Kate in Waiting by Becky Albertalli

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Penguin Random House Children’s UK in exchange for an honest review.

This book was an absolute delight from start to finish. Kate in Waiting is the story of Kate and her best friend Anderson. For years they have joked about their communal crushes, each of them never liking someone unless the other one does. When their summer camp crush starts attending their school though, things become a little more complicated as both Kate and Anderson fall hard for him. Is it possible to salvage a friendship when both you and your best friend want the same person? And will Matt fall for either of them?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I have actually been in a very similar situation in my real life as described by the plot of this book, and I am deeply impressed by the nuance captured here. I feel like a lot YA books write about friendships and jealousy but they tend to take rather a dramatic or antagonistic view of it. Here, you really believe that Kate and Anderson are best friends and that their friendship has the closeness that means they don't just instantly start fighting with each other. It's that weird blend of friendship, loyalty, jealousy and competition which is perfectly captured here, and it makes for a really interesting and insightful book.

Speaking of the characters, I adored them all. Kate and her friends tend to overuse the term 'f-boys' and there are a few too many pop culture references near the start of this book, but both of those things stopped bothering me as I got into the story. Kate herself is very likeable and relatable, Anderson is a pure joy to read about and I similarly liked Noah and Ryan. Everyone felt like a real person and they were people I wanted to read about and spend time with.

Overall, Kate in Waiting is a perfect example of how to write a YA contemporary book in my eyes. The plot is kept simple but is interesting enough to carry the book, and the characters help drive that plot and are what makes it really stand out. The pacing was spot-on and if you're looking for a cute, fun book which also explores some complex emotions not usually discussed in YA, you can't go wrong here.

Overall Rating:

.5

Watch Her Fall by Erin Kelly

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Hodder & Stoughton in exchange for an honest review.

I love books about ballet, especially if those books have a dark twist. Watch Her Fall caught my attention almost immediately but I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from the blurb. I actually think the blurb is fairly misleading so I will give you a spoiler-free summary of the plot.

Watch Her Fall is the story of Ava, the top ballet dancer at the intensely strict school run by her father. She has a complicated relationship with her dad as he rules the ballet with an iron fist and hates her displaying any kind of creativity. As they begin a production of Swan Lake, Ava becomes increasingly paranoid about her father replacing her with another dancer. When that dancer becomes injured however, she realises she is ill-equipped for the real world and begins to plot how to take over Ava's life.

This is not a thriller about someone being messed with by a mysterious figure, at least not past the 20% mark. What this is is a thriller driven by characters and a plot which goes in a very different direction than you would expect it to. I wouldn't say I was ever surprised by this book which some people might see as a negative, but I was genuinely enthralled and the lack of twists didn't stop me enjoying the story one bit.

The main negative of this book is that it does a lot of 'flashback' narrative. That is, an event will happen and then it will switch POV to another character and take us back in time for a bit to see the events leading up to the thing we just read about. Sometimes this is welcome, sometimes I was uninterested. It definitely slowed the pace down which isn't a positive in a thriller. Still, I did appreciate the depth we got to know the characters to and it does build a really complete and complex story. I can see how it might build suspense for some readers if you don't think the surprises are obvious.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. Kelly is clearly very talented at crafting thrillers with a unique setting and interesting characters. Having read/experienced a fair amount of 'dark ballet' media, I was pleased to see this book had new things to offer still. I think this book is definitely worth a read if you're looking for a compelling thriller, and I am eager to try Kelly's other work now I've seen her writing skills.

Overall Rating:

Knife Edge by David Callinan

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Endeavour Media in exchange for an honest review.

Knife Edge is the story of Ella and Ed, two ugly teenagers at a posh private school full of beautiful people. A chance win at a gambling facility leaves Ella able to afford the best plastic surgery in the world, enabling her to make herself and Ed beautiful. Unfortunately things get complicated when their childhood bully, Scott Stockton enters the picture.

For the most part, I really enjoyed this book. The pacing is a little slow but I genuinely had no idea where it was going and the sense of horror which came from that was very enjoyable. It is a very weird story and this can make for a bit of a jarring reading experience, but once the plot kicks in properly then it becomes a very interesting tale about identity and revenge.

One thing I do have to say is this book got weirdly sexual near the end. Before the 70% mark, I'd say the only sexual aspects were plot relevant and somewhat justified by the narrative. There are two rapes in this book but both serve a narrative purpose (maybe this could have been accomplished by different acts but I'm not here to debate that). However, at the 70% mark there were some unnecessary sexual scenes which I think distracted from the actual horror of the story. The first was some characters visiting a kind of underground sex/gay club and this was full of uncomfortable characters who served no real purpose. The word transsexual is used repeatedly and the whole scene could have been cut with no harm done. The other thing which I wish wasn't in the book was a male character murdering a female character in a sexually-graphic way. It felt lazy and again, I was genuinely feeling quite tense until that happened and it just became cartoonish. These scenes both felt like they came out of nowhere and didn't fit the rest of the book for me.

That aside, Knife Edge really does have a lot to offer. The horror mostly comes from the characters but there is also plenty of violence to keep slasher fans happy. It poses some interesting philosophical debates about identity and what it means to be a good person, and it's definitely not a book I'll be forgetting in a hurry.

   Overall Rating:

.5

The Last Girl by Goldy Moldavsky

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Egmont Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

Oh boy, this book had big expectations to live up to with a blurb like that and it somehow managed to meet every one of them. The Last Girl is the story of Rachel, a girl who moves to a new school and town after surviving a traumatic home invasion. At her new school she stumbles across a secret club dedicated to watching horror movies and 'making the horror real'. Taking it in turns to pick a victim, the club stages elaborate pranks to get back at people they don't like. A fan of horror, Rachel feels like she's found her people until certain aspects of the pranks start to go too far and remind her of her trauma.

I really really loved this book. Almost every aspect is spot on and delivers exactly what I wanted when I picked this up. The plot feels sort of predictable but it's delivered in such an entertaining way and it makes such good use of the horror tropes that I didn't mind one bit. You find yourself drawn into the mystery and you start second-guessing your assumptions, wondering which horror movie trope the author is going to go with for the reveal. It's very subtle but any of them could work in this way and it adds a clever touch to the mystery aspect.

The characters themselves were great and one of the strongest aspects of this book. I liked how Rachel never had to make any dumb decisions to drive the plot forward, and she felt very grounded in reality as a protagonist. I fell in love with every member of the club in different ways, and I never had any trouble distinguishing them from each other. There is an interesting love triangle of sorts here but it is very downplayed and amounts to romantic tension more than anything explicit. I was uncertain about it at first but I appreciated how it played out in the end and it didn't feel like there was unnecessary romance drama or like it took over the plot.

Two of my favourite characters were actually from outside of the club. Saundra is Rachel's first friend when she starts at the school and she is a happy, gossipy girly-girl. I loved how she wasn't dropped as soon as Rachel joined the club and how she was never implied to be shallow or less important than the club members simply for not sharing their interests. Similarly, Lux is Rachel's bully and the resident mean girl of the school. She receives much less attention and time than Saundra but there are moments where you get to see that she is also a real person with her own stuff going on. I felt all the female characters in this book were very different and all were important in some way, and that was very refreshing to read.

Overall, I strongly recommend this book. There is a lot to offer fans of horror movies here and, while the actual tone and style of the book is a lighter horror than most, there is a strong plot and sense of mystery and tension throughout. It was a lot of fun and I am very excited to see what this author does in the future.

Overall Rating:

.5

The Lamplighters by Emma Stoney

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Pan Macmillan in exchange for an honest review.

I knew requesting this book was a bit of a risk. I don't typically enjoy historical fiction but I found the temptation of a lighthouse disappearance too tantalising to resist. When I began reading it, I was worried I had made a mistake. I was initially going to DNF this book but then I couldn't. Something was making me read on, despite the features I don't typically enjoy in fiction. I couldn't put it down.

I will say, I think it's important to know going in that the mystery of this book is a little...unsatisfying. Even though I picked it up for its mystery element, that wasn't what kept me reading with the characters and the prose being the strongest factors for me. Stoney manages to create a really interesting atmosphere throughout the book, one is which is very compelling and draws you in. The characters aren't the most developed but they feel real and three dimensional. What we don't learn about the characters actually feeds quite strongly into that atmosphere I talked about and the general nature of the mystery of this book.

It's hard for me to say much more about this book because it is one of those where I think you either like books like this or you don't. If you like books with a somewhat dreamy atmosphere, a mystery driving but not being the center of the plot, and a lot of character exploration and moments, then I would say give this a try. If you want a super intricate mystery or a book heavy on historical elements, then this probably isn't what you're looking for. Having said that, it did surprise me so it might be worth giving a try if you like the sound of the blurb.

 Overall Rating:

.5