howlinglibraries's Reviews (1.85k)

This was cute, but also SUPER cringe-y and the humor got so annoying by the end. :( Honestly, I wish I could give the first 50% 4 stars and the last 50% 2 stars. I also had a LOT of issues with the heroine's brothers and their super gross, endless toxic masculinity displays.

Holy hell. That was easily one of the best YA contemporaries I've read in a LONG time and I'm so amazed that this is Gibson's debut. I can't wait to see what she writes next! I definitely recommend checking out the list of TWs below if you're concerned, because there is a lot going on in this book. I'm clearing out my RTC shelf right now and realizing I can't give this book a full review that does it justice since it's been so long since I read it, but I might have to fit in a re-read soon just to fix that.

Content warnings:

Spoiler

explicit descriptions of suicide and self-harm, drug usage and overdose, slut-shaming, homophobia, parental abuse, teen/child homelessness, shaming of religious and spiritual beliefs

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this review copy in exchange for an honest review!

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I really wanted to love this! When I read it (almost a year and a half ago now), I even waited to rate it in hopes that dwelling on it a bit would make me like it more — you know how sometimes books can "sit" with us a while and we suddenly realize something we missed, that makes them even better? Yeah... sadly, that didn't happen here.

While there a lot of redeeming qualities, none of them were able to over-power how much I disliked the narrative voice or the personalities of most characters. It didn't work for me, but I'd be willing to give this author's work another try someday.

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this review copy in exchange for an honest review!

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I have no high horse to stand on when it comes to that. I want Jasmine confined, too. My collar on her neck, its chain never far from my hand. I want her on her knees in subservience. I want to ruin her.

If there's a good guy in this scenario, it's not my part to play.

This is more of a 3.5 than a 4, but I think that's partially because I never personally shipped Jafar and Jasmine (in fact, I've never been an Aladdin fan at all, sorry), so it was hard to get invested in the couple at first. That said, I'm a much bigger fan of all of the pairings in the books to come in this series, so I'll definitely continue.

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This was absolutely phenomenal. My heart is broken in the best way.

✨ Representation: most characters are Dominican (both MCs and almost all side characters), Yahaira is a lesbian, Yahaira's girlfriend is Black, Camino's best friend is Haitian.

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this review copy in exchange for an honest review!

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Note to self: don't wait almost a year and a half to review books, especially books you read while in one of the worst reading slumps of your life.

I'll be totally honest: I don't remember a whole lot about this book off the top of my head, but I think that has less to do with its memorable nature, and more to do with my own memory regarding books. I do remember being totally enamored by the characters and loving the plot, though, so I think I might have to re-read Upright Women Wanted in the near future (and maybe give it the review it deserves!).

Thank you so much to the publisher and LibroFM ALC Program for providing me with this finished audio copy in exchange for an honest review!

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If I can recommend one YA mystery to you, it’s this one. I’m honestly not usually a big fan of YA mysteries—most of them fall short for me in a big way—but this was such a wildly enjoyable, hilarious, heartbreaking, and gorgeous little story. While most mystery novels are about the destination (discovering the whodunit), this one is about the journey, and the things Mila learns along the way. It’s about grieving, friendship, overcoming your judgments, and so much more.

I did big, real magic using a bunch of flowers and an old-ass book, and I feel just as lonely now as I did when my best friend was dead.

It’s rare that I read a book that can present gallows humor in a solid way, but it’s fantastic in this narrative, and as someone whose humor tends to lean on the incredibly morbid and dry side, I honestly adored Mila. I feel like she and I would legitimately be best friends and I’m a little bit sad that she’s not an actual human being, in my life.

Two days is a long time when you can’t sleep or eat because remembering that your best friend is gone slams into you whenever you think you’re safe from it.

Of course, there’s also a tremendous amount of sadness in Undead Girl Gang; after all, we’re talking about teenagers dropping like flies, and not only that, but we’re dealing with the narrator’s own best friend of several years being one of those teens. I was taken aback a few times by how palpable Mila’s grief was, especially mingled with the desperation she has to convince the adults in her life that these girls didn’t kill themselves.

