siobhanward's review against another edition
dark
tense
medium-paced
3.5
This is one of those books that I added to my TBR and then forgot about. Cut to a year later when I finally picked it up, and was really surprised to be reading a paranormal book. Clearly this should have been an October read!
This was a solid read overall. I liked the characters and I liked the overall plot. I just felt that it could have been a lot shorter. Some parts in the middle of the book really dragged. I think that the book could have been 50-100 pages shorter and not lost a lot. I think part of the problem was that by having three perspectives, lots of time was spent with characters catching up to where the reader already was, since we'd already learned that information through another character.
One thing that really stood out was having an asexual character in a YA novel - I'm not sure that I've ever read a YA book with an openly ace character. Zoey's struggle with her sexuality was a really good side plot, and I really liked how it was addressed throughout.
If you're looking for a good YA read with some girl power and paranormal vibes, and don't mind a slightly longer read, this is definitely worth your time.
This was a solid read overall. I liked the characters and I liked the overall plot. I just felt that it could have been a lot shorter. Some parts in the middle of the book really dragged. I think that the book could have been 50-100 pages shorter and not lost a lot. I think part of the problem was that by having three perspectives, lots of time was spent with characters catching up to where the reader already was, since we'd already learned that information through another character.
One thing that really stood out was having an asexual character in a YA novel - I'm not sure that I've ever read a YA book with an openly ace character. Zoey's struggle with her sexuality was a really good side plot, and I really liked how it was addressed throughout.
If you're looking for a good YA read with some girl power and paranormal vibes, and don't mind a slightly longer read, this is definitely worth your time.
brailey_kerber's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
fallinglivres's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
aphelia88's review against another edition
2.0
"Yes, Val blamed her.
And no, Val didn't.
Theirs was not a world that was often kind to women. And if Deidre had decided to sell her soul for a bit of comfort, an illusion of safety, power she had long been denied?
Well, thought Val mutinously, maybe that's the world's fault.
Maybe these monsters are what they deserve." (223)
(bold text added for emphasis)
This was not the book I was expecting. I DNF'd this not once (page 60), but twice (page 124), which is something I can rarely remember doing! Ultimately, I made the effort to continue because I thought it might be one of those books that turns around at the last minute and would suddenly make sense. Sawkill Girls has been super-hyped on Bookstagram, and although I am a little older (mid-30's) than the target audience, this is the not the type of girl power anyone needs. It's a mess, short and simple. And it's not half so revolutionary or clever as it believes it is!
Imagine [b:A Wrinkle in Time|33574273|A Wrinkle in Time (Time Quintet, #1)|Madeleine L'Engle|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1507963312s/33574273.jpg|948387] (specifically referenced by name in the book) crossed with the small-town suffocation of [a:Stephen King|3389|Stephen King|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1362814142p2/3389.jpg], sliced with the Exorcist movie and sprinkled with YA teen tropes, especially The Chosen One. Which actually sounds kind of awesome on paper, but it just doesn't hold together.
Part old-school campy horror, part feminist manifesto, on the plus side, there is a great deal of refreshing diversity in each of the three main characters. Val is popular, beautiful, white and wealthy. She is also an unwilling victim or a genius mastermind, depending on which way you look at it. Zoey, the daughter of the Police Chief, is a biracial, asexual geek who has appointed herself Val's nemesis. Enter Marion, the new girl, who is bereaved from the loss of her father, totally at sea in the world. She is a poor fat lesbian. These attributes are brutally stark because all three of the girls are little more than their attributes - their "diversity" has no depth, and the characters are as flat as cardboard.
Long ago, one of Val's ancestors sold her soul to the devil, and all the Mortimer women are charged with "anchoring" their demon with their bodies, a task that passes from mother to daughter through generations. Val is the latest host in a long line. But the demon is finally close to gaining freedom and will soon no longer need her help to kill and feed to gain strength.
All three girls are Chosen Ones and develop special powers that they can use to destroy each other or use to fight together. The book plays with a lot of powerful themes but ultimately does not say anything new about them and the ending is problematic.
Some major issues:
◾ Zoey supposedly loves her boyfriend, but he is relegated to the sidelines. His answer to stress is to clean house and bake cookies (seriously). His sole task is research, and when they finally make time to listen to him he refuses to relate the information, worried that he is an "asshole professor" and is "mansplaining" to them, and of course he would never, ever take advantage of a woman.
Then there's his noble sacrifice to "not have sex for the rest of his life" in order to be with Zoey, while simultaneously kissing her and hoping they can maybe try the sex thing again *head desk*
Is it possible to be so "woke" you're actually "asleep"? Because that is seriously the most condescending treatment imaginable! Also, let the big, strong girls run amok in the woods armed only with a baseball bat when the strapping young man could carry a flashlight for them, at the very least? Subtle.
The other men in the books are: 1. Zoey's ineffectual father who wanted to protect her but failed by treating her like a child and refusing to tell her what she needed to know, and 2. All members of a creepy cult that want the girls to kill each other in a magical "spell" to erase the local demon from the world (although the world is full of these demons). While sexually assaulting them, for fun.
Freedom from the Patriarchy shouldn't mean having to tolerate snide wimps. And not all men are horrible. Hopefully?!
◾ I'm not a horror fan, at all. I'm actually a big scaredy-cat! But even I think a shadow creature who lives in a hidden circle of white rocks is kind of lame, even if he does turn into a creepy little boy occasionally and has the potential to become something much worse.
◾ How can moths TALK?!!! I think they're invisible hallucinatory moths, but still.
◾ Also, I'm not pleased with how Legrand borrowed from [b:A Wrinkle in Time|33574273|A Wrinkle in Time (Time Quintet, #1)|Madeleine L'Engle|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1507963312s/33574273.jpg|948387]. Yes, she worked the title of the book in and everything, but when she introduces "tessering" as Marion's power, I couldn't help seeing Zoey as a teenage Meg (nerdy science math girl?), with the wrong gift. It would have been easy to work in some sort of parallel dimension/portal jumping nonsense instead without borrowing from a classic. It saved her from explaining at any length, and hopefully any readers not already familiar with L'Engle might seek her out from these references, but it seems like lazy writing.
◾ Out of the three girls, I liked Marion the most. But I cannot process how she was able to forgive Val for killing her sister, and then fall in lust/love/whatever with her?! Is she so isolated and lonely that she'll fall into the arms of the first person who makes eyes at her? I'm thinking yes. And out of all the problems with this story, that is the one that hits me the most - Marion's arc is so sad and pathetic, especially her self-sacrifice at the end.
My advice? Skip this and watch some Buffy reruns instead!
And no, Val didn't.
Theirs was not a world that was often kind to women. And if Deidre had decided to sell her soul for a bit of comfort, an illusion of safety, power she had long been denied?
Well, thought Val mutinously, maybe that's the world's fault.
Maybe these monsters are what they deserve." (223)
(bold text added for emphasis)
This was not the book I was expecting. I DNF'd this not once (page 60), but twice (page 124), which is something I can rarely remember doing! Ultimately, I made the effort to continue because I thought it might be one of those books that turns around at the last minute and would suddenly make sense. Sawkill Girls has been super-hyped on Bookstagram, and although I am a little older (mid-30's) than the target audience, this is the not the type of girl power anyone needs. It's a mess, short and simple. And it's not half so revolutionary or clever as it believes it is!
Imagine [b:A Wrinkle in Time|33574273|A Wrinkle in Time (Time Quintet, #1)|Madeleine L'Engle|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1507963312s/33574273.jpg|948387] (specifically referenced by name in the book) crossed with the small-town suffocation of [a:Stephen King|3389|Stephen King|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1362814142p2/3389.jpg], sliced with the Exorcist movie and sprinkled with YA teen tropes, especially The Chosen One. Which actually sounds kind of awesome on paper, but it just doesn't hold together.
