Review: MOTHERTHING by Ainslie Hogarth

 

Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A darkly funny domestic horror novel about a woman who must take drastic measures to save her husband and herself from the vengeful ghost of her mother-in-law.

When Ralph and Abby Lamb move in with Ralph’s mother, Laura, Abby hopes it’s just what she and her mother-in-law need to finally connect. After a traumatic childhood, Abby is desperate for a mother figure, especially now that she and Ralph are trying to become parents themselves. Abby just has so much love to give—to Ralph, to Laura, and to Mrs. Bondy, her favorite resident at the long-term care home where she works. But Laura isn’t interested in bonding with her daughter-in-law. She’s venomous and cruel, especially to Abby, and life with her is hellish.

When Laura takes her own life, her ghost haunts Abby and Ralph in very different ways: Ralph is plunged into depression, and Abby is terrorized by a force intent on destroying everything she loves. To make matters worse, Mrs. Bondy’s daughter is threatening to move Mrs. Bondy from the home, leaving Abby totally alone. With everything on the line, Abby comes up with a chilling plan that will allow her to keep Mrs. Bondy, rescue Ralph from his tortured mind, and break Laura's hold on the family for good. All it requires is a little ingenuity, a lot of determination, and a unique recipe for chicken à la king…

--

There's one word that I'd use to describe the narrator of this book and that is Vicious.

Abi is terrifying. And the writing is terrifyingly good. I could not read this book quickly enough. We've got this mixture of domestic suspense and outright horror. A character who's desperate to be loved and a character who's scarred by her past. There's so much inner conflict in Abi, and this was one of those books that really had me thinking deeply about the psychology of the mind--and exactly how stable Abi is. Because there's one scene in this toward the end that I did not see coming. It's gruesome, and yet kind of... inevitable. I don't even know if that's the right word, because it is so, so shocking. Abi is pretty much a psychopath. Or a sociopath. But she's endearing too. And I love traditionally unlikeable characters like this.

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Review: NANNY NEEDED by Georgina Cross

 

Nanny Needed by Georgina Cross
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A young woman takes a job as a nanny for an impossibly wealthy family, thinking she's found her entre into a better life--only to discover instead she's walked into a world of deception and dark secrets.

Nanny needed. Discretion is of the utmost importance. Special conditions apply.

When Sarah Larsen finds the notice, posted on creamy card stock in her building's lobby, one glance at the exclusive address tells her she's found her ticket out of a dead-end job--and life.

At the interview, the job seems like a dream come true: a glamorous penthouse apartment on the Upper West Side of NYC; a salary that adds several zeroes to her current income; the beautiful, worldly mother of her charge, who feels more like a friend than a potential boss. She's overjoyed when they offer her the position and signs the NDA without a second thought.

In retrospect, the notice in her lobby was less an engraved invitation than a waving red flag. For there is something very strange about the Bird family. Why does the beautiful Mrs. Bird never leave the apartment alone? And what happened to the nanny before her? It soon becomes clear that the Birds' odd behaviors are more than the eccentricities of the wealthy.

But by then it's too late for Sarah to seek help. After all, discretion is of the utmost importance. 

--

I'd been aware of Georgina Cross as an amazing thriller/suspense writer for quite a while, and I'd grabbed a couple of her novels when I saw them in a Bookbub mailing, and I don't know why I hadn't picked up one before now. What prompted me to do so is that I'm currently working on my MFA novel, which is a domestic psychological thriller for adults, and my supervisor has been teaching me methodology for scene structure. His recommendation was to read a handful of novels in my genre and pay attention to pacing, delivery of story beats, and structures. So, I browsed my kindle app and began with Nanny Needed.

I am used to YA thrillers in particular being fast right from the start (as this is what I mainly read and write), and the first thing that struck me about the opening of Nanny Needed is how measured and almost 'careful' it was in its delivery of information. It wasn't until we got to about 20% in that we found out the 'truth' about the child that Sarah is to be nanny for. And this just gave me an aha-moment. It told me what I'd been doing wrong in my adult psych thriller, as I had my first story beat happening at about 5%.

Therefore, as I kept reading, I found that I was plotting out the structure as well, paying attention to the delivery and the pacing. This kind of makes my read seem analytical--but it was also SO MUCH FUN. I could not stop turning the pages. I simply had to know what was going to happen next, and it felt like the author was always one step ahead of me. Just when I thought I was working out what was happening, something else happened that threw me off track--yet, at the end, it all tied together perfectly. And that final twist--I was actually speechless. Never before has a book made me audibly gasp like that and stare around the room wide-eyed. I did NOT see that coming--and yet, I can see all the clues were there. In fact, I'd spotted some of the clues and I knew they were significant for the ending but at the time of encountering them, I just couldn't make sense of them.

The characterisation in this story is amazing. Collette in particular is fantastically written. In fact, every single character is. There's a really strong sense of place too, like I felt I could map out the events onto the specific locations all the time.

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Review: EVERY VARIABLE OF US by Charles A. Bush

 

Every Variable of Us by Charles A. Bush
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

After Philly teenager Alexis Duncan is injured in a gang shooting, her dreams of a college scholarship and pro basketball career vanish in an instant. To avoid becoming another Black teen trapped in her poverty-stricken neighborhood, she shifts her focus to the school's STEM team, a group of nerds seeking their own college scholarships. Academics have never been her thing, but Alexis is freshly motivated by Aamani Chakrabarti, the new Indian student who becomes her mentor (and crush?). Alexis begins to see herself as so much more than an athlete. But just as her future starts to reform, Alexis’s own doubts and old loyalties pull her back into harm’s way.

— 

This book and these characters are going to stay with me for a long, long time. After reading Every Variable of Us, Charles A. Bush is now an auto-buy author for me.

This story is so many things: it’s about loss and grief, it’s about abuse and survival, it’s about resilience and adapting to not-so-great circumstances. It’s about gangs and relationships. It’s about fears of what the future holds. It’s about family and the people we hold dear. And it says a lot about race too.