I’m so tired of adults using hyperbole to try to keep me in my place. I’m not crazy. I’m not too angry. I’m fine just the way I am.

Of course, there’s a lot of happiness and important conversation to be had in this story, too. We get to watch two of the school’s “mean girls” come to terms with their own abusive behaviors, and any potential for girl on girl hate is squashed quickly, as Mila is an incredibly forgiving and considerate person beneath her sarcasm and rage. I loved watching her friendships with June and Dayton unfold.

Is it possible to be a pagan agnostic?

I gotta admit, as soon as I heard about this book’s rep, I was so stoked. I learned it had Wicca in it, too, and I was sold! I practiced Wicca for years as a teen, and while I don’t practice it anymore, it’s still something that I so rarely see portrayed in a positive light that I get truly eager whenever I see its representation done well. Every person’s experience is different, but I truly enjoyed the Wiccan rep in this book and related really well to it.

“And, for fuck’s sake, stop using ‘normal’ as code for ‘white’,” I snap. “Your life isn’t the ruler that the rest of the world gets measured against.”

As a white woman, I obviously cannot relate to the Latinx rep in this book, or the black rep for one of the side characters, but as the author is Afro-Latinx, I can only say that I loved reading her portrayal of some of the feelings she might go through in a world where so much of society still views “white” and “normal” alongside one another.

“So you… what? Wanna start the fat brown girl clique?”
She cocks her head at me. “Doesn’t that sound dope as hell?”

The last thing I’ll say about the rep is that, as a plus size woman, I was able to relate really hard to the fat rep in this book, and I LIVED for it! I read so few books with plus size protagonists, and it’s even more rare for the rep to be done in a positive and thoughtful light, but this was perfect. As this, too, is own-voice rep, Lily Anderson does an impeccable job of describing so many of the daily microaggressions and difficulties that we deal with, and I was over the moon for it. If you’re a plus size reader looking for a book that mirrors your life experiences—or a non-plus size reader looking for an opportunity to empathize with what others go through on a daily basis—I highly recommend giving this book a try.

Buddy read with the ever so lovely Taylor! ♡

All quotes come from an advance copy and may not match the final release. Thank you so much to Razorbill for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

You can find this review and more on my blog, or you can follow me on twitter, bookstagram, or facebook!

I’ve had Naomi Novik’s work on my reading list for a long time, but this was my first time picking up anything by her. I loved the Rumpelstiltskin story as a child, so when I heard that she was writing a retelling of it, I knew I had to get my hands on a copy—and now, it made me wonder how I ever lived without the incredible worlds of magic and fantasy she crafts.

I wasn’t sorry they didn’t like me, I wasn’t sorry I had been hard to them. I was glad, fiercely glad.

The story alternates perspectives, primarily between the women in the story, with its focus resting mainly on Miryem (the tax collector’s daughter), Wanda (Miryem’s hired help), and Irina (the local duke’s daughter). Gradually, we also see perspectives from the tsar, Wanda’s youngest sibling, and Irina’s nursemaid, and while the shifts in narrators offer potential for chaos and disjointed storytelling, Naomi Novik shows off every bit of the necessary skill to make it work.

They would have devoured my family and picked their teeth with the bones, and never been sorry at all. Better to be turned to ice by the Staryk, who didn’t pretend to be a neighbor.

Miryem is by far my favorite character in this story: she is cold, clever, and ruthless when she needs to be, but never without justification, and never unfairly. Her perspective is not only the one I enjoyed the most for entertainment’s sake (especially when she interacts with the winter feyfolk, the Staryk), but also for the empowerment her narrative offers. Miryem’s family is Jewish, and there’s a lot of commentary made throughout the story to remind the reader of the pains Jews have been through and the judgments they have faced, and continue to face, in their daily lives.

“My people will go into the flame with their names locked fast in their hearts; you will not have that of them, nor me.”

More than anything, though, I think Spinning Silver is a story of feminism and independent, strong-willed women. Each of our three most important narrators suffer under a man who has, intentionally or otherwise, controlled and/or ruined their life: for Miryem, it’s the lazy father who forced them into starvation; for Wanda, it’s the abusive, drunkard father who wants to sell her off for spirits; and for Irina, it’s the controlling, uncaring father and the terrifying man he wants to marry her off to. Despite their respective circumstances, these young women all learn how to work together and to fight their way out of one mess after another.