Part old-school campy horror, part feminist manifesto, on the plus side, there is a great deal of refreshing diversity in each of the three main characters. Val is popular, beautiful, white and wealthy. She is also an unwilling victim or a genius mastermind, depending on which way you look at it. Zoey, the daughter of the Police Chief, is a biracial, asexual geek who has appointed herself Val's nemesis. Enter Marion, the new girl, who is bereaved from the loss of her father, totally at sea in the world. She is a poor fat lesbian. These attributes are brutally stark because all three of the girls are little more than their attributes - their "diversity" has no depth, and the characters are as flat as cardboard.
Long ago, one of Val's ancestors sold her soul to the devil, and all the Mortimer women are charged with "anchoring" their demon with their bodies, a task that passes from mother to daughter through generations. Val is the latest host in a long line. But the demon is finally close to gaining freedom and will soon no longer need her help to kill and feed to gain strength.
All three girls are Chosen Ones and develop special powers that they can use to destroy each other or use to fight together. The book plays with a lot of powerful themes but ultimately does not say anything new about them and the ending is problematic.
Some major issues:
Spoiler
◾ Zoey supposedly loves her boyfriend, but he is relegated to the sidelines. His answer to stress is to clean house and bake cookies (seriously). His sole task is research, and when they finally make time to listen to him he refuses to relate the information, worried that he is an "asshole professor" and is "mansplaining" to them, and of course he would never, ever take advantage of a woman.
Then there's his noble sacrifice to "not have sex for the rest of his life" in order to be with Zoey, while simultaneously kissing her and hoping they can maybe try the sex thing again *head desk*
Is it possible to be so "woke" you're actually "asleep"? Because that is seriously the most condescending treatment imaginable! Also, let the big, strong girls run amok in the woods armed only with a baseball bat when the strapping young man could carry a flashlight for them, at the very least? Subtle.
The other men in the books are: 1. Zoey's ineffectual father who wanted to protect her but failed by treating her like a child and refusing to tell her what she needed to know, and 2. All members of a creepy cult that want the girls to kill each other in a magical "spell" to erase the local demon from the world (although the world is full of these demons). While sexually assaulting them, for fun.
Freedom from the Patriarchy shouldn't mean having to tolerate snide wimps. And not all men are horrible. Hopefully?!
◾ I'm not a horror fan, at all. I'm actually a big scaredy-cat! But even I think a shadow creature who lives in a hidden circle of white rocks is kind of lame, even if he does turn into a creepy little boy occasionally and has the potential to become something much worse.
◾ How can moths TALK?!!! I think they're invisible hallucinatory moths, but still.
◾ Also, I'm not pleased with how Legrand borrowed from [b:A Wrinkle in Time|33574273|A Wrinkle in Time (Time Quintet, #1)|Madeleine L'Engle|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1507963312s/33574273.jpg|948387]. Yes, she worked the title of the book in and everything, but when she introduces "tessering" as Marion's power, I couldn't help seeing Zoey as a teenage Meg (nerdy science math girl?), with the wrong gift. It would have been easy to work in some sort of parallel dimension/portal jumping nonsense instead without borrowing from a classic. It saved her from explaining at any length, and hopefully any readers not already familiar with L'Engle might seek her out from these references, but it seems like lazy writing.
◾ Out of the three girls, I liked Marion the most. But I cannot process how she was able to forgive Val for killing her sister, and then fall in lust/love/whatever with her?! Is she so isolated and lonely that she'll fall into the arms of the first person who makes eyes at her? I'm thinking yes. And out of all the problems with this story, that is the one that hits me the most - Marion's arc is so sad and pathetic, especially her self-sacrifice at the end.
My advice? Skip this and watch some Buffy reruns instead!
alidathealien's review against another edition
3.0
hmmm.. HMMM
I have mixed thoughts about this book. I thought the premise was cool and the story was definitely intriguing, but the execution felt lacking.
The number one thing that bothered me was that I never understood why any of the characters liked each other. Zoey endlessly talks about how incredible Thora was, but Thora is long gone by the time the book starts so we have no reference for Thora's personality. I didn't understand why Marion became friends with either Zoey or Val- it felt like one day they were total strangers to each other and the next super good friends. Why do Val and Marion like each other? Beats me; they had like one good conversation together before they both caught feelings. I sort of understood the closeness between Marion and Charlotte, but I also never felt like I knew Charlotte's actual personality before she And don't even get me started on Zoey and Grayson! Fleshing out these relationships would have really increased the tension during the book's climax but as it is, I was more interested in the monster lore than the fates of our three heroines.
And because all the other reviews are talking about it, I feel like I should add my 2 cents as well. The weird, kind of out of place, man hating implications?? Sawkill Girls is, of course, about girls. It's about girls who hunt, girls who are hunted, and girls who save the day. I was totally on board with that and didn't need any further explanation! Val's great-grandmother cursed her female bloodline, got it. The monster eats girls just because he likes them, sure I'll buy it. The protagonist is a girl, yeah it's a YA novel that's par for the course. But still the author felt the need to add several moments of weird, borderline misandry? The one that stood out to me the most was the all-man monster hunter group who have decided that the only way to beat the monster is to have three girls basically fight themselves to the death. One of them says "Even these extraordinary girls are susceptible to the same weaknesses that plague their entire sex." and it comes off VERY cartoon villain.
I could keep going, but I won't. All in all, the book was pretty good but the man-hating moments feel like Tumblr Feminism 101 and are so glaringly out of place in this otherwise pretty feminist book that they put a damper on the whole thing.
I have mixed thoughts about this book. I thought the premise was cool and the story was definitely intriguing, but the execution felt lacking.
The number one thing that bothered me was that I never understood why any of the characters liked each other. Zoey endlessly talks about how incredible Thora was, but Thora is long gone by the time the book starts so we have no reference for Thora's personality. I didn't understand why Marion became friends with either Zoey or Val- it felt like one day they were total strangers to each other and the next super good friends. Why do Val and Marion like each other? Beats me; they had like one good conversation together before they both caught feelings. I sort of understood the closeness between Marion and Charlotte, but I also never felt like I knew Charlotte's actual personality before she
Spoiler
got killed.And because all the other reviews are talking about it, I feel like I should add my 2 cents as well. The weird, kind of out of place, man hating implications?? Sawkill Girls is, of course, about girls. It's about girls who hunt, girls who are hunted, and girls who save the day. I was totally on board with that and didn't need any further explanation! Val's great-grandmother cursed her female bloodline, got it. The monster eats girls just because he likes them, sure I'll buy it. The protagonist is a girl, yeah it's a YA novel that's par for the course. But still the author felt the need to add several moments of weird, borderline misandry? The one that stood out to me the most was the all-man monster hunter group who have decided that the only way to beat the monster is to have three girls basically fight themselves to the death. One of them says "Even these extraordinary girls are susceptible to the same weaknesses that plague their entire sex." and it comes off VERY cartoon villain.
I could keep going, but I won't. All in all, the book was pretty good but the man-hating moments feel like Tumblr Feminism 101 and are so glaringly out of place in this otherwise pretty feminist book that they put a damper on the whole thing.
jbojkov's review against another edition
I just couldn’t get into this book. (Although, I love the cover! And I had been wanting to read something by this author, but it felt like another take on Pretty Little Liars.
emmadstanden's review against another edition
3.0
3.5.
Queer positive (asexual, bi(?) and gay)
Female leads
A bit cheesy.
Queer positive (asexual, bi(?) and gay)
Female leads
A bit cheesy.
bendit's review against another edition
5.0
loved the audiobook even more, what are u gonna do about it?
kiiouex's review against another edition
3.0
The cruelly honest review of this book would include the fact that, thirty pages from the end, in the middle of the most climactic scene, I started reading a different book and it was a terrible chore to come back to this one.
It's... I don't want to be as harsh on it as that sounds. But at the start I thought I could love it despite it's flaws and by the end I was just sick of the flaws, and maybe I should quit reading YA completely because it's not giving me what I want.
I wouldn't say this is a bad book. I would say this is an uneven book. It hard not to have one with a split PoV, but this was worse than usual, with Val being the heart of the mystery with struggle and grief and magic, Marion toeing the line between etheral and bland, and Zoey making pop culture references.
I did not care for Zoey as much as the narrative seemed to.
Was she the author's favourite? Why was she there. There was a scene near the end where (spoiler)
I've figured out that it's just fantasy I hate references in, at least, contemporary is fine (Leah on the Offbeat was great) but there was something extraordinarily grating that they borrowed their word for 'teleporting' from A Wrinkle In Time for, apparently, no reason. Why not use teleporting? Why reference a book I have not read? It's not breaking the fourth wall, exactly, but it breaks my immersion when I'm sitting there thinking 'I suppose the author liked this'.
This review wasn't meant to be a litany of complaints. I liked the start! I loved the descriptions of headaches! I liked Marion early on, when she was less plot devicey! And I loved Val, start to finish, she was excellent and lovable and 10/10 would definitely date her if given the choice. Her chapters were all great. Marion's were good, but she was a weird character when not in her PoV, if that makes sense, since she was pretty much a plot piece to get led around.
But the problem is when the start is stronger than the end, but I read the end more recently, that's the bit that's fresh and it's not that it's bad I just did not particularly care. The prose wasn't doing it for me, I don't know.
Anyway. This isn't a don't-read-it review, it's a have-good-tolerance-for-YA and also a be-less-cranky-than-me review. I almost liked it a lot!
It's... I don't want to be as harsh on it as that sounds. But at the start I thought I could love it despite it's flaws and by the end I was just sick of the flaws, and maybe I should quit reading YA completely because it's not giving me what I want.
I wouldn't say this is a bad book. I would say this is an uneven book. It hard not to have one with a split PoV, but this was worse than usual, with Val being the heart of the mystery with struggle and grief and magic, Marion toeing the line between etheral and bland, and Zoey making pop culture references.
I did not care for Zoey as much as the narrative seemed to.
Was she the author's favourite? Why was she there. There was a scene near the end where (spoiler)
Spoiler
Marion is summoning a stampede of horses, using her connection to the island, the magical stuff that I picked the book up for. But we were not in Marion's PoV, we were in Zoey's PoV, and she was making pop culture references so not only were we robbed of the perspective of what that magic felt like, we were burdened by someone's opinions of Star Trek.I've figured out that it's just fantasy I hate references in, at least, contemporary is fine (Leah on the Offbeat was great) but there was something extraordinarily grating that they borrowed their word for 'teleporting' from A Wrinkle In Time for, apparently, no reason. Why not use teleporting? Why reference a book I have not read? It's not breaking the fourth wall, exactly, but it breaks my immersion when I'm sitting there thinking 'I suppose the author liked this'.
This review wasn't meant to be a litany of complaints. I liked the start! I loved the descriptions of headaches! I liked Marion early on, when she was less plot devicey! And I loved Val, start to finish, she was excellent and lovable and 10/10 would definitely date her if given the choice. Her chapters were all great. Marion's were good, but she was a weird character when not in her PoV, if that makes sense, since she was pretty much a plot piece to get led around.
But the problem is when the start is stronger than the end, but I read the end more recently, that's the bit that's fresh and it's not that it's bad I just did not particularly care. The prose wasn't doing it for me, I don't know.
Anyway. This isn't a don't-read-it review, it's a have-good-tolerance-for-YA and also a be-less-cranky-than-me review. I almost liked it a lot!