Lex is a seventeen-year-old Black girl who’s caught up in a drive by shooting and shot, ending her basketball career. She’s angry and desperate, and so flawed—but understandable and relatable. Her friends are mostly in the ‘gang culture’ and she thought basketball was her way out of the town. After the shooting, she feels she has nothing. Until new student Aamani introduces her to the STEM team and Lex becomes the final After Philly teenager Alexis Duncan is injured in a gang shooting, her dreams of a college scholarship and pro basketball career vanish in an instant. To avoid becoming another Black teen trapped in her poverty-stricken neighborhood, she shifts her focus to the school's STEM team, a group of nerds seeking their own college scholarships. Academics have never been her thing, but Alexis is freshly motivated by Aamani Chakrabarti, the new Indian student who becomes her mentor (and crush?). Alexis begins to see herself as so much more than an athlete. But just as her future starts to reform, Alexis’s own doubts and old loyalties pull her back into harm’s way member of the team, meaning they qualify for competitions.

The character arc for Lex is phenomenal. She goes from looking down on ‘nerds’ to wanting to study and really cares for her STEM teammates. She goes from nearly failing school to improving her GPA by two points, and she finds her own family among new friends. She struggles to navigate her new life as disabled and the effects this has on her career, future, and self-esteem. She wrestles with her sexuality, afraid of being Black and queer, but eventually choosing to embrace her feelings for Aaamani. She examines how much of her fears and beliefs about not being straight are rooted in ideology and her need to minimise the target on her.

Representation in this book is phenomenal. We’ve got Black characters, Asian characters, disabled characters, and neurodivergent characters. We examine white privilege and straight privilege, and we also look at drug addiction and poverty.

Lex’s mother is an addict and her mother’s boyfriend is abusive. Lex has been in multiple foster homes, at least one of which was also abusive. She’s beaten in this book and moves to a ‘crackhouse’ for safety—but she finds people who care for her and are in a position to look after at the end.

Because Lex undergoes such a strong character transformation, there’s very much her old life vs her new. Her former best friend Britt is deeply embedded in the old life—stealing, dealing drugs, living in an abusive foster home, trying to outwit other gangs—and we see her trying to pull Lex back into this life. These moments really are agonising to read. I was begging Lex to not go back to that, to stay with the STEM team, but of course, she didn’t. It was heartbreaking. And especially when Britt is then killed. I did not see that coming, but really I should have because it was inevitable.

And when Britt is murdered, Lex feels she has no choice but to avenge her—something that Aamani gets roped into when trying to stop her. I could not read fast enough here. So powerful and heartbreaking.

Aamani herself is also a great character. She’s Hindu and experiences racism, especially when other characters think she’s Muslim. In the story, she comes out as lesbian first to Lex and then to her parents—and her parents don’t accept it at all. We see Aamani struggling with this and the marriage her parents arrange for her, all the while trying to be Lex’s STEM tutor.

Matthew is on the STEM team and he’s Autistic. There’s an Author’s Note at the start of this book about this representation, emphasising it’s not own-voices autism rep. I loved Matthew’s character and Lex’s friendship with him, but I have seen a few autistic reviewers saying his character is a little stereotypical in places.

Lindsay is also another STEM team member, and Lex doesn’t get on with her at all at first, viewing her as a privileged white girl. Lindsay does seem cold and quite against Lex most of the time, but when we see her family it makes sense. She lives with parents who verbally (and maybe physically?) abuse each other. They have little money and live in a very dangerous neighbourhood. Lindsay is worn out and emotionally exhausted. Her collected, cold persona at school is a facade, and Lex acknowledges that she’s impressed that Lindsay has survived where she’s living.

And the love story. It’s a slow-build f/f between Lex and Aamani, and it challenges a lot of Lex’s misconceptions and her own stereotypes. Lex comes out as bisexual toward the end, as her relationship with Aamani has given her the courage to do this.

There is just so much packed into this story, and I wasn’t expecting it.

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Review: BRUISED by Tanya Boteju

 

Bruised by Tanya Boteju
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

To Daya Wijesinghe, a bruise is a mixture of comfort and control. Since her parents died in an accident she survived, bruises have become a way to keep her pain on the surface of her skin so she doesn’t need to deal with the ache deep in her heart.

So when chance and circumstances bring her to a roller derby bout, Daya is hooked. Yes, the rules are confusing and the sport seems to require the kind of teamwork and human interaction Daya generally avoids. But the opportunities to bruise are countless, and Daya realizes that if she’s going to keep her emotional pain at bay, she’ll need all the opportunities she can get.

The deeper Daya immerses herself into the world of roller derby, though, the more she realizes it’s not the simple physical pain-fest she was hoping for. Her rough-and-tumble teammates and their fans push her limits in ways she never imagined, bringing  Daya to big truths about love, loss, strength, and healing.

— 

This is the first book I’ve read that acknowledges one of he ‘less common’ forms of self-harm: bruising. I’ve recently come to realise that I like YA books that are about pain and hurt and despair. And for that reason, I picked up this book as soon as I heard of it. Bonus: it’s about roller derby. I LOVE skating. Right away, I knew I’d love this book and I wasn’t wrong.

But I actually loved it even more than I expected to. We’ve got an f/f relationship (I loved Shanti as soon as I met her!) and nearly every character is queer and of colour.

Daya Wijesinghe is grieving her parents’ deaths after she was the sole survivor of a car accident. She blames herself, thinking she caused it by being ‘too soft’ (her parents were arguing about her losing a boxing match when the accident occurred). Thus we have 18 year old Daya who’s trying to prove she’s “hard” and “strong” and who despises anything she perceives as weakness. She won’t talk to her friends about her feelings, she won’t hug anyone, and she won’t connect to her uncle and aunt who she now lives with it. There is just so much anger inside Daya, and she is drawn to roller derby because it’s a contact sport where she can bruise herself more and more. She can slam into others. She can hurt and be hurt. She can feel pain.

And then there is Shanti and her sister Kat. Both are troubled girls, but they cope in different ways. Shanti is ‘soft’ and connected to her emotions. Kat is ‘hard’ and puts up walls around herself. Kat is the leader of the roller derby team that Daya auditions for, and there’s a weird attraction triangle and jealousy between the two sisters.

