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:

Method 15/33 by Shannon Kirk

Ooh boy, it has been a while since I've struggled this much to finish a book. Honestly I was so close to DNFing it that I basically skim read the last 100 pages (and it only has about 200 to begin with).

This is not really a thriller. I mean it is but there are zero thrills to be had here. The plot is exactly what the blurb says without any additional twists or surprises. I'm not necessarily someone who believes a thriller needs to have a huge twist to be good but it at least has to be interesting. This could have been an intense story about a pregnant teenage girl trying to escape from kidnappers but our main character recounts the entire thing with all the detached disinterest of someone talking about what they had for breakfast. Speaking of which, the main character of this was awful. I can't even say that I hated her because she didn't have enough of a presence to hate.

So there are two narrators in this book-a 18 year old pregnant teenager and a 30-something year old male FBI agent. Both of these characters are written with the exact same voice. Our teenage protagonist is meant to be 'emotionally gifted' in that she can switch her emotions on and off whenever she likes, and this is quite possibly the most baffling character choice I have ever encountered. All of the potential tension of the story is completely dissolved by having an emotionless main character. How am I meant to root for her? Where is the emotional core of the story? Instead of two protagonists to root for, you get two bland and uninteresting narrators. 50 pages in I already didn't care about either of them.

As mentioned above, the entire plot is very one-note.There is nothing after page 100 to keep you reading and if you're hoping for some kind of plot twist (or even a new development in a story which is over by that point), you're not going to get it. This book is not worth even glancing at to be brutally honest. There are far better stories about people being kidnapped and many, many thrillers more worthy of attention.

Overall Rating:

First We Were IV by Alexandra Sirowy

God, this book was such a disappointment. I have so many books by Alexandra Sirowy on my to-read list and now I'm finding it hard to muster up enthusiasm for any of them. I just could not get into the writing style of this book and it got to the point where I almost didn't finish reading it, which is a Huge Deal for me. But the narrative style is off-putting, rambly and faux-poetic in  a way which creates a kind of pretentious, dreamy atmosphere. In short, it is the exact kind of style I can't stand. And this is mostly due to personal taste but to be honest, even excluding that I don't think this book has a lot to offer.

Plotwise, I found it very difficult to follow what was going on. This was mostly due to the writing style as I mentioned above but it was also because no one was really acting like a real person or making sense within their motivations. The basic plot is that these four outcasts decide to form a psuedo-cult to get the town to pay attention to the murder of a girl which happened years ago. Everyone at school, particularly the popular kids who have been bullying them for years, becomes desperate to join this cult and will do crazy things to get into it. This already requires too much suspension of disbelief on my part. There is no natural transition between the popular kids hating them to idolising their weird club. It happens mostly because of a semi-naked bonfire dance and what??? That is not the kind of thing that will get the popular people clamoring to take part in something. If anything, it should ostracise them even more as weirdos.

Characterisation was another big problem. Are we meant to hate the bully characters? Conner is despicable but when he starts to want to join the club, I get the impression that the narration wants us to think he's maybe not so bad? Viv is just the worst and has nothing relatable or sympathetic about her. Graham made me so uncomfortable in his attraction and attitude towards Izzie and gave off serious 'nice guy entitlement' vibes. I actually did like Harry right up until an incredibly nonsensical and stupid decision he makes near the end. Finally, Izzie would have been okay if she'd been written more clearly. I know ambiguity is meant to be a part of it but I couldn't really understand how she felt about Graham or Conner or several other important things. That's not ambiguity, that's bad writing. I should understand the main character's motivations, even if they're not clarified until the end. Instead they just don't get clarified at all.

Overall, I just don't get what people like about this book. I guess if you're a fan of the overly-descriptive and poetic writing style, you might get something out of this. It had some potentially good plot elements and the core idea could have worked with some tweaking. Sadly this was not a book for me.

Overall Rating:

.5

S.T.A.G.S by M.A. Bennett

This is a bit of a weird experience for me because I heard of this book this morning, got it on my Kindle, read it in less than two hours and now I'm writing this review. It's also kind of a weird book.

So S.T.A.G.S is about this girl who goes to this super fancy boarding school full of students with old money. She goes there on a scholarship and everything about the school is very traditional and totally unrealistic. The popular kids are these 6 teenagers called 'The Medievals' who wear monk hoods and stockings (to be fair, the entire school has to wear stockings). They detest technology and encourage everyone to read and paint and do other, more useful activities instead. We're meant to buy that the whole school goes along with this and no one ever uses a mobile phone entirely out of choice.

Anyway, the main character gets invited to a hunting weekend at the main popular guy's house, along with two other unpopular kids and all of the Medievals. If you've read the blurb of this book (heck, even if you've read the cover) you can totally guess where this plot is going. The downside is that it doesn't take it anywhere near far enough. I was disappointed by how tame this book is. Maybe I read too much horror but I was expecting the rich kids to literally hunt the unpopular kids and try to murder them. That isn't what happens. Even considering it's YA, it's a bit of a letdown.

Having said that, this is still a pretty good book. The characters behave like idiots at times and the ending bothers me so much because again, it's a super obvious 'twist' and it's not surprising at all. The one thing I liked about the ending was the callback to the comma thing. That was admittedly a nice touch. However, I feel like there was a plot hole with the whole 'it's been going on since Medieval times' thing. Like does it always take place at Henry's house? If so, how have they made sure that there is always one family member there? It's just one of those things where the more I think about it, the less sense it makes.

S.T.A.G.S is not a book that is going to change the world but it is an enjoyable and also very easy read. It's very short and if you like the sound of the blurb, you are pretty much going to get exactly what you expect from that. It's worth reading for the likeable characters and the endearing oddness of it all alone, but it's also a little more than that. Just don't expect anything super dark or surprising because you will be disappointed.

Overall Rating: