bookheaven | Entries tagged with young adult

When the Bones Sing by Ginny Myers Sain

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I received an arc from Netgalley. I loved this story. Set in a very small town, Lucifer Creek (named for the sulfurous stench it puts out), Dovie has a special matrilinear gift; she can hear/feel the bones singing. The sheriff has been putting this to good use in helping to recover lost hikers on a major hiking trail through the Ozarks. In the last three years over two dozen hikers have gone missing and the town is oddly quiet about it. Well, not so odd when one considers without the hikers bringing dollars into the town the town doesn't exist so they're hushing up a serial killer.

Dovie's best friend from her earliest days, Lo(wan) returns from wherever he ran off to still haunted and frantic. He claims the ghosts of the murdered and buried hikers are after him and he must solve the mystery of their deaths. Dovie doesn't believe in ghosts or religion or the Ozark Howler (in spite of her father a glass artist making a huge one for his friend's massive lodge (a very poor local boy made very good and generous to the town).

Also in the story are Dovie and Lo's grandmothers former friends who fell out after Lo's mother was drowned in Lucifer's Creek and Dovie's mother disappeared. And we also have the hell and brimstone preacher who is turning the town against the kids as witches and Xan a young man who I don't want to spoil.

I found Dovie and Lo captivating. While I did figure out most of the mystery I think the red herrings were deployed to great advantage in this. The stakes are high as more and more hikers are disappearing and waiting for Dovie to find them. Are her friends and family involved? What about their missing moms (something else I did figure out but again enjoyed the journey to the conclusions) There were twists I didn't predict which is always a delight and I found the end very satisfying. I thought the setting was rich. You could practically feel the heat, humidity and the bugs. I love it when an author takes a rich setting and makes it almost its own character. It brings something extra to the story.

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You Must Not Miss by Katrina Leno

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I had such mixed feelings about this one. It started out strong, foundered in the middle and I didn't like the end at all. In some ways it doesn't quite match the blurb and the title makes no sense whatsoever. (though I don't blame the author for that one. She might not have been the one to choose it).

Magpie Lewis starts off sympathetically enough. Her life has imploded. She caught her dad cheating on her mother with her mother's sister (and the family believes the aunt about the events of that day), her mother reverted back to her alcoholism as a result, her older sister has cut her out of her life for her own mental health and abandoning Magpie to deal with their mother's drinking until Maggie is 18 and can leave too. She got drunk herself at Brandon Phipp's party and did something to cause her to do something that made her best friend Allison to stop talking to her (Brandon is Allison's boyfriend so you can figure out what this is)

She's left making new friends with the other h.s. outcasts: Clare (whose father committed suicide) Luke (gay), Ben (trans masc and Magpie's potential love interest) and one more whom I've already forgotten because basically the book did too. Honestly these were good friends (expect Clare constantly insisting they all had to go to Brandon's next party even knowing what happened to Magpie the last time)

The only adult on her side is her english teacher who keeps giving her more changes to not fail his class and the school year than Magpie probably deserves. Her mom is busy drinking herself to death and her dad is out of the house. Her grandma and the rest of mom's family has cut her out.

Magpie has been writing in her yellow notebook about the town of Near which unlike the town she lives in Farther, is kind and empty of people and no one will ever abandoned her there. And then it becomes real. Her guide to this place is Hither a shape shifting speck of ether? Magpie's power? and that's where this begins to bog down.

Frankly the cover and the blurb talks about female rage (I'd like to think any child with all this going on would be enraged regardless of gender) and we don't really see that in believable ways or maybe it's just me. This rage seems to be let me fail out that'll teach them and let me be disengaged with my new friends because they're not the amazing Allison.

Magpie is actually rather unlikeable. I might be sympathetic toward her but I don't like her or what she does, especially at the end when that rage is first turned against her teacher who had the audacity of enforcing consequences for her lack of actions. The ending is weird, confusing and anticlimatic which is all I can say without spoiling it. The story was interesting but I also found it pr oblematic

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Nothing Special, Vol. 1: Through the Elder Woods by Katie Cook

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This weighty volume contains the first complete arc of the Nothing Special webtoon. And it starts off very sweetly with an air of innocence. Callie, being raised by her father, has lived life split between the human world and the fantasy one (where he runs a magic antique/junk shop). Of her mother, Callie knows very little. All she knows is she is forbidden to go past the gate of the fantasy world town.

In the human world, Callie runs into Declan, a classmate who forces herself to see herself in another way. To her eyes she's nothing special, sort of an outcast. But when she sees herself through his eyes, Callie is the cool, aloof girl and Declan has a mad crush on her.

But then on her seventeenth birthday, Callie's father disappears and she and Declan go into the fantasy world after him because, like Callie, Declan can see things he can't explain (starting with his own seventeenth birthday) Like Callie, he has roots in the fantasy world and together they start tracking her father using a pendant spelled to find family.

One of the things both teens can do is see these spirits, many of them the spirits of plants who turn out far more sentient than one would assume a radish is. However, it is a radish spirit who appoints himself Callie's protector (and is quite jealous of Declan). Among the various denizens of the realm, they meet up with a young man around their age, a demon Lasser the Lesser, the 87th son of a demon king and he wants to make his mark. He thinks Callie can help him do so. He's not taking no for an answer but he also knows the realm in ways Callie (and Declan) doesn't not so enter Lasser the sidekick.

The characters are nicely developed and the arc has a satisfying arc with one exception. Without spoiling it, let's just say the ending should come with a lot of emotional strings attached but we see none of that. Which fair, that might show up in the next arc (I hope so) and either way, it's not a deal breaker but it would be nice to see Callie deal with what happened in a real way.

The art in this is lovely. I'm looking forward to the next adventure.

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In Hell We Fight! Volume 1 by John Layman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The title grabbed me from the library's graphic novel shelf. My local comic book shop is light on Image comics so I missed this because it is right up my alley. As the title suggests we're in hell, following the afterlives of a handful of young adults. They're lead by Midori who was raised by a Yakuza leader who was also demon possessed until she stood up to him and died. She's the group's bad ass and demon hater. Xander was, based on the art, a young man of color in the southern swamps later 1800s/early 1900s who hated frogs, killed them until a frog demon drowned him and now he barfs up the water he drowned in plus stuff discarded in said water, sometimes even useful stuff. Ernie I feel sorry for who is only in hell because he was murdered by a cursed axe which sticks out of his head (and they can pull it free as many times as they need to arm themselves as another ax takes its place) and Balphie the group's dumb friend, son of a powerful demon.

They're just roaming around hell when they decide to steal an ice cream truck (for the ice cream) but inside is someone far more interesting than ice cream. With their new friend, they decide they might just storm the gates of heaven. Unfortunately for them everyone else wants that truck and the person inside it for their own power.

As expected there's plenty of fighting and mild/moderate gore. The art style fits the story (even if it's a bit gritty for my tastes.) The characters and adventures are interesting enough. The end of this volume was packed with mini stories from various anthologies. I enjoyed it enough that I'm looking forward to the next volume.

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Don't Let the Forest In by C.G. Drews

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thanks to Netgalley for the arc of this YA horror. I did enjoy it however there were a few reasons I didn't go all the way to five stars for it. Let me hit those first 1. The prose in the beginning is a bit hard to get into and Andrew (our point of view character) has so much on page anxiety that the prose begins to circle (more on that in a bit) 2. That beautiful prose really felt much more like I was seeing the author and not the characters who are 17-18 year old boys and even as an author of wicked fairy tales as Andrew is, this felt way too flowery (or maybe that's just the gender biases I carry with me growing up in the era that I did) 3.the ending (more on that later too without spoilers)

Andrew and his twin sister, Dove, are Australians going to a wealthy boarding school in the states. Dove is your quintessential over achieving academic. Andrew is a bundle of mental health issues (consider this your content warning) He has some sexuality worries (he's learning that he's ACE), huge anxiety issues especially social anxiety and later develops anorexia. Andrew worries what a lot of people with mental health issues do (speaking as one of the group) that his issues are too much for people. In his case, they are. Andrew is exhausting.

Andrew's one friend is THomas Rye, a very talented artistic young man, the abused and neglected son of two artistic parents, the boy who hates everyone but Andrew (and Dove) Apparently he and Dove had a blow out at the end of the school year and are not talking now. She's barely talking to Andrew and he has to rely on her roommate, the always ready to fight Lana Lang (whose name drove me up the wall since there wasn't at least one Superman reference to her name in the book)

The new school year opens with Thomas under suspicion of hurting his parents who disappeared and there is blood in the house. Worse, things are happening in the forbidden woods outside of the school. Monsters straight out of fair tales (like Andrew writes), straight out of Thomas's art (which they twig onto immediately) are attacking and if Thomas doesn't beat them every night, they attack the school.

The boys are left trying to find a way to defeat the monsters once and for all while not dying or failing out of school. We have nice supportive art teachers and on the other hand we have the bullies, one is the calculus professor and the other is Bryce, typical rich kid who is going to get away with it because teachers/admin love him. He and the teacher Clemmons are SO bad you're rooting for the monsters.