While nearly all the characters are queer, with the exception of the older lesbian couple (who are great!), none of them are really labelled as being LGBTQIA+. They just are.

This book is full of strong characters, and it’s a book that examines team sports, rivalry, pain, hurt, healing, self-hatred, self-harm, guilt, grief, and death. Highly recommended.

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Review: ALL YOUR TWISTED SECRETS by Diana Urban

 

All Your Twisted Secrets by Diana Urban
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This thrilling debut, reminiscent of new fan favorites like One of Us Is Lying and the beloved classics by Agatha Christie, will leave readers guessing until the explosive ending.

Welcome to dinner, and again, congratulations on being selected. Now you must do the selecting.

What do the queen bee, star athlete, valedictorian, stoner, loner, and music geek all have in common? They were all invited to a scholarship dinner, only to discover it’s a trap. Someone has locked them into a room with a bomb, a syringe filled with poison, and a note saying they have an hour to pick someone to kill … or else everyone dies.

Amber Prescott is determined to get her classmates and herself out of the room alive, but that might be easier said than done. No one knows how they’re all connected or who would want them dead. As they retrace the events over the past year that might have triggered their captor’s ultimatum, it becomes clear that everyone is hiding something. And with the clock ticking down, confusion turns into fear, and fear morphs into panic as they race to answer the biggest question: Who will they choose to die?

------

I already know this is going to be one of my top reads of 2021. It's PHENOMENAL.

I love locked room mysteries. And I love escape room mysteries. I love stories about friendships--especially when those friendships turn bad. I love unlikeable female characters. I love unreliable narrators. And I love alternating timelines. This book has it all. I mean, I was almost afraid that it wouldn't live up to my expectations, but this book is phenomenal. Truly spectacular.

The book starts with Amber invited to a restaurant to meet the mayor, as she's got a scholarship. Also invited are her boyfriend Robbie, her former best friend Priya, her current friend Sasha, the school drug-dealer Scott, and Diego, who is the boy Amber now likes. When the six get to the restaurant, they're trapped. The door locks, and they can't get out. Then Amber discovers a bomb with a one-hour countdown and a syringe. Instructions tell them that the syringe contains poison and they must choose one person to die before the hour's up, else the bomb will kill them all. Cue: panic.

But how amazing is this set up? So, the narrative alternates between them in this one-hour countdown as they panic and try to think of ways out, and scenes from the last year or so. We get to know the characters, and gradually the past scenes reveal huge secrets--secrets that are then brought up in the current timeline as the characters turn on each other, as they try to work out who to die.

And this is where we see that all these characters are complex. They've all got secrets, all got flaws--it's amazing writing.

The next part of my review contains spoilers, so be warned!

Amber is our main character. She's hugely talented with music and she's also still grieving over her older sister's death. Maggie took her own life after being bullied for about a year by an unknown girl.

Sasha is the queen bee of the school. We see her befriend Amber, and readers can immediately tell that Sasha is using Amber. But Amber can't see this at the time, and it was infuriating! We could see exactly what was going on. But in the present timeline, Amber's very aware of who Sasha really is--but she doesn't expect for more secrets to be revealed in the bomb's countdown, namely that Sasha is the girl who bullied Maggie, causing Maggie to commit suicide.

Priya is Amber's former best friend. She was also initiated into Sasha's popular group when Sasha befriended Amber, but Sasha bullied Priya too in the same way she'd already bullied Maggie (and she knew what happened to Maggie, too). The bullying in this storyline culminates in Priya having her front teeth knocked out and Sasha sharing a video of it to the whole school. Priya then drops Sasha as a friend, and also Amber.

Next we have Robbie. He's Sasha's best friend and becomes Amber's boyfriend. He's a nice enough guy--until he believes that his dreams and ambitions are more important than Amber's. Then he becomes a bit of dick.

Diego is Amber's friend from when she was a child. The two fell out after Diego invented a colour-changing sponge and Diego's father resigned from Amber's father's business, causing it to fold. Diego is also extremely intelligent, and we see how Sasha is in direct competition with him for getting into Harvard. Sasha does her best to sabotage Diego at every opportunity, no matter the consequence.

And last is Scott. He's the stoner of the school, and he at first seems out of place being invited to the restaurant--it's believable to Amber that all the others have been invited there to celebrate their scholarships, but not Scott.

So, this is the set-up. (And even more spoilers ahead now). As the hour passes, the characters turn on each other and several get injured. When trying to break the windows to escape, Scott falls and breaks his ankle. Priya is hypoglycemic and passes out at one point, but Diego revives her.

The writing is so good that I kept working out what I'd do if I was in this situation. Faking a death seemed like an obvious thing to do, but it took the characters a long time to decide to do this.

And as the time is running out and they're all convinced they have to kill someone, Amber manages to turn everyone against Sasha so she is the one who gets injected with the syringe of poison.

At which point, they discover that the poison isn't real! I mean, to be honest, I was thinking that would have to happen. But Sasha, still alive, turns on the others. She attacks Amber, and she tries to kill her. Amber is saved by Priya, who stabs Sasha with a shard of glass from the window in self-defense. And Sasha dies.

And at this point, my eyes were so wide as I was reading (well, listening, as I had the audiobook, which has fantastic narration!). They'd literally killed one of the group. And still the bomb was counting down.

When the time runs out, and they're all alive, it's so tense. They hear footsteps and this was the part where I really had no idea who had orchestrated all this--which, I must admit, is unusual. I read a lot of YA thrillers and usually have some sort of idea. But I was flummoxed. And it's a delivery driver who lets them out. He's been instructed to deliver a cake to the room with a message telling them that they now know who each other are.

This writing--it's just so amazing. Tense. I was on the edge of my seat. (I actually had to stop listening at this point, as I had to get off the bus, and I was desperate to keep listening!).

And then we have the timeline going to four hours ago--and we get the huge reveal. Amber set all this up!!!! So, I didn't see it coming--even though one of the past scenes ends with Amber wanting to get revenge on Sasha. But I trusted Amber as she's our first person narrator. I believed her when she said she didn't know what was going on.

But then the pieces started to slot into place. Amber was the one who found the bomb in the room. All the people in the room were connected most strongly to Amber. And this is a story of revenge. It's a story of Amber wanting to teach Sasha a lesson--it wasn't supposed to end up with murder, but it did. It's Priya getting revenge on Sasha for the bullying--though Priya only stabs Sasha to stop her killing Amber. It's just...wow. That reveal--that Amber was behind it all--changed my whole view on her. I didn't know what to think anymore. I was totally blown away. Absolutely blown away. And it made Amber unlikeable. She was going to get away what was basically murder--even if she'd not intended to kill. But then Amber feels guilt. She goes to turn herself in, and is stopped by Priya and Diego.

It really is a story about the power of friendship and how toxic teenagers can be. It's a story of cold, calculated revenge. A story of secrets being revealed and the lengths that people will go to in order to keep them.

Highly recommended.

There are lot of trigger warnings for this book: suicide, drugs, bullying, abuse, implied school shooting at one point, potential for eating disorder survivors to be triggered by some of the bullying language used toward Priya.

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Review: CONCRETE ROSE by Angie Thomas

 

Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

International phenomenon Angie Thomas revisits Garden Heights seventeen years before the events of The Hate U Give in this searing and poignant exploration of Black boyhood and manhood.

If there’s one thing seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter knows, it’s that a real man takes care of his family. As the son of a former gang legend, Mav does that the only way he knows how: dealing for the King Lords. With this money he can help his mom, who works two jobs while his dad’s in prison.

Life’s not perfect, but with a fly girlfriend and a cousin who always has his back, Mav’s got everything under control.

Until, that is, Maverick finds out he’s a father.

Suddenly he has a baby, Seven, who depends on him for everything. But it’s not so easy to sling dope, finish school, and raise a child. So when he’s offered the chance to go straight, he takes it. In a world where he’s expected to amount to nothing, maybe Mav can prove he’s different.

When King Lord blood runs through your veins, though, you can't just walk away. Loyalty, revenge, and responsibility threaten to tear Mav apart, especially after the brutal murder of a loved one. He’ll have to figure out for himself what it really means to be a man.

----

This book--just wow!!!! I loved THE HATE U GIVE, and so the moment I heard that CONCRETE ROSE was set in the same world of Garden Heights, I just had to drop everything and read it immediately. And I'm sooooo glad I did.

Angie Thomas's writing is just amazing, and this story is so, so real. It's authentic and compelling. And it really helps to remove stigma too.

Maverick is such a great character. He is a Black man who is in a gang. He deals drugs, and there's drug-related violence, and drug-related murders and deaths affecting those close to him. But he is so much more than this--he's a doting father, even as a teenager. He's only selling drugs as he needs to support his mother, and especially when he finds out he's got a child. (And then discovers his girlfriend is also pregnant--two children. He is desperate to provide for his family.) He's fiercely protective of his family and friends. He's kind. He's genuine. We see him make mistakes--and we see him learn from mistakes.

Mav's father is in prison for the entirety of the book, and we learn that this is because the only way out of the King Lords' gang is to be go to prison, often taking the fall for someone else in the gang, or to end up dead. Mav says countless times how he was encouraged by his father to join the gang for his protection--and we can really see this in the book too. King and the other King Lords do protect him from the GDs, the warring gang. And we can see how this almost creates a vicious cycle of these men ending up in prison. Something Mav is desperate to avoid as he wants to be there for his children, especially when he knows what it's like to grow up with a father in prison.

But then Mav's cousin is murdered and he's expected to kill the murderer. We see his desperation to do this, and it's heartbreaking because we've already been shown what could happen.

And, you know what? I desperately wanted things to work out for Maverick--perhaps more than any other protagonist I'd read. And I was so worried that it was going to end with him in big trouble in prison (like, I was sure that was happening). Thankfully, it didn't--though having read THUG we get a hint of what Maverick does have to do to get out of the gang.

But, yes, I couldn't read this book fast enough. (I also LOVED the reference to Justyce in Nic Stone's Dear Martin too!)

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Review: LIES LIKE POISON by Chelsea Pitcher

 

Lies Like Poison by Chelsea Pitcher
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Poppy, Lily, and Belladonna would do anything to protect their best friend, Raven. So when they discovered he was suffering abuse at the hands of his stepmother, they came up with a lethal plan: petals of poppy, belladonna, and lily in her evening tea so she’d never be able to hurt Raven again. But someone got cold feet, the plot faded to a secret of the past, and the group fell apart.

Three years later, on the eve of Raven’s seventeenth birthday, his stepmother turns up dead. But it’s only belladonna found in her tea, and it’s only Belladonna who’s carted off to jail. Desperate for help, Belle reaches out to her estranged friends to prove her innocence. They answer the call, but no one is prepared for what comes next.

Now, everyone has something to lose and something equally dangerous to hide. And when the tangled web of secrets and betrayal is finally unwound, what lies at its heart will change the group forever

--

So, when I was first getting into audiobooks, I was browsing YA thrillers on audible and I came across this one--instantly, I was hooked. I downloaded it immediately--along with a few others--and then I had technology problems and couldn't access my audiobooks! Oh no! Eventually, I sorted it out, but I'd forgotten which book this one was. All I remembered was the main characters shared names with flowers and there was murder, and I was desperately trying to work out which book it was.

So, a few months later, when I'd finished my most recent listen and clicked randomly onto this title (my audible app doesn't show book descriptions), I was delighted to realise IT WAS THIS BOOK! And this book is incredible.

Complex female characters? Yes. Complex male characters? Yes. Complex transitioning characters? Yes. LGBT relationships? Strong character voices and narrative writing? Yes. Beautiful imagery? Yes. And a plot that just grabs you right away? Yes.

THIS BOOK WAS AMAZING! It's haunting and breathtaking and I could not stop listening to it. Chelsea Pitcher is now one of my favourite YA writers ever. And I must give a shoutout to the narrators too: Emmett Grosland, Emily Ellet, Amanda Dolan, and Kevin Free.

The book is told via multiple narrators and across multiple timelines. When the characters were little, Poppy, Belladonna, and Lily planned to poison Raven's evil step-mother--shortly after the murder of Raven's mother. They didn't do it. Now, the characters are 17, and Raven's just returned from the boarding school is father sent him to, to find out his step mother actually has been murdered and Belladonna's been arrested. The 'recipe' for murder that they came up with as children as apparently now been followed. Jack (previously named Poppy--and the book follows his transition) is desperate to clear Belladonna's name and ropes in Lily and Raven to help.

And this book is just so delicious. All the characters are so 3D. Lily's dark and sinister, suffering an eating disorder due to her mother's abuse. Belladonna is obsessed with fairytales--dark tales--having been adopted by a man who locked her up at night after his biological daughter was abducted. Jack has secrets of his own--from the clothes he burned on the night of Raven's step-mother's murder to his preference to be called 'Jack' and using him/his pronouns. And Raven--well, Raven is the character that haunted me the most. There's something eerie about him, namely stemming from the scene we're shown early on where as children all the characters were playing at fairy tales and he was lying 'dead' in a coffin.

So who did the murder?

Well, I must confess that I did realise who the murderer of the step-mother was quite early on. Not because all clues pointed to that person, but through process of deduction I realised it couldn't be anyone else. What I didn't expect was to find out the identity of the murderer of Raven's real mother too. That was edge-of-your-seat-stuff.

The only thing that bugged me a bit about this book was how when we're halfway through, we suddenly are introduced to narration by Raven as well. Up until that point, the narration had been told by Jack, Lily, and Belladonna only--so I did find it a little jarring.

But this is an amazing YA thriller! It's just so atmospheric and haunting and I loved it so much.

Content warnings for: abuse, eating disorders, suicidal talk.



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Review: DEAR MARTIN by Nic Stone

 

Dear Martin by Nic Stone
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

'A powerful, wrenching, and compulsively readable story that lays bare the history, and the present, of racism in America' John Green, bestselling author of Turtles All the Way Down
'Absolutely incredible, honest, gut-wrenching! A must-read!' Angie Thomas, bestselling author of  The Hate U Give
 
Raw, captivating, and undeniably real, Nic Stone boldly tackles American race relations in this stunning debut.
 
Justyce McAllister is top of his class and set for the Ivy League – but none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs. And despite leaving his rough neighbourhood behind, he can't escape the scorn of his former peers or the ridicule of his new classmates.
 
Justyce looks to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for answers. But do they hold up anymore? He starts a journal to Dr. King to find out.
 
Then comes the day Justyce goes driving with his best friend, Manny, windows rolled down, music turned up – way up, sparking the fury of a white off-duty police officer beside them. Words fly. Shots are fired. Justyce and Manny are caught in the crosshairs. In the media fallout, it's Justyce who is under attack.

--

Reading this book was like being punched in the gut. Repeatedly.

I'd actually been sitting on this book for a while. It's been on my kindle for a good year or so, and I don't know what exactly was stopping me from reading it--I guess, maybe, the hype. Because I'd heard so much good stuff about this book, and that always makes me nervous in case the book doesn't live up to my expectations.

I've been trying to read more Black authors this year, and having recently finished books by Kimberly Jones and Tiffany Jackson, I decided to give this one a go.

I normally don't get hooked on books written in third person--I need that intimacy and immediacy that first person offers--but this book is an exception. Dear Martin is phenomenal.

It examines racism and police brutality, when Black young men are gunned down by police for no reason. Justyce, our main character, is complex. He's a young Black man who, right at the start, experiences racial profiling. We see his thought processes as they unwind, see how he tries to forget about this, but only has it circling more and more in his head. He writes letters to Martin Luther King as a way to cope with this racism, and we see how his hope is gradually replaced with despair, to the point where he stops writing to Martin.

Spoilers ahead now--So, let's talk about the big moment in this book: Manny's death. Manny is Justyce's best friend and is also Black. And just after halfway through the book, he is killed by a police officer in front of Justyce. That was such a gut-punching, heart-wrenching moment. I didn't see it coming at all. And it's Manny's death that prompts our MC to question everything. He begins to question what the point is in even fighting people's assumptions, when they don't change their behaviour. He considers joining a gang. It's all just so powerful and raises so many questions and discussion points.

This is a great book to start a conversation (a hugely important and vital one) on race, police violence, and racism.

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Review: ALLEGEDLY by Tiffany D. Jackson

 

Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Mary B. Addison killed a baby.

Allegedly. She didn’t say much in that first interview with detectives, and the media filled in the only blanks that mattered: A white baby had died while under the care of a churchgoing black woman and her nine-year-old daughter. The public convicted Mary and the jury made it official. But did she do it? She wouldn’t say.

Mary survived six years in baby jail before being dumped in a group home. The house isn’t really “home”—no place where you fear for your life can be considered a home. Home is Ted, who she meets on assignment at a nursing home.

There wasn’t a point to setting the record straight before, but now she’s got Ted—and their unborn child—to think about. When the state threatens to take her baby, Mary must find the voice to fight her past. And her fate lies in the hands of the one person she distrusts the most: her Momma. No one knows the real Momma. But who really knows the real Mary?


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Allegedly is the third book by Tiffany D. Jackson that I've read, though it was her first published, and I know this is going to be a book that stays with me for a long time.

This book tells the story of a Mary, a Black girl who allegedly killed a white baby when she was nine years old. She's now 16, pregnant, in a group home, and fighting to find a way to keep her baby and clear her name. And it's... ahh, I just haven't got the words. This is a book that is dark and gritty, it's disturbing and emotional. And I was rooting for Mary the whole way...

But the ending--okay, so there's a HUGE twist (and I should've anticipated that, given Jackson wrote this). And the twist completely changes the whole story--like, literally you're in the final chapter and you learn something that means you view the whole of the rest of the book differently. And I can't decide whether I liked that twist. I mean, it was shocking and impactful, but with us only having one chapter for this twist, it made the ending feel a little rushed. I'd have liked a couple more chapters to really smooth it out and delve deeper into the implications of this twist. (A twist that I did not see coming whatsoever--and it's so hard to write about this without giving spoilers!)

Mary is a complex character. We feel her pain and desperation. She's realistic and so well written. In fact, all the characters are. But it's only once you get deep into the novel that you begin to realise just how unreliable Mary is as a narrator--yet the whole time I was willing her not to be the classic unreliable narrator. It really is such good writing.

And the twist at the end really changes the way you view Mary's mother--and both 'versions' of the mother are so believable. And that's just a sign of such fantastic writing.

I found this book addictive. I could not stop reading it. It also employs some excellent narrative devices to show other sides of the story. While Mary narrates the main narrative, we have snippets of police interviews, excerpts from books that others have written about the Mary B. Addison case, and interviews with Mary's mother and the mother of Alyssa, the baby who Mary allegedly murdered. 

It's a difficult book to read. Obviously, it deals with the murder of a baby. You've also got references to child abuse and rape, as well as a lot of discourse on racism. It is such an important read, I cannot stress that enough. But I do think I prefer Jackson's later books (which also deal with unreliable narrators and racism). Still, this is a highly recommended read.

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Review: LAST GIRL LIED TO By L.E. Flynn

Last Girl Lied To by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Something made him angry that night.
Something made her cry.
Something made Trixie disappear.
What if it was all the same thing?

Fiona claims she doesn't remember anything about the night her best friend left a party early and walked into the ocean. But the truth is, she wishes she could forget.

Trixie's disappearance is ruled a suicide, but Fiona starts to believe that Trixie isn't really dead. Piecing together the trail of a girl who doesn't want to be found leads her to Jasper, Trixie's former friend with benefits, and Beau--the boy who turned Fiona down, who loved someone else, who might be happy Trixie is gone.

The closer Fiona gets to finding out what happened, and the closer she gets to Jasper and Beau, the more she realizes that the girl she knew better than anyone may have been a carefully constructed lie--and she might have been waiting to disappear the entire time.

Told in alternating chapters between the past and the present, Last Girl Lied To is a gripping emotional thriller.

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Last Girl Lied To is the first book by L.E Flynn that I’ve read, and I really enjoyed it. It’s a haunting read of loss and tragedy. Of mistakes and regrets. Of jealousy and dreams.

This book tells the story of Fiona as she struggles to process all her emotions around the disappearance and presumed death of her best friend Trixie. The writing is poetic in places and there are some really beautiful images inside these pages, with some absolutely killer cliffhangers. Seriously, some of the pages I just couldn’t turn fast enough!

All the characters in this book are so well written, they feel real and true, like people you could actually meet. At first, I struggled to relate to Fiona as I didn’t really understand who she was, but as I read on I realised this was an important theme in the novel—discovering who you are when you’re on your own, rather than knowing who you are depending on those you are around.

The thriller mystery part about what really happened to Trixie was tightly written with so many twists. I also loved how we only really see Trixie through Fiona’s eyes and the flashbacks, so there’s always the question of how reliable a narrator Fiona is, especially as we see how the different circumstances and situations she encounters rapidly changes her view of Trixie.

There are quite a lot of characters in this story, and many have complicated relationships. At times, I had forgotten a few of the details that were slipped into previous scenes but it was never enough that it meant I was lost. The writing was inviting and welcomed me into the story each time I sat down to continue it.

The romance in this book is well-written, and it builds naturally. I was a bit surprised by how quickly Fiona sleeps with her new boyfriend, but by the end of the book, the reason for this was clear.

The only thing I didn’t particularly like was how it was mentioned that the villain was sent to a psychiatric hospital, implying he’d committed murder because he was mad. I felt like this didn’t help some of the stigma around mental illness.

All in all, this is a fast-paced thriller and I recommend it.

A big thank you to the author and publisher for providing a free review copy of this book.

Review: HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE DARK by Kathleen Glasgow

How to Make Friends with the Dark by Kathleen Glasgow
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I should’ve been prepared for this book. I devoured Kathleen Glasgow’s first book, Girl In Pieces, and I should’ve known her second novel would be just as heart-wrenching, haunting, and powerful.

How to Make Friends With the Dark is the story of Tiger Tolliver as she struggles to cope with the sudden and unexpected death of her mother. These pages are filled with grief, loss, and guilt, and we REALLY feel Tiger’s emotions. This book had me crying in so many places.

Not only does Tiger have to cope with the sudden loss of her mother, but she’s also introduced to family members she didn’t know existed in the course of the book. As the book so elegantly puts it, she has to get used to living without her mother while at the same time get used to living with others who she doesn’t know. And she also goes through the foster care system and is also imprisoned for a brief while (which was a huge shock to me).

We see Tiger really change in this book. We see her angry, lashing out, causing criminal damage, yet we really feel her.

The language is emotive and the imagery beautiful. The words are just SO powerful. I can’t emphasise that enough.

We see a wide range of people in this book. The abusive parents and caregivers, the kind adults who are trying to make it better, the lost boys and girls, and the parents in prison, just to name a few.

The characters are all so real. I feel we could just meet them to easily in the street, in the library, at the gym. And that’s the thing. This book shows how these people are everywhere. And they’re not unusual.

I’m almost at a loss for word as I write this review, that’s how good this book was. Though it was really hard to read at times. But the main thing it teaches its readers is you never know what others are going through, but there is a way to make friends with the dark—the overwhelming grief.

Review: PEOPLE LIKE US by Dana Mele

People Like Us by Dana Mele
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Kay Donovan may have skeletons in her closet, but the past is past, and she's reinvented herself entirely. Now she's a star soccer player whose group of gorgeous friends run their private school with effortless popularity and acerbic wit. But when a girl's body is found in the lake, Kay's carefully constructed life begins to topple. The dead girl has left Kay a computer-coded scavenger hunt, which, as it unravels, begins to implicate suspect after suspect, until Kay herself is in the crosshairs of a murder investigation. But if Kay's finally backed into a corner, she'll do what it takes to survive. Because at Bates Academy, the truth is something you make... not something that happened.

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People Like Us is Dana Mele’s debut, a tightly plotted thriller oozing with characters who all have such great depth.

The novel begins with the discovery of Jessica Lane’s body, found by our protagonist Kay and her friends. Jessica, a fellow student, has been murdered, her body dumped in the lake on grounds of Bates Academy, the private boarding school that the female characters (apart from Justine) attend.

Immediately, we know that the main character Kay has a dark past and lots of secrets. Something that really helps build the tension as we read when it becomes apparent that Kay is a suspect for Jessica’s murder.

But when Jessica begins to “talk” to Kay from beyond the grave, instructing her to carry out a scavenger hunt that will reveal the dark secrets of her past and those of her friends, things get really interesting.

At the start of the book, I could not turn the pages fast enough. It was SO compelling and Kay’s character really drove my desire to read. She’s dark and overwhelmed with guilt. She’s already witnessed two deaths before Jessica’s and her narrative voice is intriguing. She’s also bi, having relationships with both her boyfriend and her best friend, Brie (among others). But she cheats a lot, as do many other characters in this book, which shocked me quite a bit.

A lot of the characters are morally ambiguous or outright evil. Everyone has dark secrets and things they’ve done that they’re ashamed of or regret (and a few of the characters think nothing of their mean actions). This book had A LOT of drama—it’s relentless and due to the continuous stream of it, at times I felt breathless reading. I felt I needed a break to digest what I’d read, yet I also wanted to keep reading. This resulted in me continuing, but the non-stop action ended up actually slowing the pace for me, from the 40-80% marks.

There are a lot of characters in this book, and at times I did forget who was who—but this only concerned more minor background characters, so it wasn’t a problem at all. All the main characters were fully fleshed and felt so real.

I did guess who the villain was early on, but there were a lot of red herrings that nearly made me change my mind. Ultimately, though, I was pleased to learn that I had been right as to the identity of Jessica’s murderer.

The Scavenger Hunt aspect of this book reminded me a lot of Thirteen Reasons Why, yet the clues within the game were very well written and of a completely different style (and often it was a good job the characters explained them as a few I didn’t understand).

The craft is really good in this book. There are some beautiful lines and images, really meaningful messages.

All in all, this is a recommended read for fans of YA thrillers who love a good murder mystery.


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Review: SADIE by Courtney Summers

Sadie by Courtney Summers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A missing girl on a journey of revenge and a Serial - like podcast following the clues she's left behind. Sadie hasn't had an easy life. Growing up on her own, she's been raising her sister Mattie in an isolated small town, trying her best to provide a normal life and keep their heads above water. But when Mattie is found dead, Sadie's entire world crumbles. After a somewhat botched police investigation, Sadie is determined to bring her sister's killer to justice and hits the road following a few meager clues to find him. When West McCray - a radio personality working on a segment about small, forgotten towns in America - overhears Sadie's story at a local gas station, he becomes obsessed with finding the missing girl. He starts his own podcast as he tracks Sadie's journey, trying to figure out what happened, hoping to find her before it's too late. Courtney Summers has written the breakout book of her career. Sadie is propulsive and harrowing and will keep you riveted until the last page.

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I was a little nervous to start reading SADIE as I’d heard so many positive things about this book and it had been recommended to me countless times. It’s one of those books that felt huge, and seeing recently that it had won a prestigious award finally motivated me to open it on my kindle. And immediately, I was hooked.

I love books that use unusual writing devices as part of their narrative style, and just over half of this story is told via a podcast. I’ll confess, I’ve never listened to a podcast, so this format was new to me—and I was reading it rather than listening. The podcast revolves around a journalist called West who’s been employed by May Beth to look for her missing granddaughter (or rather surrogate granddaughter) and the episodes follow West as he travels around meeting people who Sadie, the missing girl, has talked to in her hunt for the man who killed her younger sister.

The other half of the story is told by Sadie in a first person narrative and the alternating order of the writing and podcast episodes means that we witness something with Sadie and are left on a cliffhanger, only to discover what then happened a chapter or so later via West’s investigation as he interviews the shady people Sadie’s come into contact with.

Sadie is a great character. She’s real, flawed, overwhelmed with grief over her sister’s murder and how she feels like she let her down. Sadie is thin and small, but as she tells the reader at several points, she is dangerous. She’s ruthless in her hunt for the murderer, and she saves a lot of other young girls on the way.

Claire, Sadie’s mother, is also an interesting character. We see an almost transformation from rubbish mother to caring mother as the book progresses as West interviews her for the podcast, looking for any leads as to where Sadie is now. Claire’s characterisation is strong and well written.

And the ending! Small spoilers here. It’s an ambiguous ending and we’re left only knowing the “ending” via the final episode of the podcast—which isn’t really an ending to Sadie’s story as the trail has gone cold. We don’t know what happened to her as her narrative is cut short during her meeting with her sister’s murderer. I was turning the pages eagerly as I read the podcast, hoping to be brought back to Sadie’s narration. But we’re not. This leaves an intentional and well crafted sense of unease in readers as we finish the book and it’s almost haunting. I can’t stop thinking about it.

The writing is also equally beautiful and well-crafted and in Sadie’s narrative, there are many powerful and poignant statements and messages. I found myself really thinking about her thoughts, and her voice is so strong.

Warning: This book does go to some very dark places: child abuse, rape, pedophilia, and murder are all bound up within the plot.

Overall, this is a powerful read. Highly recommended.

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Review: UNDONE by Cat Clarke

Undone by Cat Clarke
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Jem Halliday is in love with her gay best friend. Not exactly ideal, but she's learning to live with it.

Then the unspeakable happens. Kai is outed online ... and he kills himself.

Jem knows nothing she can say or do will bring him back. But she wants to know who was responsible. And she wants to take them down.

A searing story of love, revenge and betrayal from a bestselling author.

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For much of this book, I simply didn’t know what to think. It had the usual challenging and sensitive topics that Cat Clarke covers in her books, and was written in the same engaging, addictive style, but I often felt so disconnected from the main characters. The first two-thirds in particular just lacked the connection to Jem that I’d hoped for. Mainly I believe this is because she’s just such an unlikeable character. But I was really hoping for that connecting moment that I got with all of Clarke’s other books. And I didn’t really get it.

