Holy guacamole, Batman! I have never read a campier, more cringey, wordy-yet-somehow-grammatically-incorrect, vapid piece of trash in my entire LIFE! XD This garbage was so much fun to hate-read, like Rifftrax but for YA paranormal romance. Where to begin!

1) Women in this book have no personalities. They are swooning, pretty trophies, or they are evil and ugly in the cruelest way: "bloated", "mannish", "gorilla-armed", etc. Repeatedly, male characters think to themselves that a woman in the room needs to "know her place".

2) A white, male "hero" walks away from the rookie black girl who idolizes him by saying, "I have a meeting with my equals." OOF!

3) A group of dead, "Asian businessmen" are dismissed because "They're not people." OOF, x2!!!!

4) The threatening vampires in this book include a Mexican woman immigrating children into America, a Japanese arms dealer with a yakuza level of subordinates, and a black club owner. OOOF, x3!!!

I could go on, but I think I should let my copious notes speak for themselves. This book is a perfect lesson in how NOT to write XD. I was so curious as to what brainless, toxic wasteland of a person could dream up this nonsense... The author bio says B.T. Annett started writing this book when he was 14... IT SHOWS! XD Did he dig it out of the closet ten years later and decide to publish it, unchanged, for $#17$ and giggles?! XD There is no way that any self-respecting editor or proofreader approved this book unironically.

EDIT: Also, don't call your first book "The Perfect Blood SERIES", because a single book and a series of books are two different things! XD

Longer review to come, when I'm feeling more awake... Definitely love the Gothic-ish themes: Unwell narrator; questions about humanity and the masks we all wear; the sexual undertones of the catharsis of murder; moments of feverish, near-hallucinatory or quasi-paranormal discovery. Dexter's narration gets a little pretentious, but his arrogance is in character. Deb is obviously a treasure. And the diverse cast is very very much appreciated, if a little spread too thin.

I always feel as though Neil Gaiman is a great drafter of worlds. But when it comes time to finish a story he either meanders or let's it putter out. Or, a first draft makes it to publication, and the necessary tightening and book-ending and so-forth that would come with editing and rewrites, never happens.

Coraline is a beautiful, Gothic Alice in Wonderland. It's disturbing and necessary in the way it showcases neglected children, children who have /had/ to be brave by necessity. And of course, it does an amazing job of preying upon all the fears that come with living in an old house: rats and bugs, long dark corridors and creepy cellars, abandoned grounds and being home alone... If you wanted to, you could read the entire mid-section where Coraline is trapped in The Beldam's copycat realm as Coraline suffering from depression and enduring an abusive parent: the way the world becomes flat and lifeless, and The Other Mother's controlling, conditional version of "love" feels sinister.

But, I think this is one of the rare cases that an adaptation did better than the original text. I think the movie improved upon The Beldam by making her more astute and manipulative, creating not just a copycat world but an /enticing/ world which offered to fulfill all of Coraline's neglected dreams. I love the doll spies - the first hint that she's watching and making copies - as her whole, spider-like, web of lies, button eyes, THING comes together that way. I think, Coraline having /just/ moved into a new house, and going exploring one rainy day, because she isn't sure where else to be, is more compelling than Coraline having lived there for awhile and just being bored out of her mind one day. And the way the film didn't dawdle with the ending makes a LOT more sense! Why would book-Coraline leave the disembodied hand on the loose for several days?! Defeat The Beldam and move ON, girl!

A classic, a gem with hidden depths, buuuuut a book in need of tightening as well.

This book was so full of itself. It THOUGHT it was an homage to myths and a love-letter to literacy. But it had zero class, artistry, or innovation. This book relied more on the shock value of sudden violence or magic than on building any sympathetic characters, and expected the reader to simply feel awed by the randomness. Spoiler alert, if you've read enough fantasy, then the mere existence of fantasy in your fantasy is NOT a surprise, it's the beeping BASELINE! Your fantasy is meant to be a lens through which your reader can better examine, appreciate, and understand their own reality. Good fantasy tells us core human truths. Whatever "truths" this book thought it was imparting were disgusting and dangerous ideology that NO ONE need absorb. I DNF-ed at 200 pages after enduring:
- Jewish stereotypes
- Homophobic language
- Virgin shaming
- A suicidal first-person narrator
- The argument that a suicidal first-person narrator would feel better if she would just convert to Christianity!
- Exoticism of dark-skinned people in lieu of characterization
- A horny boy blaming a girl's mere existence for /making/ him horny, as if HIS body isn't his to manage. You know, the whole Jezebel, she bewitched me, she was asking for it, schtick
- Glorifying self-harm