For Andrew the fight between Thomas and Dove, the monsters, school, Bryce and all of it are becoming too much, especially talk about what he did at the end of the last school year that left him with scars. Andrew develops an eating disorder (too full of the forest to eat is how he describes it) and his anxiety over his relationship with Thomas deepens (as he fears rejection if Thomas a) wants Dove b) wants him but only if sex is part of it)

It takes them a lot longer to figure out what is causing the monsters than I did (which is good because it would have been a short story and not a novel if they picked up on it that fast). And as much as I like Andrew, Thomas and even Lana, the ending disappointed me because (without spoilers) it relied on a trope I don't like (and one I know enrages a lot of people) and worse if this is how it plays out then every adult and several of his friends have really let Andrew and his mental health down. Still overall, it was an engaging psychological horror.

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Third Shift Society, Vol. One (Third Shift Society, #1)

Third Shift Society, Vol. One by Meredith Moriarty

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a lucky find at the library as I don't get Webtoon (because I'd probably get nothing done if I did) and I enjoyed. Is it anything truly new in the urban fantasy, Buffy/Supernatural sort of genre? No, not really but that doesn't mean it wasn't fun.

Ellie is just your average girl in the city who lost her job and then runs across a pumpkin headed man in an alley battling a monster. Compelled to help (as Ellie is pretty sweet), she learns she has psychic powers and when Ichabod i.e. the Pumpkinhead offers her a job, she says yes. The job is relatively a simple one, they investigate places of supernatural disturbances.

She doesn't nearly as many questions about all this as I might have liked and Ichabod dodges the one she did ask (why is your head a pumpkin). We have them dealing with ghosts from immurement, spiritual snakes things, bug men, demons and a surprise visit from someone who looks a lot like Alice in Wonderland.

Ellie does do the one thing Ichabod asked her not to: to go solo on a case and naturally it goes not as well as she'd like. Vol 2 will probably be dealing with the consequences of that choice.

I like Ellie, Ichabod and Simon (Ichabod's friend and supernatural doctor). I'm looking forward to more of this. The art is excellent as well.

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Bloodmarked by Tracy Deonn

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My only regret here was how long it took me to get to this book and that I couldn't finish it in a day or two (because what is time?) No fears of the sophomore slump in book 2 of the Legendborn and this propels Deonn to one of my favorite writers. This book could be a masterclass in how to write characters with imperfections/makes mistakes without them looking like idiots. How many times have we read a book where the character does something idiotic in order to advance the plot? Here the mistakes made feel right, like something that would happen.

I also very much liked the way race was handled in this especially as it's presented as a spectrum from unconscious bias to outright racism (other PoC fantasies I've read have made every white character from the 10th level of hell which on one hand I get but on the other is as problematic as doing the same to every character of color) Bree does not shy away from how she ended up a Scion of Arthur and shines a light on the rape and abuse of enslaved people. This also leans heavy into the rootcrafters and their history. It felt like Bree's story accomplished that.

Bree, Sel, William and Alice make up the bulk of the action as Nicholas is in hiding. The Machiavellian plotting of the Regents and some of the Legendborn was so good and so infuriating at the same time. Bree is not the Scion some of them want and much like with the Slayers in the Buffyverse, the best way to get the one you DO want, you need to take out the current title holders which is why Bree is on the run and Nicholas is in hiding.

We also meet Valec a true 50/50 % demon/human cambion (unlike most of the Merlins who are diluted) and he and his side story shed light on some of the flaws of the Round Table crew and again we see much more of the Rootcrafters. While Bree is trying to learn to control her powers, Sel is beginning to succumb to his own.

And then we have Arthur who, like many a powerful man, is not about to let some woman stand in his way. Bree is unique. Through her he has hopes like he has never had in any other Scion before her giving Bree yet another front on which she must fight.

We learn more about her own line of descent on her mother's side and what these women went through and what price has been paid, what price Bree has yet to pay and what it means to be Bloodmarked.

It's hard to boil down a nearly 600 page book into a short review especially without spoiling things. There is a twist at the end that works out masterfully and the open ending also works (which is saying a lot as I don't normally like them) The main thorough line does wrap up and I can't wait to see where this all takes us. Very much looking forward to a return trip with Bree and her friends.

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Six of Sorrow by Amanda Linsmeier

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was one of my Netgalley YA horror arcs and while I did have a few reservations I enjoyed this one a lot. Content Warning: alcoholic parents, underaged drinking, smoking, body horror.

Let me start with one of the reservations as it sets the stage Isabeau (Iz) is one of six girls in Sorrow (a small island off the coast of Louisiana) named for a local witch a few hundred years back, and these six girls are all turning sixteen on the same night (where we drop into the action). Only something happened that broke them apart three years ago leaving Iz with only Reuel still talking to her.

