for no other reason than getting attention from their peers, and that part really didn’t work for me.
I was also constantly frustrated with the main character’s decisions, which were illogical and went against common sense. I also felt like we got barely any information on the main character other than what happened to her mother and her anger issues (anger issues that were never really discussed or used for character development). I remember being half way into the story and still not knowing what the main character, Sideways, looked like other than that she wasn’t overly thin. I ended up feeling no connection to Sideways because of this.
The ending also really disappointed me. I saw the twist coming from the first chapter, and when it was finally revealed it all felt anti-climactic. Instead of a big exciting finale, I found that the story just kind of fizzled out and left everything for the sequel. In the end, I just wasn’t a fan of this book and it didn’t feel memorable to me.
I had high hopes for this one after reading the premise; a witchy tale involving queer girls in modern times? I’m so here for it. I was excited to see what was going to happen to this group of girls. In the end though, I just felt like the story fell flat. It felt like nothing really happened in the story, and by the time I got to the end it felt like everything exciting was being saved for a sequel. The whole book seems to revolve around the girls wanting to perform magic at parties for no other reason than getting attention from their peers, and that part really didn’t work for me.
I was also constantly frustrated with the main character’s decisions, which were illogical and went against common sense. I also felt like we got barely any information on the main character other than what happened to her mother and her anger issues (anger issues that were never really discussed or used for character development). I remember being half way into the story and still not knowing what the main character, Sideways, looked like other than that she wasn’t overly thin. I ended up feeling no connection to Sideways because of this.
The ending also really disappointed me. I saw the twist coming from the first chapter, and when it was finally revealed it all felt anti-climactic. Instead of a big exciting finale, I found that the story just kind of fizzled out and left everything for the sequel. In the end, I just wasn’t a fan of this book and it didn’t feel memorable to me.