Reviews

Sixteen Souls by Rosie Talbot

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readabouttheafterlife's review against another edition

adventurous dark fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot

3.5

This was so delightful! A perfect spooky szn read if you’re looking for something ghostie and a little erie without being scary. Also the MC and LI are so cute. Just very great YA and I’m excited for the short story and book 2!

ebin_dogs55's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

The ending of the book could have had a little more development, but I still really liked it

luhee's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

amy_reading_23's review

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adventurous slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

I was a bit dissapointed by this book. I thought it sounded like a great premise and I was excited to see a queer and disabled protagonist. But I just found it quite slow and not the best written and idk I didn't really like any of the main characters. Maybe I'm not the right audience for it as its YA, but there's a lot of YA books that I love, and sadly this wasn't one of them. For me, the romance also wasnt great. It just kind of snapped from "I hate him" to "actually I like him", and I just felt that build could have been more gradual. I think the best thing it had going for it was the descriptions of York, I enjoyed the setting and the ghosts lore.

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_raine_'s review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I absolutely LOOVVEEDD this book!! Honestly, I was scared that I wouldn't as I'm kind of on a streak of picking up a book I'm excited for and hating them right now?? This was soooo good.

The first thing that I immediately loved was the fact that our main characters and main side characters are so diverse, yet it doesn't flaunt it in the synopsis like a lot of other books do. You can really tell that it's not meant to be a 'look at me!!! I'm diverse!!' book, which I've seen one too many times. Instead, it's all casually mentioned as it affects the characters. Like with Charlie, our narrator, being an amputee. It's only mentioned when it affects his life. And Sam being a trans man. It's not marketed as 'Disabled and trans boys save the world!', instead it's focused on the fact that they are seers saving York, and they just happen to have these attributes along side that.

I loved all the little twists and turns, and every little detail that stuck in my head but I didn't know why until the big plot twists were revealed. I would sit and think "Oh God, that's why that happened/was mentioned!".

The reason this book wasn't a five stars for me was because of one simple detail. And that was the moment when

Charlie uses Sam's trans identity against him. I understand that it wasn't intentional, and he apologised not a chapter or two later, but the moment felt unnecessary to me, and was also a personal hit that struck up a few bad memories for me. This is in no way a fault of the authors, I just didn't expect it and it threw me off for a few pages after.

Other than that little part, this book will be becoming my personality for a month at least. I finished it today and immediately went to Waterstone's to buy the sequel, which I've heard is even better and I'm already 50/60 pages in. I won't write about my thoughts so far as obviously they aren't about this book, but I've found myself laughing out loud at some of the dialogue and small details that catch my attention.

Content Warnings