3.5 stars

I don't know that this is intended to be a King Midas re-telling, but the story is mentioned in this book, so I'm going to assume it is.

This book is a weird one for me. While I was reading it, I was completely engrossed. But then when I would set it down, I didn't feel any need to go back to it and find out what was going to happen. I'm not exactly sure why.

The premise is interesting, and I enjoyed the pacing, action, and characters. I don't know that it did anything so completely unique, but it was enjoyable. Also, the ending made me want to pick up the second book, so that is definitely in it's favor.

The reason it isn't a four from me is because it took me forever to go back and finish this book. I just didn't feel any urgency in finishing it, even though I was satisfied once I did.

One last note: I own and read the majority of this physically. I did attempt to listen to the audiobook because I like to have one going while I drive and do things around the house, but I had to stop because I did not like the voice actor. Specifically the way she did the voice of Loom. It just didn't work for me at all. It you're going to ask a voice actor to read a book and do different accents, you should make sure that they can actually DO the accents! Just saying...

Sooo...this book is weird.

It's purposely weird. It's quirky, whimsical, and creepy. And did I mention it's weird?

I ended up enjoying this book, though I'm not sure how many people I would be able to recommend it to unless I knew their reading tastes ran to the strange and quirky.

I do with there was a little more grounding this book in some sort of reality, and I wish we'd gotten a little more of Vassa with her sisters. Also, while I love darkly whimsical settings and stories, I wish I'd felt a little more of a connection to Vassa as a character. Everything felt very disconnected, so I found it difficult to care about what was happening to her.

For anyone who is squeamish about graphic content, there is a good deal of violence (think death and dismemberment) within the pages of this book that is presented in a very matter-of-fact manner.

I grew up in Alaska, and have always found stories of surviving in the wilderness very compelling. This doesn't technically take place in Alaska, but it definitely could have. This book was awesome. I freaking loved it.

I love that this book didn't follow some spoiled-girl-learns-to-fend-for-herself trope. Jess was put in a terrible situation from the get go. I think anyone would be able to understand why she didn't want to live with a father she never knew in the middle of nowhere. Especially taking into consideration the fact that she was still recovering from the car accident that killed her mother. It would be a lot even for someone who liked being in the wilderness and had survival skills. Her anger toward him and her catty nature with him was understandable. I would even go so far as to say it was justified.

The survival aspect was really intriguing. Again, I love survival stories. I'm not sure what it is, but reading about characters who are able to use their smarts in order to become self-sufficient just does it for me.

I shelved this as a YA book because the main character is sixteen/seventeen, but I can't think of another YA book that is anything like this. At least, nothing published recently. It was very unique.

I truly loved everything about this book. I also saw that the author is from the Pacific Northwest, which was obvious to me while I was reading. She seemed to have a deep knowledge of this area in many different aspects.

My biggest issue with this book was that it didn't seem to know what it wanted to be. Is it a contemporary adult romance? Is it a paranormal mystery? Is it a poignant story about a woman learning to let herself love? Yes. It's all of those things. But it doesn't do any of them particularly well.

If any one of those aspects had been strong, perhaps it would've saved this book a little for me. But I didn't feel any chemistry between the two main characters. The twists were predictable. And Jillian's personal journey just never captivated me.

I think the biggest disappointment of those three things would be the mystery, or lack thereof. There are many different aspects to this convoluted mystery, and all but one of them I had figured out about a quarter of the way through the book. And it wasn't like I was trying to unravel the mystery. It was just presented in such a clumsy and obvious way that I can't see many people not being able to put the pieces together. The foreshadowing is poorly done, and the face that I had to read almost 175 pages before the characters learned what I'd already deduced is frustrating. And it wasn't like we were supposed to know. It was obvious that we were supposed to be surprised by the ending. But it just didn't work.

I also didn't think the romance was strong in this book. As I said earlier, I felt zero chemistry between Linc and Jillian. At first it was set up as if they were going to be at odds. But that only lasted a couple of chapters, and even when he was supposedly out for answers, he had pretty much fallen for her immediately. There's also another man who is infatuated with Jillian, because of course there is. But it never materializes as anything above a lukewarm affection, and it presents zero challenge to our main couple. Which begs the question, what is the point?

None of these characters felt fleshed out, perhaps with the exception of Gracie, Jillian's sensitive (as in, can speak to the dead) daughter. That is not a spoiler. It is something that is obvious almost from the first page, but is treated as something mysterious for the first 200+ pages of the book. In any case, the other characters are one-dimensional. She tries to create depth with Jillian and her past, but it just never gelled with me. Her parents were cartoonish in their treatment of her, and the friendship between her and Lauren was never unpacked to the point that I cared about it.

Linc also suffered from a lack of development. We are presented with his past but it all feels very surface-level. I would've liked to know more about him, about his life after he left the town as a younger man, about his mother and their relationship, about his work. Also, he was a huge know-it-all. Seriously, any time anyone had a question about something, he knew the answer. And often it was supposed to have some profound double meaning that just had me rolling my eyes. He knows all about the constellations, butterflies, you name it, he can probably tell you all about it.

One last thing. Her main character's pregnancy was treated as if it was some sort of a disability. She was portrayed as clumsy and fragile. She couldn't walk down the road without a ride, and couldn't walk on the beach without falling down and needing help up.

Then less than a month after she gives birth she has a flat stomach again...oookaaaayyy...

I initially picked this book up because it was under 300 pages and I was wanting something quick. But the short page count of this book is definitely deceiving. It is 267 pages of small-type text, with very little blank space. Much of the book is narrative rather than dialogue, and even that takes up most of the page. This definitely wasn't the light, quick read I was looking for. This is the first I've read from this author. I have a couple more on my shelves, and it looks like people like her others over this, so I'm tentatively optimistic about her other books.

So I've known this story since I was a child, but this Christmas was the first time I've actually read the book.
I love the various adaptations that have spawned from this story (The Muppet Christmas Carol is one of my favorite Christmas movies, no regrets) and the audiobook, narrated by Jim Dale, was only 1.5 hours long, since I listened to it at 2X speed. It was fine. Dickens is very...wordy. He is the kind of writer who will use a paragraph when five words would express the same idea. The first sentence, "Marley was dead: to begin with." is followed by two more paragraphs (132 words) to reiterate that he is dead. As if that first statement wasn't clear enough. That is just part of his style. Now, if this book was written today, I would have a whole list of annoyances and issues as far as the writing is concerned. But when I rate classics, I try to keep in mind the norm of the day as far as writing conventions go.

I'm glad I finally read this, and hope to read more Dickens in the future.

I was shocked to see all of the four and five-star ratings for this book. I mean, yes, everyone is perfectly entitled to their own opinion, but I just don't get it.

What I liked:

1. Madison. She was my favorite character in the book and I loved her friendship with Jubilee.

2. Jubilee loving books and working in a library. As a book lover myself, I love reading books about people who love books.

What I didn't like:

Everything else.

Kidding, kidding (kind of)

1. Jubilee's 'allergy'.
First of all, this isn't a real allergy. However, I didn't care much about if that was realistic or not, in the beginning. But as I continued to read, it just didn't add up. If she was allergic to human skin cells, I'm not sure how she would even be able to function in society. Skin cells slough off people all of the time without us noticing a thing. They would be everywhere. We're supposed to believe that even something as innocuous as wearing a shirt someone else wore could put her into anaphylactic shock, but she's just fine sitting in someone else's car and home and working around people all day is just fine. Having people over to her home is no problem whatsoever. Having food delivered (groceries and take out) isn't ever brought up as something that could be potentially problematic. We're supposed to believe that as long as she wore gloves, she would be fine. I can suspend disbelief when we're talking about a fantasy or science fiction book, but this is supposed to be realistic fiction, and I just couldn't. The woman didn't even have epi-pens on her, for crying out loud. And at one point, she tries to say she doesn't need them. That makes no sense, especially for someone who is supposedly as afraid as she is of having an allergy attack.

2. Mental illness representation.
Jubilee tells us that she suffers from agoraphobia. Is she ever actually diagnosed by a doctor? No. Because she was unable to leave her home for nearly a decade to actually GO to the doctor. A decade. She literally never left her home for nine years. Had zero in-person contact with another human for nearly a decade. And at the beginning of the book, she is terrified to leave her home. But since her mother passed away and isn't paying for her survival anymore, she has to leave the house to get a job.
So she does. Sure, it takes a chapter or so before she's able to get past her porch, but after that point there is almost no mention of her agoraphobia again, until the end of the book when she ends up on an inadvertent road trip. And then it's more a throwaway line about how funny it is that just a couple months ago she couldn't leave her house and look what she can do now!
THIS IS NOT A REALISTIC PORTRAYAL OF MENTAL ILLNESS. She never consults a therapist to discuss her phobia and what is obviously anxiety. She takes her friend's prescription xanax a couple of times, which is played as a big joke, but never even thinks that maybe she should talk to someone and get a real diagnosis. Things like agoraphobia, anxiety, and depression don't just go away because you try real hard. That's not how it works.

3. Eric. Also, the romance.
He's the worst. I really disliked him. He was a crappy parent to his daughter, and he was a crappy adopted parent to Aja. Aja is acting out and it never once occurs to this moron that it could possibly be because he's never properly grieved his parent's death? Really?! He actually tells the therapist that he's forced to take Aja to (after Aja threatens to blow up a bully's bookbag at school) that Aja never cries, so he assumed he was fine. Fine? With the death of both of his parents?!
The romance between Eric and Jubilee just fell so flat with me. I saw it described as a 'slow burn'. I don't think I would use that term. I would say it was non-existent. They had zero chemistry. I also didn't like that Jubilee completely blew off the idea of a possible cure until she was with Eric. As if that would be the only reason she would want to be cured of such an awful affliction.