Jem is mean and seeking revenge, she doesn’t care who she hurts, she spreads nasty rumours (after having seen the devastating damage they can do), and she bulldozes her way over people’s feelings. All of this she believes is okay because she’s doing it for her best friend Kai who committed suicide.

I can see that her behaviour is in part because she’s grieving and full of so much pain, but I just couldn’t get on board with it. She changes into a different person completely—something she acknowledges. But the more she wanted to hurt Lucas, Stu, and Bugs, the more I empathised with them—and I strongly suspected (spoiler alert!) the twist that was coming at the end, regarding who the real “perpetrators” were.

Sasha was by far my favourite character—yet Jem takes great care to point out how fake and too pretty she is. Yet she’s honestly the nicest one in the book. I also liked Lucas (though I didn’t quite believe in the romance between him and Jem, especially when the book starts with him with Sasha).

The addition of Kai’s letters to Jem throughout the book was great. My only problem is that because they were images of handwriting, my kindle had problems displaying them big enough to read. Unfortunately, the letters made Kai rather unlikebale as he tries to change who Jem is, telling her to change her hair and her clothes.

The ending was great though! The tension was brilliant and the final twist was heart-breaking.

Warning: this book contains suicide and suicidal ideation.

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Review: ENTANGLED by Cat Clarke

Entangled by Cat Clarke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Seventeen-year-old Grace wakes up in a white room, with table, pens and paper - and no clue how she got there.
As Grace starts writing, pouring her tangled life onto the page, she is forced to remember everything she's tried to forget: falling hopelessly in love with Nat, and the unravelling of her friendship with her best mate Sal. But there's something missing. As hard as she's trying to remember, is there something she just can't see?

Grace must face the most important question of all.

Why is she here?

A compulsive thriller of dangerous secrets, intense friendships and electrifying attraction.

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Entangled is the third book by Cat Clarke that I’ve read and I have slightly mixed feelings on it. On the one hand, this is an amazing book, tackling hugely important subjects in a very powerful way. But on the other, I just didn’t feel I connected to it on the same level as her other books—there were certain things I found hard to believe (all revolving around the character of Ethan) and Grace’s present-day storyline was one I didn’t find that engaging as it didn’t seem that believable. But the ending and the huge reveal about Ethan totally made it all make sense—the reasons behind why this character was written that way, and what was going on with Grace in the present-day scenes, became totally clear and made the book suddenly a lot deeper and more thoughtful. I now see that it couldn’t have been written any other way, and having this sense of disconnection with Grace and Ethan, and the confusion, made sense. It was a relief to know that Cat Clarke had been one step ahead of me the whole time.

One striking thing about this book is how it jumps from the past to the present tense, and how the words we read are the words the MC writes as Ethan encourages her to write. I really liked that. It was very much a story told through another story, and the non-linear narrative made it very interesting.

**minor spoilers in this paragraph** ENTANGLED deals with some difficult topics: self-harm, sexual assault, trauma, teen pregnancy, abortion, attempted suicide (and the suicide of a parent), self-worth, and betrayal, to name a few. You’ve also got complex familial relationships and an examination of communication.

The characterisation is strong. Grace, Sal, and Nat were all very rounded characters, believable and with realistic flaws. Due to spoilers, I can’t write much about Ethan—his character is odd, but that is explained and “redeemed”. My slight annoyance is how Si isn’t given much page-time, yet he’s revealed to be a crucial character by the end. In fact, I don’t even remember any scenes where Grace (the narrator) met him and thus I felt a disconnection.

This book is a page-turner though. There’s something deliciously compelling about the writing, and I read pretty much the whole book over night.

Review: GIRLHOOD by Cat Clarke

Girlhood by Cat Clarke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ve been in a reading slump lately, and GIRLHOOD by Cat Clarke is the book that brought me out of it.

This book is amazing. It’s poignant, raw, and dark. And so, so emotional.

Harper, the MC, is at boarding school and is dealing with her grief and guilt over her twin sister’s death. Jenna died from anorexia, and Harper blames herself as she was the one who suggested they both went on a diet. The portrayal of anorexia is sensitively done and focuses largely on the impact that Jenna’s death has had on her twin and parents. Harper’s coping mechanisms seem realistic and authentic.

Female friendship is a huge part of this book, and Clarke tackles this in such a good way. She shows how groups of girls can turn on each other, how fragile a once-string friendship can become—and how quickly too—and really captures what teen friendships can be like: both the intensity of them and the importance of them in regards to building identity.

GIRLHOOD starts with four friends—Harper, Ama, Lily, and Rowen—when they meet newcomer Kirsty. Lily is headgirl and organises an almost initiation test for Kirsty—one that is unpleasant and somewhat dangerous. This book doesn’t shy away from how mean girls can be.

As the book progresses, Kirsty slithers further into the friendship group, and it becomes evident that she’s trying to cause trouble. She isolates certain girls, playing both the tormentor and rescuer—something that Lily is also referred to.

There are secrets and lies, jealousy and betrayal wrapped up in this complex story of friendship. But what I really liked was how all five girls pulled together and supported one another. Explanations for Kirsty’s behaviour are given—and these explanations perfectly explained her motivation for her ghastly actions and why she wouldn’t to hurt the girls. And the other girls forgive her, just as they forgive each other for other things they’ve done. Forgiveness is a huge theme in this book, and it ends with Harper trying to forgive herself for Jenna’s death.

I was really glad that this book didn’t have a love story, as so many YA books do. It would’ve detracted from the important messages this book gives.

It’s also worth noting that the cast of this book is diverse. This is the first book I’ve read where the MC is bisexual and this representation was really well done. Rowen also tells readers early on she’s a lesbian, and at least one other character appears to either be bi or lesbian too. There are also characters of colour too.

My only negative about this book is some of the characterisation. When you have a book with so many teenage girls as main characters—it’s set at a boarding school—keeping them separate in your head as you read is always going to be a challenge. And a few times, I found it hard to distinguish between Ama, Lily, and Rowen. But Harper and Kirsty’s characterisation was expertly done.

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