Tag: Sourcebooks Fire

“By wood, stone, water, and bone.”

That cover! 😍 It’s all kinds of creepy and intriguing. I’ve been look forward to reading this one for months.

Deidre has always lived in a world of fantasy, imagining elaborate kingdoms of queens, knights and monsters. Skye’s role as the Queen of Swords has always been to save Deidre but when they move to a new town that doesn’t know the sisters by reputation Skye sees a fresh start, a chance to have friends for once. Then Deidre disappears and Skye may have to pick up her sword once again.

I really enjoyed the introduction, with its promise of some weird and wonderful monsters. I liked getting to know Skye and trying to figure out Deidre, who we mostly get to know through her older sister. I’ve seen some reviews where Skye and Deidre cop a fair amount of disdain. While I can see where those readers are coming from, as a once upon a time teenage girl I can also see ‘Welcome to Adolescence’ written all over a lot of these sisters’ quirks. They can be mean, vindictive, antagonistic, manipulative, selfish and annoying at times.

I actually loved that Skye wasn’t all sunshine and sweetness. She isn’t a girl who’s obsessed with her appearance. She’ll never be head cheerleader. Instead her only claim to fame has been ