immovabletype's reviews
434 reviews

this book is perfectly paced and builds tension and fear very well. i admit i'm an easy mark when it comes to haunted houses but fwiw this definitely gave me some real chills. i flew through the last third of the book. unfortunately it fell short of its potential for me. in particular this is a historical, victorian novel steeped in the expectations on women from outside of their control and within themselves - a lot of themes of what it means for a woman to be mad, and it blurs the line a bit. i was into it, and then some reveals happened that seemed to undercut that commentary. by the time it got to its ambiguous ending (ugh) it didn't even have the power to annoy me as much as it usually does because i was already disappointed.

i can't really say much further without spoilering since my gripes hinge on a big twist, but i am going to include them (under spoilers) in my content warnings below.

🙄

i happily read it, despite all of my notes starting with a variation on "but then why--"
i didn't have it all figured out from the beginning like i thought i did but it was still fairly predictable, and i think most readers will figure out the big "reveal." i also didn't really buy into the romance. just felt like it moved too fast to be authentic (even taking into account their being teenagers). however, i did quite like the characters, eden felt like a well defined protagonist, and i was invested in her relationships with her friends. i wasn't really confident of the author's ability to tie all of the emotional threads together but it was actually done well and thoroughly. mostly i was really excited to be able to read a ghost story and still sleep at night. i briefly dnf'd when the ghost shenanigans kicked up a notch, because they always make me have to sleep with the lights on for like a month, but then i realized i am way too exhausted always to have any trouble sleeping, so I picked it back up. turns out there's finally a use for parental exhaustion!!

this almost feels like horror magical realism for much of the book and I love that about it. and though this didn't occur to me until I'd finished it has that element of Buffy that I love so much, where the monster is a metaphor for growing up. in this case it's specifically about female friendships, and was done so well. it felt pretty darn authentic to my experience growing up in the 80s/90s, and how those friendships could feel so fraught and so full of love at the same time. how do you know these things, Grady Hendrix, you are a man

nope.

man, i thought this was going to be a solid 4 stars for a good chunk of the novel, while we're following the two main characters on a quest of sorts. this is hate-to-love, and throughout their journey they're grappling with preconceptions about each other based on centuries of hatred and oppression between their people (the fantasy is very cleverly based on pagan, christian, and jewish mythology, with all the attendant real world conflicts--the author "has a degree in political science . . . focusing on religion and ethnonationalism" and her expertise shows). grappling while wanting to grapple each other, if you know what i mean. it makes for a very intimate narrative, slow-paced but propulsive . . . but then the journey ends, the world opens up, and our two lovers are separated. what was compelling me to keep reading just kind of dropped out of sight for a while and i found it harder to pick up as much as i had been, and even after they were reunited it never quite got that spark back for me. and then i loathed the epilogue.

idk. there were things that happened in the latter part of the book that i liked and i think were necessary to forward the narrative and themes. however. it just could've been done better. i will also say, this is sold as adult fantasy. i would argue it feels a lot more ya. the heroine is almost a classic ya heroine, the tropes are very ya tropes. these aren't necessarily bad things, but that's not gonna work for everyone, so i wanted to make a note of it.

i did enjoy this for the most part, i'm glad i read it because now i know that ava reid is gonna knock it out of the park for me someday (this was a debut). i'm quite looking forward to reading more from her.

While I quite liked both protagonists, there was so, so much telling instead of showing - a lot of feels dumps - and that made it really difficult to invest in their relationship. The narrative is also very tightly focused on these two characters, specifically when they are together, like it's completely uninterested in exploring outside of those moments, but unfortunately that just makes those moments feel shallow and lacking context. Like I said, I liked the protagonists, and spending some time with them apart could've given more depth to the time they were together. I was also super interested in the soccer stuff, and the author clearly knows their stuff or did their research well, but I wanted even more, and the characters' world felt more like a hazy backdrop for their relationship rather than a lived in, bona fide setting.

Thank you to St. Martin's Griffin and NetGalley for allowing me to read this book ahead of publication in exchange for an honest review!