As you might expect there is plenty of angst about this that goes on for a big chunk of the book. It gets a bit overwhelming and slows the action but not terribly slow. Iz and Reuel are still bffs celebrating in Sorrow's cemetery (because a) they're both the tortured artists types Iz is graphic art and Reuel a poet) b) the whole town has a Sorrow ritual on this day as well) Afterward, they go home to Reuel's for a while before Iz goes home to her alcoholic mother (This is something that did work for me, how Iz is torn by her feelings of having a functional alcoholic as a mother. I've seen a lot of that) Reuel is gone by morning.

This reunites the remaining five girls and without being terribly spoilery as they each go missing and return 'wrong' the sense of dread increases throughout the book. I thought that was handled well. The girls come back together almost too easily (that is my other reservation, there are some emotional beats that felt off. This was one of them) and together they need to uncover what is happening to them, what their mother's did that they're being weird about and how does this all relate to Sorrow.

I did figure that out pretty early on but I still enjoyed watching Iz and her friends solving the mystery. The end action worked well for me. This is a very female forward book, almost a role reversal to early action/horror when the few guys in it are only there as boyfriend props (except Bridger who has a small role to play). I didn't mind this at all. I will say another place I felt this stumbled with the emotional beats is Iz figuring out her feelings which felt a little out of nowhere (with some back tracking to be sure we saw the clues which yes I did but the whole couple thing felt shoehorned in and stretched out the ending a bit much.

That aside, I liked Iz and her friends and would recommend this. One thing I didn't enjoy was how much Iz smoked especially in the light of them not having much money. Health concerns aside, have you seen the cost of cigarettes?

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Castle of the Cursed by Romina Garber

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thanks to Netgalley for the arc.

Estela and her parents (her father especially) like to play Sherlock and Watson until one day, Estela's entire life changes. Facing intense survivor's guilt and PTSD, Estela is rescued from the mental hospital by an aunt she didn't even know about and is whisked away to the titular castle, La Sombra in Spain.

Her aunt is strange, the town is strange and the castle is stranger yet. Her aunt, the town doctor, is cold and distant and seems less than thrilled to be saddled with a teenager. She leaves Estela with one rule : no one is allowed inside the castle. She also wants her to take Spanish language classes with a young man in town. However, it doesn't take long for the supernatural to begin to happen especially with the appearance of Sebastian.

The love triangle potential ends rather quickly (by someone being a creep) and honestly if there was something that didn't work for me it was the romance. I hate insta-love and this whole thing takes I think two weeks and the almost sex scenes seemed forced and in weird places plot wise, like why would anyone stop for sex at this juncture outside of a schlocky slasher fic plot?

I will give it that it has a creative take on the whole vampire prince trope. There were twists and turns I didn't expect and I did like Estela for the most part. She has a lot of flaws but someone that young having so much life changing crap happening, you can forgive her those issues. At about the 50% mark the big twists start happening and that's about all I want to say about those.

I enjoyed this and would look for more by this author.

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Basil and Oregano by Melissa Capriglione

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really wanted to rate this four star but man, that ending. It was so rushed and had problems that I'll get into later. I think some of the issues in this is because of the limits of traditional sequential art publishing. You have X number of pages, fit it in there or it doesn't get told. This might have been better as a webtoon where the pace could have been slowed down and the characters developed. So many of the characters are so underdeveloped they feel like they're there for diversity's sake and no other reason.

Our point of view character is Basil, a young girl who has to get Top Student rating or else her two dads get a 200K bill for her tuition. There is no explanation as to why a magical culinary school is priced so only multimillionaires can afford it and one of the weak parts of the final chapters are almost everyone is on scholarship so why aren't Basil's besties Villy (non-binary) and Addy (trans black girl) taking this more seriously? Why isn't everyone cutting each other's throats and not just Xynthia who is your typical mean girl. We have no idea until the end she's doing it because she can't afford school either. She just comes off as your typical high school snobby mean girl. In fact the only other mention we have of price is the coffee house girl who longs to go but can't afford it.

On day one Basil and her buddies meet up with the new student Arabella Oregano, daughter of a famous/rich magiculinary artist. Basil is immediately smitten with Arabella and the bulk of the graphic novel is divided between their cooking classes, their romance and Xynthia's snobby bitchery.

Until a) we find out Arabella's secret b)Xynthia and Basil find out too. Now Basil has to make a choice and if she chooses Arabella and it's discovered she'll be tossed out the competition and will need to come up with two hundred thousand dollars. Xynthia on the other hand decides she can't just go tell the teachers (why not we have no idea because this feels like something easily proven) but instead decides to take an elaborate revenge plot approach.

