A review by juan_adhd_reading
Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride

adventurous funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

It was really fun! In many ways, this reminded me a lot of Percy Jackson, with a paranormal theme and geared towards teens / YA. I did think things got solved a bit quickly in the end, and it did have some pacing issues. But, I had a great time reading it, and I’m excited for the sequel. Easy read, would recommend

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Physical abuse, Blood, Animal death, and Animal cruelty

Moderate: Murder, Kidnapping, Self harm, Sexual content, Grief, and Confinement

Minor: Bullying

The book is about a college dropout that discovers he’s a Necromancer, so death plays a really big part of the story. This is a YA book so most of deaths are not explicit, but the descriptions of injuries, abuse and the use of blood to perform magic can be. Among the things to watch out for:

Sam’s friend is decapitated (non explicit)but comes back as a talking head; Sam is severely injured in the back while confronting a man we later discover is a werewolf; a werewolf woman (Brid) is kidnapped, stripped down (non sexual) and experimented on; Sam is kidnapped and gets a concussion; Sam and Brid are trapped in a cage and severely abused, including hitting, backhand slapping and at one point whipped; Sam and Brid have sex (non explicit); Sam has to kill a dove to perform necromancy; Sam slits his own arm and hands to draw blood (same reason); Sam sees the spirits of previously tortured and murdered victims (moderately graphic); Sam kills his captor by slitting his throat (graphic description of blood); Sam friend’s Ramon is injured with broken glass during the final battle, collapsing into a vial that contains were-bear blood.