The Magpie Society: One for Sorrow by Zoe Sugg and Amy McCulloch

 

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

I was definitely intrigued by this book. I've actually read a previous book by Zoella but while that was a fluffy tween romance, this was marketed as a mysterious tale of a secret society at a boarding school. My hopes weren't hugely high as it was a series and YA thriller series tend not to work for me, and sadly I was right.

Firstly, there is nothing hugely wrong with this book. It sets up a decent enough mystery and has some really cool moments. I think its biggest flaw is the characterisation. We have two main narrators, Ivy and Audrey. Ivy has been at the school for several years whilst Audrey is an american who has recently moved to the UK and joined the school. At first, both characters are fairly distinct and bring their own personalities to the table. As soon as the mystery starts though, they both turn into protagonists of an Enid Blyton book. I stopped being able to tell who was speaking, who was narrating and the whole thing became an ode to Famous Five mysteries and the like.

When the mystery changes pace again, some of their original personalities came back but again, they stopped being so distinct. That's when they also started to make some really dumb decisions. After finding a huge clue about the potentially accidental drowning of one of Ivy's friends, Audrey suggests going to the police. Ivy...insists they don't and burns the evidence. Sure, maybe she has a mysterious reason for doing that. But that's not explored in this book which means in the context of this book, it's at best a dumb decision and at worst, should ring major alarm bells for Audrey.

Overall, this series is fine if you belong to the age group its aimed at. I wish the characters were more distinct and interesting because I would probably read at least the next book if that were the case. Alas, this is not a series I am interested in continuing on with as the mystery just isn't strong enough to keep me invested.

Overall Rating:

Pink Villa by Olivia O'Neill

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

Okay, so firstly I missed that this was erotica. I do not read erotica so that was my bad. However, this review will be taking that fact into consideration. I also do think this book's blurb is misleading, as it implies there is some sort of dark/thrillery secret and it compares this book to several thrillers. This is not a fair comparison.

So Pink Villa is the story of a sex-addicted woman called Eliza who is hired as a nanny for a rich family. She then bangs a lot of people. That is the entire plot, by which I mean this book is just sex scene after sex scene. Okay, erotica is like this. But there are story elements hinted at early on which never come to fruition and, more importantly, these cast some really unfortunate implications over everything.

Eliza is the horniest character there has ever been. She doesn't care who she sleeps with and she is never satisfied. It is also strongly hinted at that Eliza was, if not outright assaulted, then creeped on by her stepdad. These squicky implications are compounded by the obvious daddy issues explored with one of her lover. I know some people are into that but this part of the book is not played up enough for it to be appealing on its own, nor is it downplayed enough for you to comfortably ignore it. I HATE the idea that she is horny because she was creeped on and, while I feel that's unintentional, it lurked in the background throughout the story.

Some of the writing is decidely not sexy as well. Twice the main character is told to 'come over here and bring your breasts' as if she could possibly leave them behind. The sex scenes are so relentless that they just blur into one. Also this is told in second person, which I'm not sure if that's common for erotica but might put some people off.

Ultimately, this book fell flat on so many levels. I think the sex scenes have potential to be great and they are great at points, but the characters are so flat and it all gets very repetitive after a while. This is definitely not a book for me and if you're hoping for a darker erotica, it's not the book for you either. There is one attempt at a 'twist' of sorts but it falls so flat that if this book wasn't compared to thrillers, I wouldn't have even realised that's what it was.

Overall Rating:

The Birds, The Bees, and You and Me by Olivia Hinebaugh

This book. This book makes me feel conflicted in a way I haven't for a while. The Birds, The Bees, and You and Me is the story of Lacey, a teenage girl who has been raised to be very informed about sexual health. When her school starts running terrible sex ed lessons, she takes matters into her own hands and begins teaching her classmates about sexual matters. However, this is only a small part of the book. Lacey is best friends with Theo and Evita, who used to date but broke up due to Evita's asexuality. Theo has a new girlfriend who neither Lacey nor Evita really like. Lacey has started to develop feelings for Theo, and she is also conflicted about whether to spend her future studying to be a nurse (like her mum) or following her music passion (like her friends want her to).

I'm gonna start with the positives of this book because there are a few. Firstly, the sexual health stuff is all great. It's handled a little obviously but that doesn't bother me in a book like this and there are a few self-aware moments of characters being preachy. I really liked the pregnant teen plotline and all of the nurse stuff, while possibly unrealistic, was very unique and enjoyable to read about. Evita is asexual and honestly such a fantastic character. Aside from being a little mean to Theo, she is a great friend to Lacey throughout and is unrealistically understanding about absolutely everything. At the beginning, I also really liked Lacey and Theo. My fondness for Lacey mostly remained throughout but Theo...

Oh Theo.

This romance was BAD. There was nothing inherently wrong with it on the surface but there were a lot of unfortunate choices made. Firstly, Theo and Lacey had such a good friendship at the start. The second romance came into it, I stopped being interesting in their relationship. Theo set off all kinds of warning bells I don't think he was meant to. He was secretive, he put a wedge between Lacey and her friends, he was instantly controlling and negative about her potentially not going to the same college as him. I kept waiting for the narrative to reveal their relationship was a bad idea and for Lacey to dump him but that never happened. The only part I liked were their sex scenes and that's only because they were written so well. They demonstrated how to have discussions about consent and boundaries without it ruining the mood, and how good sexual communication should work.

I really really wish this hadn't been a romance. It could have worked so much better without that plot and I hated seeing Lacey and Evita's friendship being disturbed by some guy. Even with Evita magically being the most understanding person ever, Lacey never really addressed how rubbish she was to her friend and it felt like Theo was happy for things to stay that way. So many elements of this book are good so it seems a shame to rate it so low, but I just couldn't enjoy it the way it was written.

Overall Rating:

.5

The Stranger's Wife by Anna-Lou Weatherley

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

This book really did not gel with me. I did finish it but it was a definite slog and I skim-read about 40% of it. There was just nothing in the plot which I found particularly gripping and, while the characters were alright, I wasn't invested enough to make up for the lack of good story. The two female characters described in the blurb don't meet until about 60% of the way through the book and once they do, things become very pedestrian. I also feel the plot they hatched made no sense? I could see no advantage to what they did. So disappointing!

Overall Rating:

Girls of Storm and Shadow by Natasha Ngan

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Jimmy Patterson in exchange for an honest review.

I'm going to be honest, I wasn't blown away by Girls of Paper and Fire. I did really enjoy the book and I thought it had a lot of potential but there were some little niggles that kept getting in the way of me loving it. I was hoping the sequel would fix these niggles and bring more of what I loved, and it did to some extent.

Girls of Storm and Shadow is a very different book to the first one in the series. The plot focuses mainly on the growing threat of war and our band of heroes travelling round, trying to recruit others to their cause. I must admit, I'm not a huge fan of these kinds of plots which probably tainted my opinion a bit. What I did enjoy was the characterisation present here and the direction the characters were taken in. One of my main niggles with the first book was the relationship between the protagonist and her love interest, which was a little flat and had an unpleasant 'victim blaming' angle to it. Thankfully this is fixed in this book, and while there are other reasons I found it hard to root for the couple, I do at least find it interesting the direction Ngan has chosen to take it.

The writing in general is strong and I think there is enough happening in this book to keep you engaged. As much as I thought the relationship of Wren and Lei took a step in the right direction, there are still some very prominent issues. In this book Lei is waaaay too forgiving of Wren, to the point where it is sort of unbelievable. Lei doesn't tend to react the way one typically would to finding out certain things about her lover, and the plot suffers for it. Lei herself has somewhat questionable morals as well. At one point she refuses to kill a known enemy who is attacking her but a few chapters later, she slaughters a much more innocent person in self-defense and barely bats an eyelid.

Sadly this book did not convince me to continue on with the series, though I am still a little intrigued to see where it's all going. I wish the plot of the first book had tied in more closely to the plot of this one, and it seems the third one will have to jump a fair bit if it is going to be the last in the series. I did think the sexual assault aspects that were handled poorly in the first book are handled well in this one (although still treated as a minor plot thread) which is an improvement. Try as I might, I just can't get sucked into this world though.

Overall Rating:

The Family by Louise Jensen

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher HQ in exchange for an honest review.

The Family is a thriller about a cult, a subject I've not read a lot about in my fiction but I've really enjoyed when I have. I was expecting this thriller to have a different tone than it did and I think that affected my enjoyment of it quite a lot. This book is off to a slow start, focusing on Laura and her daughter Tilly who are recently bereaved of their husband/father. Laura is in a tough position financially until she is offered help from the mysterious group of people who live on the outskirts of her town. But to what extent can she trust them?