And this is where everything falls apart for me and why I couldn't go to 4 stars. I can live with Villy and Abby being half forgotten (sad but this is Basil and Arabella's romance saga so... still they should have been better developed) Xynthia's spell proves there's more than food magic out there so why is food magic so important to these kids? Arabella would rather cook the old fashioned way but no one does that any more. Why? Does everyone have some level of food magic? Then why is this school so crazy expensive?

I could live with that too but as expected Xynthia's spell goes horribly awry and people could have been killed. It's only because of Arabella that they don't. The teachers do squat all (other than to try to clear the food festival grounds to people aren't hurt and then...maybe they'll do something).

Okay consider there to be minor spoilers from here out The teachers DO have offensive magic but the students aren't at that level yet. Um WHY would a freaking chef need combat magic? And honestly how hard would it be to squirt hot pepper juice into someone's eyes? We see them doing similar things while cooking.

Now I expected Basil and Arabella to triumphant because this is a YA romance and they're our heroes but the final chapter is such a let down. Yes they succeed but NOTHING happens to Xynthia. Even before her lame apology to Basil (her family life is in turmoil and she can't afford this school either, which fine yes that will cause people to act out but it's also not an excuse for nearly killing people), she's right there are the end of festival/end of school term meeting. She faced zero consequences for her actions. Cue me screaming into the void. I get so tired of this. You do shitty things and people just shrug it off. Fine, Basil can be the bigger person and forgive but why did the school not expel Xynthia for nearly killing everyone at the festival or at least trying to ruin her competition so she could win?

And the other star-losing plot point is the school said oops no one won the festival (because it was ruined) no one gets top student so you ALL owe tuition. WTF? First off only 2 students top can get the scholarship (because you have to be top student in two quarters, see what I mean by why aren't more students out to destroy their classmates) and now everyone is on the hook for the money. The students revolt in a passionate why are you hurting your future by destroying us and the school goes hmm you're right, no tuition for anyone. What? laughs. This was so dumb. And all the wealthy donors sitting in at this festivity are all you know what, kids be right here I'll pay for them. And then the poor kid from the coffee house is there 'wooo I can go to this school now.' Why is she there? Is she catering this event? The end is such a hot mess.

There is a sweet epilogue though. Overall, this is sweet, cute and I'm glad I read it but the world building and pacing required some work. I really enjoyed the art. It fits the tone of the story and it's very well done. We also get a diversity of body types which we don't always see.

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K-pop Confidential (K-pop Confidential, #1)

K-pop Confidential by Stephan Lee

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I probably should have rated it higher but it wasn't a book I enjoyed that much. That is no fault of the author. I didn't think this was badly written at all. It was the subject matter. To be fair, if not for the popsugar K-pop challenge, I would never have read this. I love music but these days I listen without watching (what a difference from my teen years) so the whole pop icon aesthetic is lost on me and I was never one to lose it over entertainers.

Candace Park, a Korean-American girl living in New Jersey has always wanted to be a singer. She was tiger mommed into the viola instead but with the encouragement of her two friends she auditions for S.A.Y. one of the biggest K-pop companies who produces one of Candace's fave's SKL and their front man One.J. Surprising no one but Candace she's selected as a trainee (and I think that might be one of my issues with the book, we know how this is all going to play out from the get go)

Candace and her mother go to Korea for her training and that's the rest of the book. It's part training, part cut your throat competition to find out which girls from the multiple teams will be part of S.A.Y.'s first all girl band. You don't find out til the last chapter.

And here come the warnings: fat phobia and forced unhealthy eating habits, colorism (you have to be dead white apparently), misogyny (the guys get away with far more than the girls), forced solitude (the idols must appear free to date for the fans) , mental trauma, physical trauma, bullying, gas lighting.

So it's a few hundred pages of watching young people being tormented. They're not allowed more than 4 hours sleep for weeks, insane, unhealthy food restrictions reinforced for the girls with a clear glass gender barrier in the hopes girls will eat next to nothing is boys are watching, being constantly bullied and gas lighted by adults.

At the end of this, my only thought was if any of this is even remotely close to the truth (and I would not be surprised) I couldn't in good conscience even listen to K-pop and contribute to this sort of treatment. The weird thing is I know other groups are similarly hard, like figure skating, ballet and a plethora of sports but somehow this is worse and I think it's because in my head it should be about the music. If you have a beautiful voice, you should be able to take a stage as an icon regardless of your size. Maybe because it reinforces unrealistic expectations of women that I was so bothered. I can't really say but all I know is I felt unhappy after reading this and would have respected it more if Candace had given them the finger and walked off.

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The Golden Hour by Niki Smith

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I generally don't read contemporary stuff but the cover of this graphic novel caught my eye. Manuel was a witness to gun violence in his school and understandably has PTSD and anxiety as a result. As life at school goes back to something akin to normal, he's put into a group project with two other students he doesn't really know, Sebastian and Caysha.

Manuel's therapist has given him the idea of grounding himself by finding 'anchors' whenever his anxiety/PTSD is spiking. He finds his in taking cell phone photos. As he gets to know Sebastian and Caysha he begins to open up. Like him, Caysha is a townie but she does raise fancy chickens out at her grandmother's place. Sebastian is pure Kansas cowboy material and is given a newborn calf to hand raise.

Spending more and more time with these two helps Manuel to begin to heal. Credit where credit is due, this is not some magical elixir. Manuel has his bad moments (one of which is a turning point in the story) But getting involved with them and in the ag club (a 4-H clone), he begins to find solace and friends. There is something sweet and wholesome about this friendship. Honestly though, if the blurb didn't say first love, I might have missed it. I think there's a kiss (as I sit there squinting at it) so it's subtle.

I was a tiny bit disappointed in Mom, not that she's overprotective. That's understandable. It's that she didn't listen to Manuel when he needed her to (and that is addressed in the story with this faint broken inking that was the chef's kiss). The art is great and does a wonderful job of capturing the derealization Manuel undergoes when he's having an episode. I will need to find more from both this author and the artist.

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Have You Seen My Sister? by Kirsty McKay

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I won this in a GR giveaway and this is rounded up from a 3.5. Overall I did enjoy this mystery. I thought the red herrings were well sprinkled in. On the other hand, I did have some issues with some of the point of view character Esme's choices (though she is 15 and judgement centers have a min. of a decade more to develop into adulthood).

Esme's family is visiting New England from England (where we're not sure. The Canadian border isn't far, it's ski country and they keep talking about driving into Boston) Her older half sister Gaia has gone missing after a goodbye party that Esme also attended but only partly remembers. (this and her 'clumsiness' are part of her dyspraxia) The addisons, the wealthy family and friends to Esme's family only get the resort security involved at first as Gaia is college aged and might have just left on her own. Esme and her family don't buy that for an instant (and it seemed like a way to interject how Gaia's case might be viewed thru a racist lens as she, unlike Esme, is biracial).

There are plenty of suspects, Craig a 30ish ski instructor, a few other ski people, Scott who was reality show famous and was working with Gaia to get back into the limelight, a few sketchy types and several others. Naturally Esme's family is out searching but Esme is also out playing Nancy Drew with a local boy Bode (there's a shoe horned in side romance here which I found distracting and weird. She's thinking about that while her sister is missing?)

I had a good idea who had to have some involvement from the moment they found Craig's truck because yes, he too is missing. The ending is a wee bit over the top action wise but overall I enjoyed it. What I didn't enjoy was Esme hiding things from her parents and the cops to save her sister's reputation. She's old enough to know that isn't going to work well.

I did see reviewers didn't find it believable that people didn't take the disappearance more seriously. I'd respectfully invite them to watch a week of true crime. Teens Gaia's age are often written off as runaways, more than anyone wants to think of. The stats in America are appalling, over 2000 kids going missing daily and about a million yearly between here and Canada so yeah, that there were police on the case and it not totally ignored was not unbelievable to me.

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Your Blood, My Bones by Kelly Andrew

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Solid 4.5 read for me. It was so close to 5 stars but I tripped up on some of the unreliable narrator stuff and a bit of an unbalance in the story but honestly that was mostly minor (and that's from someone who usually dislikes unreliable narrators)

Wyatt has returned to her family home in rural Maine. Her father has died and she plans to burn the farm to the ground. Her mother had taken her away a handful of years ago leaving Wyatt angry with her father. But when she arrives, she finds her childhood friend, Peter, chained up in the basement, suspended from the ceiling, left for dead. Only Peter can't die. Her family and the magical cult that grew up around them has been ritualistically murdering Peter for more years than Wyatt can wrap her head around.

Peter (Pedyr) should have died back in the colonial days but his father made a deal with the darkness in the woods and he was revived, made immortal but his deaths feed the beast as well. They're trapped together. Peter is now as old as he's ever been allowed to get (late teens)

The story is told in alternating points of view (his and hers) going back and forth between present day and their childhood along with the third kid in their trio: James, the wealthy boarding school kid who summered there with them. Both boys had their crushes on her. Wyatt had no idea the destruction she wrought when she was taken away.

Now the monsters in the wood want out into the world and with Wyatt's father dead and his magic failing, it falls to her and the boys to stop it. Only there's something wrong with her magic and she has no desire to learn what her father did to keep back the dark (hint, the title of this book is fitting).

I think, for me, one of the scariest parts of horror as a genre is there is no guarantees everyone will make it to the end. In romances you know they'll get their happy ever after. In mysteries, the sleuth will solve the case. In horror, we expect people to die (the last girl isn't a trope for nothing). Truthfully no one should survive this book. The horror both interesting and just that dangerous.

It's not the first time (even in the last few months) I've read the horror from the woods. That's a trope in and of itself, but it is done very well here. I very much liked Peter. Half the time I wanted to slap Wyatt hard but she does rise to the occasion. What I tripped over, isn't so much the unreliable narrator (both are) in so much as around mid way we learn that Wyatt is magic on both side and boom, suddenly there's this whole other side of the family who becomes important with now warning and that bugged me.

Overall, I did really love this (and wow, that cover!)

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Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas by Megan Shepherd

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What can I say? When I saw this booktok trender on the shelf I had to have it. I loved the movie and I'm a little horrified that this movie novelization was released for it's 30th anniversary (because how could it be so long).

It's exactly what you'd expect of a movie novelization. There's not much depth to it beyond what was on the screen. It's written in omniscient point of view so there's plenty of head hopping. Jack, the pumpkin king, stumbles on a tree that lets him peek into another magical realm: Christmas. He sees this as the very thing he needs to shake off his ennui. He wants to be 'Sandy Claws' But Jack is a thing of horror, not cut out for this. Sally, the rag doll who loves him, sees this clearly even if Jack and the rest of the Hinterlands doesn't.

I wonder what I can't possibly know: would I have enjoyed this if I hadn't seen the movie a hundred times? I think it was better in visual medium than in book form but it was nice to drop in to see Jack and Sally again in a new format.

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Demon Ex Machina (Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom, #5)

Demon Ex Machina by Julie Kenner

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This reminds me of Buffy the Vampire Slayer had we dropped in on her in her 30s. That's a good thing for me. The bad thing was I got this second hand so I didn't have any idea it was book 5. I could figure things out but obviously I was missing a lot of the nuances.

Kate is training her current husband to at least help her fight demons while her 15 year old daughter can't wait to be out there slaying demons. To top it all off, her toddler son (to husband #2) is entering tantrum phase and her resurrected first husband, love of her life, is back in her life and a demon inside him is threatening to kill him and her.

It becomes a race to determine what demon is inside of Eric and can they extract it before it kills him, binding him to the demon forever or will they have to kill him (again) to kill the demon. It was a fun story in the sense of the action adventure part of it. There are many more serious moments (like being tempted to cheat, and almost non-con encounter when the demon started getting more control. )

The one thing I didn't like was there was no poofing into dust of the demons. There was a lot of them trying to hide bodies that were once people who died and were hosting a demon. I don't know why but that really bothered me.

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A Shrouded Spark (Noni & The God Tree, #1)

A Shrouded Spark by Breshea Anglen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The story opens soon after Noni's near-death in a car accident with her cousin who is more like a sister. Noni's parents are long gone and her cousin's mother has raised her so the girls are close. That doesn't stop Noni from planning to go to school in California instead of staying in Ohio. She wants to go into nursing to honor her parents who were in healthcare.

The accident however has gotten Noni off track. She's having intention tremors when she tries to draw, art being her passion, and she's having night terrors, not surprising with the PTSD the accident left her with. She gets the idea that she needs to meet the man who saved her life the day of the accident.

Once she meets him, things get very wild. Magic, portals to other realms, old gods, It all mixes to make an interesting story that Noni is swept up in. She's a very likeable character, easy to root for. It did have an open ending that isn't my favorite way to end a book. The surprise secondary character that I really liked was Eli. His arc was a good one, from creepy kid to why people see him as such and his importance to Noni and her journey. I'm looking forward to the next book.

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Noni & The God Tree: A Shrouded Spark by Breshea Anglen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I met the author at the Ohioana book festival and the book sounded intriguing. It opens with Noni after a car accident that nearly took her life. As she recovers, things aren't as they were before. She's still planning to go across country to California to nursing school to honor her parents (she's orphaned, living with her aunt and cousin Bianca) who were health care workers.

As part of her healing journey she wants to meet Alex, the man who pulled her from the car and saved her life. Little does she know, this will change her life forever. Something paranormal is happening to Noni that has to do with the titular God Tree (Yggdrasil). Alex is more than he seems as well. As with any fantasy, there are forces opposing Alex and his people and Noni is swept up into it.

Noni and Bianca are great cousins and characters. I enjoyed them very much. Alex and his sister are as well. The surprise sleeper character that I really loved was Eli who starts out as the strange - perhaps schizophrenic - young man who works at the supermarket with Bianca and Noni. Don't want to give away his secrets but his was a satisfying reveal. Terrell, another friend and coworker is also a fun character.

The mild down side for me is really a preference thing. I'm not a giant fan of the let's tie up the main story arc and then start the next book as an open ending, you must buy book two to find out where it goes thing (but it's obvious why authors include them). Still, I liked how the main action ended and I'd be interested in seeing where it goes as Noni is a fun character.

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Half Bad by Sally Green

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a 2.5 read for me. A friend picked up a freebie for me not knowing it was book 2 so I got this one because this is definitely a trilogy you need to start at the beginning. And...it's a bit of a hot mess in many ways. It opens in 2nd person pov (which I hate) and switches back and forth between that and first person until half way in before becoming Nathan's pov in first (both are his pov technically)

It opens with him in a cage being tormented by a White Witch because he's half white and half black (and boy do I hate this sticking with the white = good, black = bad, yes I know it's been around as a convention forever but we should try harder at this point). There is some brutal violence in all of this which i'm okay with that.

What I could have done without was the predictability of it (who would have guessed the purest white witch of them all would sort of fall for him and cause him to be tormented by her family, wow never saw that before...100 times over) It moves on such predictable rails you'd think it was a train.

Also the whole first 'book' I could have done without as well because we start with the high energy scene of Nathan's attempt escape and then boom we're back watching him grow up to this point. And it slows to a crawl as we watch over the years the White Witches making further and further restrictions on the half codes as they call them (Black/White witches or witch/fain which is their term for non-magical humans).

The whole plot which is razor thin is by 17 every witch must get three gifts and drink the blood of a relative (just a mouthful it seems) to get their power (or maybe die without it). In Nathan's case his mother is dead and his Black Witch father is gone and that is Nathan's end all be all: Meet my dad.

WHY? That was my biggest issue with this. We never see any real motivator for this. Nathan is fully aware his father is a mass murderer. He killed Nathan's half siblings' father and is the reason Nathan's mother is dead as well. For me 'he's my dad' isn't enough. I'd like to think a lot of us wouldn't want to see a mass murderer we've never met even if he is our dad. Maybe if Nathan's home life had sucked. His sister Jessica is a bitch to him and wants him gone. Maybe if they had all been that way I could see it more. His gran is decent to him. His brother Arran loves him.

So the whole book is him wishing for daddy and being picked on by White Witches which was problem number two for me. When the 'good guys' are as cruel and gross as the bad ones, you're left with no one to root for and Nathan makes half his own problems.

It 'ends' with barely any resolution to anything other will he survive his 17th birthday. In fact, it pretty much just fizzles out mid action and I hate that kind of ending. Now I need to decide do I even want to read the book my friend gave me?

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Bittersweet in the Hollow (Bittersweet in the Hollow, #1)

Bittersweet in the Hollow by Kate Pearsall

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I absolutely loved this YA horror set in Caball Hollow WV (heck I read a chunk of it while IN Caball County WV). This rural folk horror subgenre is one of my favorites and I very much liked Linden and her family, a family who had lived in the area for generations and they all have their form of magic. Linden's sister can detect lies for example. Linden reads (and projects) emotion.

The story opens a year almost to the day since Linden disappeared into the woods only to come back with next to no memory of what had happened to her and the town decided she merely got lost and frightened while participating in a local ritual of baiting the Moth-Winged man (a spin on Mothman which is huge here). It caused a rift between her and her friends, especially her boyfriend, Cole, the mayor's son and everyone's golden boy, the boy who shouldn't have survived his heart defect but did.

One of Linden's friends, a young lady who did escape the town via a scholarship is back wanting to talk to her but disappears just like Linden did, only she's not as lucky. Her death has echoes of Linden's disappearance and the disappearance of a young boy some 20 years before. Linden and her family try to work out what is going on, how is it connected to Linden and before the town explodes (mostly at them because their 'powers' are an open secret.

I loved Linden though I would have liked more definition of some of the characters like her sisters. I did have some quibbles, like Linden realizing something is important to the case but not telling anyone but Cole seeing as her dad IS the detective on the case. (though later it seems maybe she had but off page), or why she was so convinced Cole didn't like her any more. There is some explanation but it comes late in the game and doesn't seem to be how Cole feels judging by his actions on screen. The thing that bothered me most was the danger of losing the farm. I'm like you've lived there for generations, did they build a new house that needs a house payment? (I was thinking this because we have two generational houses in my family and we would be in no danger of losing them in a month because we're out of work, maybe when taxes came due) It seemed tacked in there to up tension but it felt unnecessary.

Still, it's a solid debut and I will be hunting for her next book.

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