4. The end.
I hated this ending so much. So so much.

First of all, it jumps to seven years in the future. Why does it jump so far? Wouldn't it have been more realistic to jump maybe two or three years? We're supposed to believe that Eric and Jubilee are still in love with each other after seven years of no contact? Ooookayyyyy...
They have no contact, then they see each other after all that time and start making out with each other's faces after about five seconds. And then the book ends.
Blech.
And this is after they've established that Michael has feelings for her and that she might have some feelings for him as well. Why on Earth even include that, just to undo it two pages later? Actually, I know why. All through the book, there are men who are physically attracted to Jubilee. Madison's ex. Eric. Michael. Apparently we're supposed to think of her as a desirable person. And the way the author decided to get that across to us is by having every man in the book in love with her. That's more unrealistic than her allergy to human skin cells.

Other odds and ends:

1. There is a lot of girl-hate in this book.

2. There are many inconsistencies with characterization here, especially regarding Jubilee's mother. one minute she's a chain-smoking, tight-clothes-wearing, homewrecking slut who abandoned her daughter and the next she's a doting mother crawling into bed with her baby girl in a nightgown that covers her from head to toe just so she can hold her.

I just can't believe that this book was published in 2017 and has this many rave reviews.

This book was such a mess. I wanted to DNF about half-way through, but saw so many reviews talk about the mind-blowing ending and how they just couldn't believe the amazing twist...so I pushed on, hoping that there would be something, anything that would surprise me.
Spoiler alert: There wasn't.

Trigger warning for all sort of messed up stuff, including rape and graphic violence.

There was nothing I liked about this book, so let's move on.

1. It was predictable. I knew who the killer was about a hundred pages before it was revealed. We are supposed to think that its a different piece of garbage character, but it was obvious that he was just a red herring. Then after it was revealed (around the half-way point) there was still another 150 pages to wade through. And nothing else happened. Which leads to my second issue...

2. It was boring AF. The characters were miserable and lacked depth. I was intrigued by Cher and her story and would probably have read a book about just her and her journey...but this book ain't it. After the 'reveal' of who the killer is, there's another 150ish (I listened on audio so I'm not sure exactly how far into the book it was) pages of nothing. I didn't care about Lisa/Colette and her issues, and I didn't feel like I knew enough about any of the other characters to really care.

3. It was unnecessarily grotesque and graphic. There was a serious lack of description throughout most of this book, with the exception of scenes that felt like they were designed to make the reader nauseous. One described a peeping tom masturbating as he watched a female character undress. Other's revolved around the killer and his sick obsession with preserving his victims and the repercussions of doing something like that in your own home. I don't want to get too into the details of the things that were said, because like I said, it's disturbing. And really, it was excessive. It felt gratuitous, especially when it is the third or fourth scene saying pretty much the same thing.

4. I disliked the writing style. Within a paragraph he would switch from third to first person and sometimes even from one character's perspective to another. He was trying to show each character's inner monologue, but it ended up being a big jumbled mess.

5. The end. The ending lacked tension. It was obvious exactly what was going to happen.

First of all, Cher is in the police station at the beginning of the book, so you know for a fact that she ends up making it out of the situation, so the entire chapter with her and Thomas completely falls flat. Secondly, did anyone actually think that Colette was going to end up dead? And the police inspector being a bad guy...none of these 'twists' held any real surprise.

I will not read anything else from this author in the future.

This book wasn't written for me. I understand that. I am not the target age group. However, I think that a good story is a good story, regardless of the intended demographic.

The one thing I will say this book did that I appreciated was that it was realistic with regards to teens and sex. Teenagers have sex. It's a thing that happens, whether it's put into books or not. And this book went the extra mile of actually having the characters talk about and obtain birth control. The main character and her friend go to Planned Parenthood. They have discussions about pap smears and urinary tract infections and STD's.

Unfortunately, that was where the realism with this book ended. For the most part, this was 350 pages of a ridiculous premise and detestable characters. The main character was selfish, dishonest, and stupid. Topics such as body dysmorphia are mentioned and glossed over without properly explored. The entire book lacked depth. And the idea that any decent mother would let their child knowingly live on their own with another teenager and no parental supervision just because she doesn't want to talk to her ex-husband is absolutely ludicrous.

I was able to fly through the book, even though it could've been much, much shorter. Nothing really happens in the book that justifies its 350+ page length.

3.75 stars
I don't have a lot to say about this one. It was quirky, creepy, and weird (in a good way). I saw some people review that it was a book that terrified them. I could see that if I'd read it when I was a child, but as an adult I just saw it as kind of a whimsical creepiness.
The audiobook had occasional inserts of music and sound effects, and Neil Gaiman narrated this (as he does most, if not all, of his books)