immovabletype's reviews
447 reviews

I'm not going to give this a star rating because the show loomed too heavily over my reading experience for me to give a fair rating. there are a few things I do prefer about the book (Alina's characterization being the biggest one) but overall the Netflix show is a great improvement.

this is YA horror, but even if you don't read YA because you never have or feel like you've outgrown it, I still highly recommend this novel. Daisy shares a lot of traits with your kind of stereotypical YA protagonist—everything happening to her in the present is so much more immediate than her past or future, and she can be such a brat that it made me laugh—but it speaks more to the authenticity to the teenage experience, something to be grown out of rather than a means to wish fulfillment. and then she develops, this slow, meticulous character development, piece by hard-earned piece, and her perspective expands into her past (and the pasts of those around her, because they're inextricable) and questions about the kind of future she sees for herself . . . if she sees one at all.

this book is so damn good. I suspect I will be shoving it into the hands of everyone I've ever met and will ever meet. I've never read anything else quite like it and at the time of this review it's criminally underhyped. it's a long one for the type of book that it is, but that's because it needs the space to tell this story, which is a haunted house mystery full of darkness and real evil, imperfect mothers (if they can be called something so gentle) and generational trauma, forgotten Black girls and the various abuses they've endured, horror and love and family and friendship. are the characters loveable? it's complicated, yet I did love them fully. they burrowed their way into my heart and are welcome to stay there. I wept for them again and again; even the Acknowledgments made me cry. and I will read everything that Liselle Sambury ever writes.

this very much wants to be a romcom but instead employs a narration style that's just manic and over the top in lieu of actually being funny, like if the hijinks are high-key enough no one will notice the lack of real wit. that sounds so pretentious, I know, but it's true. this is being compared a lot to Red, White & Royal Blue, which feels earned because I've also criticized RW&RB for its manic energy - but at least it's actually funny.

then there's the worldbuilding; this premise should be catnip to me, but instead I ended up with a lot of questions I suspect the book never bothers answering, so I'm left with a dissonance people usually reserve for the Cars cinematic universe.

the introduction by Stephen Graham Jones was fantastic. then I rated the first 3 stories 2, 1, and 1 stars, respectively. can't bring myself to try the rest.

reminds me a lot of the house in the cerulean sea if that book weren't so mind numbingly boring. but if you, unlike me, did like that one, I think you'll like this one too, because there are a lot of elements in common. it's cozy; it's got kind of cottagecore vibes; it's about a found family including a motley assortment of unrelated children being taught about their dangerous powers that society does not/will not understand; there's a romance but it's not the only thing happening because it's also about the MC forming relationships with the kids currently under the care of the LI; aaaand it takes place right next to the sea!

but also instead of a white man the MC is a WOC and all of the kids are POC of different ethnicities, so I really like how she's able to relate to them on both levels (minorities and witches) and is more an insider coming in from the outside rather than the outsider who needs to learn that the kids are people, actually.

that said it was maybe a little more sentimental than I'd prefer, and there was one good twist but it was otherwise predictable, as in, I pretty much figured out the mysteries early on. but it was a breeze to read and I'll be picking up the next book in the series when it comes out!