In the end, the final nail in the coffin, the thing that made me rather suffer a terrible stomach virus than ingest any more of this trashy book... was that it had NOTHING to say. It ripped off The Grishaverse in plot only, there was none of the finesse or empowering themes. And the writing was just juvenile and bad: redundant, unwitty dialogue where the next line said or conclusion drawn didn't play off of the previous statement. There is no point in following these characters as they wander into the snow for 200 pages, then decide to BAIL and wander back OUT - ohsorrywasthataspoilerWHOCARESdon'treadthisbook! -because they have nothing to deliver on respecting religious affiliation while still calling on people to be wise and empathetic and eschew dogma when it conflicts with humanitarianism - NO! No. They have nothing to say on rewriting what's culturally acceptable as masculine or feminine, how to be yourself without shame - NOPE! Big old nope. Lots of potential... But in the end, the only thing this book really said was, "This author likey history and religion. She mash up other peeps ideas, make book good!" Nope you didn't, Ava Reid. Nope!

This book is astounding!!! The author has immeasurable wit and heart, her writing is moving and superb! Often do I find books with compelling characters or messages, but rarely do I find a WRITER who knows how to craft a phrase so effectively, so gut-wrenchingly, so profoundly!!! I cannot sing enough praises about this book, and I will DEFINITELY be keeping my eye on Natasha Siegel!

There are some tropes - enemies to lovers, opposites attract, love at first sight, schemers playing chess, schemers politicking in a garden, etc - but they didn't detract from the story. If anything, I wish more time was awarded to the happier moments between Richard and Phillip. The book is largely the moodiness and tragedy of them being separated by duty. The times they come together are often summarized - lovingly, respectfully, but all too briefly all the same.

I love love LOVE LOVE LOVE how positive the LGBTQA representation is! Only the most vindictive characters sneer at Richard and Phillip's relationship. Most courtiers are polite about it, Isabella is even encouraging, and Richard and Phillip never hold themselves back out of shame for their sexuality, only shame over the clash of demands between their hearts and their crowns. And Richard, Phillip, and Isabella make such a sweet, supportive, quasi-throuple! The scenes between them being affectionate or teasing or compassionate are SO wholesome and heart-warming! I love this book, and its message about daring to choose love, to choose trust and vulnerability and friendship. To keep alive moments of light even in the darkest of times.

Standing ovation! Cannot wait to own a copy of this book!!!!

An ambitious, angry read. I respect this book a lot for highlighting the trauma of growing up Other in America. Particularly, how being trans can feel like being flayed daily - having outsiders judge and question and dismiss pieces of you - and how trying to understand yourself and live truthfully becomes an out-of-body experience. Unflinchingly, this book addresses the injustice of having one, self-righteous, dogmatic, militant sect in power, and the damage they've done to the next generation in the name of "purity". This is a very 2020's horror story: A community which is exhausted from a pandemic, climate change, a lack of resources, an absence of sympathetic adults or authority figures, and religious zealots persecuting them for simply trying to Be. Praise where praise is due.

But all that said, I can imagine this will be a very divisive book. It is not for the faint of heart. This book is extremely gory, if you're squeamish about body horror do NOT read this book. If you're an Attack on Titan fan, you do you, buddy! I personally did not enjoy reading this book as much as I could have, because of all the fleshy, pukey, mutated, explodey bits... which is to say, all of it. It's not like there's one gory scene, it's constant throughout. And that's kind of the point, I get it: Judge by someone's character, not their body. Buuuuut it was still gross to see our protagonist stroking a tentacle of amorphous flesh from an amalgamated-corpses monster O_O. I think the message would have been enough with our hero Benji morphing into a Seraph, and still being respected by his friends.

Like I stated above, I think this will be a divisive book, and not just on account of the gore. There is a brief, poignant reminder that just because LGBTQA folks are struggling with a lot of common enemies, doesn't mean they're innate allies. There is a lot of in-fighting and gate-keeping, particularly when it comes to language. There's disagreement about the legitimacy of certain pronouns, or sexualities (like if being cis-gay or trans-gay are equally valid). On the issue of "How Many Pronouns is Too Many, Can We Just Have a Few Universal Ones, Please and Thank You", this one lands firmly on "Nah, More is Better, Go Alphabet Mafia!" Some readers might welcome the chance to see so many genders represented, others might roll their eyes at all that new-fangled Millenial babble. Me personally, I just look at the issue from a literary perspective: I don't like when new characters are introduced purely to pedal pronouns. That's it. I barely remember their name, they have no defining personality, no effect on the plot. It is something queer writing struggles with: Opening the dialogue without the story devolving into a list.

I think this book did better than most at articulating what it's like to be trans and trying to find community, self, respect, peace, justice - all while battling endless rage and guilt for not meeting expectations set at birth. It can take a long time to realize that you're a victim of abuse, especially when the abuser is a loved one, and the abuse has been normalized because it's been ongoing since childhood. It can take even longer to sort through your life and unravel how much is You and how much was imposed on you and absorbed by you. Getting a fresh perspective and deciding what to do next is hard for anyone, and I think this book shows that conflict flawlessly.
BUT the result is that we get an untrustworthy trans person X_X. We get someone who lies to his friends, is literally a predator, has the power to brainwash people and manipulate them, infiltrates a religious compound dressed as the wrong gender in order to do harm, and who will go on a blind rampage against any Evangelical Christian. /I/ completely understand the "I tried to be gracious, but I've been hurt too many times, so time to raise some hell, #TransLivesMatter" perspective. I'm just saying, /other/ readers might find Benji to be offensive.

I. LOVE. NICK!!!!! I love how Andrew Joseph White writes what it's like to be autistic. He puts to bed that trope that being autistic means being robotic. It's not that Nick has no emotions, or can't understand the feelings of others. It's that having a feeling and /expressing/ a feeling are two different things, like his brain is processing them separately. He often has to consciously choose his expressions (like smiling), has difficulty reading the motivation behind other's expressions (like crying), and finds certain common expressions off-putting (like hand-holding) but finds other expressions to substitute which mean the same thing. Nick doesn't express his love in a conventional Hollywood way, like a passionate kiss, but he does something just as intimate when he presses his forehead to Benji's. Nick is overstimulated by certain physical things, but he knows this about himself, and he has a series of coping mechanisms; feeling overstimulated doesn't stop him from wanting human connections, and he even shares his calming strategies with Benji in an effort to make Benji feel better. Nick is caring and courageous, and holding together a broken community even as he himself wants to fall to pieces. He is above and beyond any modern YA paranormal love interest on the market right now, fight me! I don't know how the rest of the community feels, but I think Nick is spot-on representation, and I am very thankful he's in this book. I appreciate highlighting the similarities in their struggles, how Benji and Nick had to face the same abusers who denied their normalcy and legitimacy. I think queer fiction can sometimes over-stretch in wanting to prove that civil rights are rights for all, and the LGBTQA struggle aligns with the struggles of PoC, women, Muslims - anyone who is not cis, white, male, and Christian. Like the gender lists, characters can come in just to be the prop, the token black person, the token abused woman, etc. etc. I think this book struggled a little with that, but not much, and not with Nick. The parallels in Nick's chapters are thoughtful and genuine.

Lastly, this book has it out for Evangelical Christians! Mad respect, I am sick to death of all the holy hate crimes, I am here for this. I applaud this book for giving a megaphone to the angry, wounded, marginalized masses. HOWEVER, there were soooo many Bible quotes in this book, and monsters ripped straight out of scripture, that at times it read like Revelation fanfiction XD. I was forcefully reminded of Evangelion. Like... how are you going to use so much Church to attack The Church XD. Who is this for? I mean - that's not fair, I know who it's for, I know there are plenty of people who were raised in the church who later grew up and realized dogma traumatized them in some way. There is a difference between living a devout life and living a blindly devout life, and at no point should anyone be wielding their faith like a weapon. Hopefully, most of you dear readers know that already. But, if you're a Christian ally and you're hoping for A Few Good Christians to show up and help our heroes, you will be sorely disappointed in this book. I thought maybe it was going to say something neutral: It's very obvious that the enemies are American Neo-Nazis, but Benji was struggling with keeping his faith but rejecting dogma; and I thought that was a great, realistic, under-represented way of looking at things. A Not All Christians way of looking at things... Buuuut by the end of the book Benji rejects the notion that he ever had faith at all and becomes an atheist XD. And I just don't know if the world needed a book about how an atheist will annihilate the believers, particularly on the heels of the trans-phobia-affirming stuff I mentioned earlier. I think Benji does more to confirm than to deny The Oppressors' fears. It's not that the righteous fury is wrong or bad or anything, I just think it splits the audience; not everyone agrees with Hammurabi's Code.

If you came here hoping for an underdog story, a tale of adventure and rebellion, a tale of how love and friendship triumph over Evil... yeeeeaaaah, there's that. Buuuut not in a family friendly way. You maaaay be disappointed, reader discretion is advised. If you're here for Kill Bill carnage, pop some popcorn and crack this book open already!!! Do not go gentle into that good night! Rage, rage against the dying of the light!!!

As boring as its title Z__Z... This book insisted upon itself. The word "monster" was dropped so frequently that it has now lost all meaning. The direct references to Frankenstein were not subtle, even campy: The lightning; the unintentional brute strength; the abducted girl who was the monster's friend all along...

I could not get lost in this book. The Nazi grandma with the private asylum and the basement chem lab. The 50 year old monster hunter. The teenage boy who keeps handicapped wild animals. The teenage girl whose homeschooling included dissection, surgery, anesthesiology... I could not suspend my disbelief for one second, all of this sounded too ridiculous, too fake. Nothing that was supposed to be scary or unsettling stuck, because nothing was /real/. This whole book was, maybe, an homage to cheesy, B horror movies. Maybe. But it had no ambience, nothing chilling or poignant or funny in its /craft/. It just plodded from plot point to plot point, teasing you with an upcoming big reveal....that was not big at all, I totally called it from the beginning.

And while, yes, eugenics in Vermont was a thing - a chilling, horrible, real life, THING - the book completely missed the opportunity to SAY anything about it! This book didn't focus on the racism at all, how "undesirables" who were sterilized were largely indigenous peoples, immigrants, or people with lower income! Something tremendous could have been said in this book about cultural erasure, or systemically reinforced wealth/class disparity, or about vilifying The Other in American history! BUUUUUT big old NOPE, this book stayed in campy B movie territory, instead of aiming for Oscar glory.

Laaaaaame!!!! So much disappointment!

This book has some Good, Bad, and Ugly, and the Ugly is REEEEEALLY UGLY, which makes this book not worth reading.

The Good:
This book puts center stage the Opioid crisis in America, and one recovering addict's desire for respect, peace, and security. The book never really does enough to make Mallory an unreliable narrator, it doesn't play enough with her struggle for sobriety. But it honors reality: She's a good person trying to turn her life around after a series of bad situations and decisions, and in order for strangers to see the best parts of her she must tell them a curated version of her story. Mallory's hidden depths are the introduction to a running theme in the book: That no one is as they seem on the surface. Hidden pictures, indeed. The book's inclusion of illustrations was smart, creative, and unsettling; something I wish had been done in "The Children on the Hill". A picture/story/person can be misinterpreted many ways; we all have our biases.

The Bad:
There were a bunch of tropes in this book that sapped away any enjoyment I got from trying to solve the whodunnit. The villain monologue. The horny dad molesting the babysitter. The cherubic, imaginative, haunted child. The ghoulish kid's drawings being dismissed as an imaginary friend or "just a phase". The protagonist in a haunting losing time when the haunt happens. Etc.
And there were some things that stuck out as simply bad or awkward writing, things that made it clear that the author was a man and had no idea how to characterize a woman or a child. For example, Mallory, the 21 year old babysitter, gets upset. And her employer, a 53 year old man, who is shirtless from having gone swimming in a pool, gathers her into an embrace to console her. And instead of feeling aaaaaaall the red flags, Mallory leans into it, pressing her face to his chest. I call shenanigans. XD What girl doesn't immediately feel uncomfortable in that situation?! If Mallory's history with addiction, and with behaving submissively to older men in order to get what she wants, were being played up in this scene, maybe, MAYBE it would have worked. But the scene seems to exist in earnest: Mallory needed a hug after fighting with the boss's wife, and accepted a wet, naked one from her boss... So weird... Tropes and awkwardness took me right out of the story.

The Ugly: The villains of this book are liberal yuppies who brainwashed a young child and forced her to transition into a boy. They don't believe in screen time, believe in science over religion, eat kale, and enjoy reading. The protagonist is newly converted to Christianity to help with her sobriety; she feels her religious affiliation is attacked several times by the yuppie parents who don't want to believe in her ghost theory. The way she rescues the not-truly-trans kid is to send her to a farm upstate. BIG OOOOOOOOLD RED FLAGS!!!!!!!!!!! This book lost several stars in its reveal. It tried to save itself, it tried to have a couple lines about "Oh, I don't have a problem with trans people." But it also had lines about yuppie psycho mommy obtaining children's health books to teach tiny Teddy about anal sex and cunnilingus which is just.... NOT A THING!!! This is not a thing! Fear-mongering over trans kids and the "war" on "traditional values" is DANGEROUS and STUPID and UNNECESSARY!!!!

Whatever good storytelling there was about not judging people by appearances, and respecting people who struggle with addiction, was thrown RIGHT OUT THE WINDOW with all the BAD this book does for the trans community.

This book was incredibly disappointing. There is no depth to its world-building, very little intrigue in its plot, and a muddy message. It had so many opportunities to elevate, but in the end it just kind of...is. Bland, and even insulting.

First of all, this book is not a dark fairytale, like one might assume from the jacket. A monster shows up within the first 5 pages, but the following 300 are basically a courtroom "drama". The protagonists have to repeat their observation first to a local court, then to a higher royal court... It's just... tedious. Some people try to threaten the witnesses at one point, but mostly the protagonists just kill time between court dates by eating and window-shopping. Boring.

Secondly, with a title like BETWEEN the Water and the Woods, you would think this book would have more to say about being the meeting place of two disparate things. A study in duality. And it tries, sometimes - like the royal knight of humble origins - but it doesn't try hard enough. Reese ought to have been trans - or a magical allegory for being trans, like a shapeshifter - it would have done a lot for the theme. Emeline never struggles much with being biracial (and therefore half-magical); she embraces her new powers immediately, and everyone she shares her secret with is enamored with her. The book has several lines about how science and magic should co-exist, and are both necessary for society, but the book comes down HARD on science being flawed and dangerous, and faith/magic having more wisdom and goodness to it. I did NOT get the sense that the author was showing us how two sides of the fictional government (science and magic) were equal and should unify. If anything, it felt like the author was thinly critiquing the American legislative branch (Democrats and Republicans), and was vilifying Democrats. The humble farmers having more sense than the blue-suited, snooty, scientific, city socialites seemed to underscore my interpretation. For a story which claims to be "between" equal parts, it certainly came down hard on there being only one right way to be.

Thirdly, from just a storytelling standpoint, this book was messy. As I stated above, the ratio of Magical Shenanigans to Everyday Activities was grossly uneven. And the remaining tissue holding this book together were flimsy tropes. Dead mom with magical secrets. Highway robbery. Mad scientist. Romantic leads who dislike each other at first but grow to rely on one another. On that note, Reese is a terrible snob. And sure, there is the trope of "enemies to lovers" or "opposites attract" or "two people who just meet rub each other the wrong way, but learn they have things in common under the surface, and soften towards each other, lowering their snide defenses and allowing love to take root"... BUUUUUT Reese does very little in the way of EARNING Emeline's change of heart. Boohoo, he gets bullied for being poor. But dogs like him, so... it's okay for him to /also/ make fun of Emeline for being poor? Yup, marriage material right there. Gag.

There is nothing here. No character development, no deeper plot, no universal message... Everything is surface level, obvious and mundane. It's fine if you don't care about reading too deeply. Sadly, I do. :/

AMAZING!!! I feel like this book is going to stay with me for a long time (which totally makes sense, if you know the ending XD). I was positively reminded of The Golden Compass, Coraline, Pan's Labyrinth, and The Language of Thorns; Kestrel belongs in The Club for Traumatized, Resilient, and Intrepid Girls right alongside Lyra, Coraline, Ophelia and Ayama. This book took classic fairytale archetypes - like the wicked witch or the huntsman - but retold their story with fresh and sinister results. More importantly, this book took a grim, honest look at our home-grown monsters: abusive relatives, bullies, toxic friends, and our own insecurities. A perfect, dark fable! <3 <3 <3 I already want to flip right back to the beginning and glean what I missed the first go-around XD.