But it was the same choice, every time. The choice between the one death and all the little ones.

Beyond the representation and strength, Spinning Silver is just a damn good fantasy tale. It mimics the Rumpelstiltskin story just enough to draw in old fans, but Novik’s writing takes liberties endlessly to make it her very own story. The writing voice in and of itself is magnificent; I found myself highlighting so many passages just because the phrasing she uses and the scenery she paints gave me chills. This is also one of the most atmospheric wintry stories I’ve ever read in my life.

“A power claimed and challenged and thrice carried out is true; the proving makes it so.”

If I haven’t convinced you yet, I’ll also tell you that there’s a delightful enemies-to-lovers twist (you’ll have to read it to find out which girl it involves, though, because I’m not telling!), sweet families and sibling bonding moments for days, and so much tension that I’m positive you won’t want to put it down until you’ve found out how it all ends.

Because that’s what the story’s really about: getting out of paying your debts.

Trigger warnings for anti-Semitism, sexism, parental abuse, family death, and alcoholism.

Thank you so much to Del Rey for providing me with this beautiful finished copy in exchange for an honest review!

She didn’t understand she’d done it. We all had, and we were only getting started. She didn’t realize that all her roaring, living, breathing anger could create so much light.

Nothing about this collection disappointed me in the slightest; in fact, I can confidently say that this is the SINGLE best anthology I have ever read in my life. I have never loved a collection of short stories so much, and I cannot begin to describe how much the witches in these stories meant to me. I’ve rambled enough at this point, though, so let’s jump into the breakdown.

→ F A V O R I T E S ←
The Gherin Girls — Emery Lord
The One Who Stayed — Nova Ren Suma
Death in the Sawtooths — Lindsay Smith

→ Starsong — Tehlor Kay Mejia ★★★★★ ←
Maybe we were just two people chasing numbness because we didn’t know what the stardust inside us was for.

Ever since I read Tehlor’s story in All Out, I’ve wanted more of her writing, and this did not disappoint! It’s a story of a young Latinx girl who is an Instagram model and a bruja, and it’s full of magic and remorse and healing and cute girl-on-girl flirting. My favorite aspect was the narrator’s confidence in her own appearance, which is something we don’t see nearly enough of. ♥ This piece is written for people who believe in the stars, and magic, and more, and I loved every word of it.

→ Afterbirth — Andrea Cremer ★★★★★ ←
“They will see the devil in those pages because they will choose to.”

Afterbirth alternates between a young apprenticing midwife’s narrative, and a legal trial for her teacher, a woman now being accused of witchcraft for saving a newborn that appeared stillborn. The story is set in the 1600s, and the writing feels so gorgeous and atmospheric. There are a lot of things left to be questioned, but it fits the scene somehow.

→ The Heart in Her Hands — Tess Sharpe ★★★★☆ ←
There is no emptiness in a devoted heart.

This was my first time reading Tess Sharpe’s writing, and I have to say, it was lovely. This story tells of a world where witchcraft is seemingly considered altogether normal, and Bette comes from a line of healers who are marked with the first words of their soul mate. The problem is that Bette already loves someone, and she’s determined not to give up her love for Fate’s idea of what her future should look like. My only complaint is that parts felt rushed and under-explained; it could have benefited greatly from being longer. That said, it was beautifully queer and feminist, and the “kitchen witch” line (if you’ve read it, you know) had me grinning ear to ear.

→ Death in the Sawtooths — Lindsay Smith ★★★★★ ←
Folks can hate me, shun me, fear me all they want, but I’ll lay their bones to rest.

I love stories about necromancers, but we never see enough of them—and especially not ones like this, where the spirits are being laid to rest, rather than being raised. Mattie is a servant of Xosia, the lady of death, and her gift is to lay spirits to rest, but the entire town spurns her out of fear—until they need her talents, of course. This was my whole witchy aesthetic, with a touch of eeriness to it, and frankly, now I just want an entire urban fantasy series about Mattie.

→ The Truth About Queenie — Brandy Colbert ★★★★☆ ←
Sometimes if you pretend like a part of you simply doesn’t exist, you can will it away.

After hearing so many rave reviews of Brandy’s writing, I was eager to finally check out her style through this short story, and it didn’t disappoint. It’s hard enough on Queenie’s family to be the only black people in the neighborhood, but being witches on top of it? That’s just asking for trouble. Queenie tries her hardest to hide her powers and even convince herself they don’t exist, but when her pro-skaterboarder best friend comes home for a visit, she finds herself in a place where she’s forced to use her gifts, or leave her friend broken-hearted. It reads like a fluffy contemporary with a touch of magic, but I loved the sentiment that Queenie doesn’t need spells or crystals, just belief and energy.

→ The Moonapple Menagerie — Shveta Thakrar ★★★☆☆ ←
Some things, though, you had to do without your sisters. That was why she would never tell them she’d petitioned the bone palace for help.

When Shalini is tasked with writing a play that she can’t quite seem to nail the ending on, she reaches out for help, but forgets that assistance from feyfolk and spirits always comes at a price. This story is definitely a mixed bag for me. The girls are almost all POC, and the author herself is South Asian. There’s a lot of lore thrown in, which I LOVED, but some of it does require you to have pre-existing knowledge of the stories, so if you don’t, it may not carry the same weight. Unfortunately, the writing just didn’t mesh with me (which surprises me, since I loved this author’s submission in another anthology earlier this year!). It felt a little immature and something about it reminded me of children’s fairytales (albeit creepier), which isn’t what I was hoping for.

→ The Legend of Stone Mary — Robin Talley ★★★★☆ ←
Everybody for miles around used to remember the story of Mary Keegan’s curse, but you wouldn’t know it now.

Wendy Keegan is the descendant of a famous witch in her small town, and the townspeople never let her forget it, ostracizing and bullying her relentlessly for her birthright. Desperate for friendship, she agrees to tag along to visit her ancestor’s memorial statue one Halloween night, but strange occurrences will change the way the town views her family—for better and for worse. Let me tell you guys, I am a total sucker for curse stories—stuff like this is honestly one of the things I live for in witchy tales, so I knew this would be a winner for me, and it was. I did take off a star because the romantic aspect felt forced (which doesn’t surprise me, because I’ve never felt any chemistry in any of Talley’s writing), though I appreciated that it was f/f regardless.

→ The One Who Stayed — Nova Ren Suma ★★★★★ ←
The storm inside her could fill this whole wooded grove and take us over. She was coming. Were we ready?

A group of witches circle a fire in the woods, waiting for the girl that will come running to them—hoping that, this time, she stays and fights. This was easily my favorite in the collection so far. The writing is haunting and lyrical and gorgeous, immediately making me want to pick up full works from Nova Ren Suma, and the content is heavy and heartbreaking. I figured out what was going on pretty quickly, and watching it come together was enough to make me cry through most of the story, but the solidarity between these girls is everything. Stories like this represent precisely the type of modern witches we need.

→ Divine Are the Stars — Zoraida Córdova ★★★★☆ ←
“We become what we need,” Marimar said, and though the stars were hidden, she knew they were listening.

The fact that I love magical realism so much makes it shocking that this was my first taste of Zoraida’s writing, I know, but I definitely want to read more from her now. Marimar travels home to visit her dying grandmother, and finds a strength and connection to her roots that she’d always been missing. It’s not just a story of witchcraft or magic; more than anything, it’s a tale of family, and loving and accepting yourself, as well as your history and culture.

→ Daughters of Baba Yaga — Brenna Yovanoff ★★★★★ ←
This time, the magic was cool and slow. I was a poison night-flower blooming on black, not righteous, but vengeful.

I always loved the legend of Baba Yaga, so I get really excited about any sort of retellings involving that story, and this did not disappoint. In this story, the main character is alienated at her school a bit, but she is approached by another girl who knows Stony is a witch, and who claims to be a witch as well. She quickly proves herself to Stony, though her form of magic is entirely different, and throughout the piece, we are shown this idea where Stony explains that there are different types of witches who perform their magic differently, but they’re all valid and need to support one another. It was a little creepy, a little strange, and a whole lot of righteously angry feminism, and I loved it.

→ The Well Witch — Kate Hart ★★★★★ ←
Men were the most unpredictable animals.

I was not expecting a 19th-century western story in this collection, but I got it, and I loved it. Elsa is a witch who can conjure up water in the desert, and she’s been living alone in her late parents’ cabin for three years when a trio of men show up, seeking shelter. While one of them has pure intentions, the other two are less than noble, and Elsa is forced to find a way to save her own life with her magic. This one was surprisingly sad and dark, but I really enjoyed Elsa’s character and the entire setting—simplistic, but immersive.

→ Beware of Girls With Crooked Mouths — Jessica Spotswood ★★★★☆ ←
In every generation, one Campbell witch goes mad and murders the others. It has always been so. Will always be so.

I have heard such rave reviews of Jessica Spotswood’s writing that I was eager to get to this story, and it truly had such a unique and incredible plot. In this family of witches, each generation is cursed with a forced matriarchy: only one girl from each generation will live, and she will carry on the household until the next girls take it. Because of the curse, these three sisters are forced to grow up distrusting one another, but they are determined to beat the curse—until one of them has a vision that tells her the other two girls can only live if she can force them to go far away and never return. It was such an intriguing and heartbreaking scenario, and I loved the execution of it until the ending, where it suddenly fell flat enough for me that I had to knock off a star. That said, I can’t wait to read more from this author!

→ Love Spell — Anna-Marie McLemore ★★★★★ ←
La Virgen may be our Mother of grace and mercy, but She is also more mischief than our priests will ever admit.

When a bruja falls in forbidden love with an acolyte from the local cathedral, she can’t decide whether it’s fortune or tragedy that her tía has raised her with the knowledge for offering remedies to cure lovesickness. Not only am I a sucker for these angst-filled, starcrossed lover sorts of stories, but in Anna-Marie McLemore’s own-voice fashion, our protagonist is a girl falling in love with a trans boy, and the scenario is depicted so beautifully. I could just get lost in her lyrical prose for days, and never tire of it.

→ The Gherin Girls — Emery Lord ★★★★★ ←
What a wonder—love that powerful, but so careful to never break anything in its path.

I thought I wouldn’t be able to pick a favorite story from this collection until reaching this piece, but this is absolutely, hands down, my favorite. The three Gherin sisters take care of one another; in a family known for magic, they simply consider themselves “gifted”, but their capabilities are incredible and nurturing. The oldest, Nova, always knows exactly what food or drink will best comfort a person in that moment. The middle girl, Rosemary, tends to plants and all things green. The youngest, Willa, can detect a person’s entire range of emotions with a moment’s touch.

As the story switches perspectives, we get to learn about each of the girls in turn, like Nova’s bisexuality and her need to be recognized as queer, alongside her blossoming crush on a man she works with. Willa is a lesbian in love with her best friend, and then Rosemary is in the middle, and really, this story revolves around her most of all, because she’s recently escaped a terrible, emotionally abusive relationship, and none of the trio have quite recovered from her losses.

This story had my favorite representation of being a survivor of emotional abuse I have ever read in my life. I have read entire novels about abuse victims, and while many of them were incredible, none of them were so entirely, 100% me and my story as this one was. I just cried through most of this short story and wanted to spend chapter upon chapter nestled in the protective and understanding love Rosemary’s sisters had for her. On top of everything else, this entire depiction that these girls’ magical abilities were about comfort and love, not casting spells or curses, was so wonderful to me, because those are my witchy goals, too. I honestly cannot say enough about this story, or how badly I want to now read everything Emery Lord ever has or ever will write, just based on these few pages.

→ Why They Watch Us Burn — Elizabeth May ★★★★★ ←
Every woman is never enough; she’s always too much. We angered someone, somewhere, for our too muchness. If to be too much is to be a witch, then I am a witch, and we are all witches.

Thirteen girls are taken to a lumber camp in the woods to pay penance for their “witchcraft”, or as you might more accurately call it, for accusing their sexual assailants of abuse. This entire story is a stunning metaphor for how society treats women who speak up, and it definitely is a punch to the gut in a few places. While Night, our narrator, is learning how to survive and to hold on to the righteous fury she holds for the man who hurt her, she is also falling in love with a beautiful Indian girl who helps her to remember that no amount of imprisonment or stoning can ever take away her power—and that is why the world is so terrified of “witchy”, angry women.

FINAL AVERAGE RATING: 4.6/5
This is easily the highest average score I’ve ever given to an anthology, and it is with no hesitation whatsoever that I’m rounding up to a solid 5 stars. I adored every moment of this collection and hope that it will get every ounce of the hype it deserves.

All quotes come from an advance copy and may not match the final release. Thank you so much to Harlequin Teen for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

She had read enough stories to know that the princess and the monster were never the same. She had been alone long enough to know which one she was.

Friends, no matter how excited I was to read this gorgeous Persian fairytale retelling with queer girls and demons — a description that had all of my interests piqued entirely on its own — and no matter how many rave reviews I'd already seen, nothing could have prepared me for how utterly captivating and entrancing and gorgeous Girl, Serpent, Thorn was.

Beautiful yet deadly, he had called her. Somehow, he made one sound as sweet as the other.

First of all, the entire atmosphere and aesthetic of this story — please, this has to be made into a film, because I think it would be breathtaking. And the characters? They're genuinely complex, even some of the minor roles we don't see often, but don't even get me started on Soraya and Parvaneh, and how dear these two women are to my heart. Soraya is an incredibly three-dimensional protagonist with flaws and values, fears and desires, and my heart absolutely ached for her, all of the time — but don't get me wrong, she's tough as nails and a fierce protector, too. And Parvaneh? What I wouldn't give for a prequel novella about her before meeting Soraya! I'm such a sucker for demons as characters in the first place, but when you add in the complexities of the div types and the sisterhood of the parik, on top of Parvaneh's charm and general existence as a total badass? I, like Soraya, was doomed from the start.

"There's something restless growing within you. We're all very curious to see what happens when it breaks free."

As far as the plot goes, while the characters shone for me, I loved the entire storyline, too. I felt like Melissa Bashardoust took an arc that could've been dragged out into 2 or 3 books easily, yet she slimmed it down into just a few hundred pages without leaving me feeling as though anything was missing, and that's an incredible talent in my eyes. I couldn't get enough and the pacing kept me interested from cover to cover. I loved the exploration of Soraya's curse, but even more, I loved the familial aspect to it and her gradual understanding of why these things came into being. Nobody is innocent here, but everyone has a genuine motive, and it makes it hard to dislike any of these characters — even the villain.

"I've been expecting you. And you are very, very late."

I also have to mention one particular plot point about three-quarters through that I won't spoil, but if you've read it, I'll just say a character is introduced who absolutely broke me. Watching Soraya reach this depth in understanding her ancestry, and the connection she is granted... It's hard to be vague here, because all I want to do is weep incoherently about how powerful the entire final act of this book was and how beautifully it all wrapped up.

If I am being cruel, she decided, then it's because he taught me how.

I'll wrap this up in a moment, but finally, the discussion of betrayal and manipulation in Girl, Serpent, Thorn is so subtle and eloquent. Too often, we see princesses in fairytales who are tricked by wicked men and blame themselves, or are blamed by others; finally, Melissa Bashardoust has given us a princess who has been tricked and grows to recognize that she didn't deserve this behavior, and that if her only fault was trusting a cruel man, the blame resides in his cruelty — not her kindness. Truly, what an empowering story of hope and strength, and I know this one will stick with me for a long time to come.

✨ Representation: Girl, Serpent, Thorn is inspired by the Persian epic Shahnameh and the author's exploration into her own culture. Soraya and Parvaneh are both queer (while Soraya is attracted to multiple genders in the context of the book, no labels are used for either character).

✨ Content warnings for:

Spoiler

violence, death, betrayal, manipulation, war, kidnapping, torture (in reference only)

All quotes come from an advance copy and may not match the final release. Thank you so much to Flatiron Books for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!