Parts of this book were really badly written which shocks me as Louise Jensen has always had such strong writing in the past. The main reason I couldn't gel with it was the plot though. It seemed to have an odd pace with a dragging beginning and end section. I won't spoil anything that happens as this is a thriller, but particularly at the end the reveals got a little ridiculous. A lot of coincidences are crucial to specific things that happen which might leave a sour taste in some readers' mouths.

Overall, I sadly can't really recommend this book. It has alright characters and some decent moments but there were too many things which prevented me from getting into the story. If you're going to read a Jensen book, I recommend one of her other ones.

Overall Rating:

.5

Kill River by Cameron Roubique

This book was such a weird experience. I was really excited to read some oldschool-style over the top horror and that's exactly what you get...after you've slugged through the first thirteen chapters. I just feel the set up to this premise was so unnecessary and drawn out. Instead of starting the book with the teenagers just finding the abandoned waterpark and breaking in, it instead starts with our main character Cyndi going off to camp. At camp she meets the other teenagers and then nothing really interesting happens until they decide to escape the camp in the middle of the night, float down a river and end up at the waterpark. At this point nearly half the book is over. I can understand maybe not wanting Cyndi to know the others that well but the camp has nothing to do with the rest of the book and there are much easier ways (have her be new to the town and casually mention she knows the kids from school but they've not hung out before, for example).

After this halfway point though, this book delivered everything I wanted. This is a traditional slasher with an unknown attacker and a bunch of graphically violent scenes at a great setting. The characters were a bit stereotypical but had enough depth for you to not completely detach from them. The waterpark is a perfect setting for some really good horror moments and I had an utter blast reading this. My only other criticism is that I felt the characters should have been around 15 instead of 13. There's not a ton of sexual stuff but there are hints of it and while this might be technically accurate for 13 year olds, it made me slightly uncomfortable to read about. It was just distracting.

If I had to rate this book accurately, the first half would be 2 stars and the second half would easily get 4. I've averaged this out to a 3 but it seems a shame when the second half was so strong and it delivers on the premise so well. I'm hoping the sequel will have less unnecessary setup.

Overall Rating:

Growing Things & Other Stories by Paul Tremblay

I received a free copy of this book for review thanks to William Morrow and Edelweiss.

Oh boy. I really honestly thought I would love this short story collection. I read A Head Full of Ghosts by Tremblay earlier this year and really enjoyed it, so I was looking forward to experiencing a greater range of his work through an anthology. Sadly this book was not designed for the casual reader. Honestly I was surprised by the sheer amount of references to his other work present in this and, as someone who has only read one of his books, I did not find the stories easy to understand despite not getting those references. This was my major problem with the anthology and I found myself skimming and skipping stuff as a result. Maybe if you're a mega-fan then you would get a lot more out of this but I also feel that this should stand on its own as a collection rather than relying on knowledge of other works.

My other main problem is I just wasn't that interested in many of the stories. Normally I review every single story for an anthology but for this one I would be repeating myself a lot so I'm just going to mention a couple and do my overview stats.

Number of stories: 19
Number I liked: 2
Number which were okay: 3, maybe?

Something About Birds-A somewhat meta creepy story about birds where a journalist writes about meeting a horror author who wrote a creepy story about birds. Okay, so this one definitely felt like I was maybe missing something from the context but it was one of the few where it didn't matter and I still got absorbed into the story. It was probably my favourite of the collection and it had creepy moments whilst still making sense.

A Haunted House is a Wheel, Upon Which Some Are Broken-A choose-your-own adventure story about a woman visiting a haunted house. Despite the page numbers not being available for the ARC (meaning that I could not choose my own adventure but had to read it linearly) this was a very beautiful story and I loved every minute of it. A tied favourite with the previous story and this would probably be my favourite had I been able to read it in the way it was intended.

These two stories save it from being a one star read for me. Now for some of my least favourites:

Notes from the Dog Walkers-An incredibly meta story which is exactly what it says on the tin. This story just went on and on and on and I tried to read all of it but it was just getting worse and worse. I have actually read the work I needed to in order to get this reference and yet I still didn't get it which is a terrible sign. It was very surreal and read very narcissistic to me. Only for mega-fans I feel.

That's the only one I can talk about in detail as I have forgotten the rest. Sorry.

Overall, I am deeply disappointed I didn't enjoy this. It won't stop me from reading Tremblay's other books and being excited for them but I think I'll avoid his short stories from now on. I understand Tremblay is a huge author but it seems a strange decision to release a collection which is so alienating to people who don't know his work inside and out. I wish I could have given this a more positive review.

Overall Rating: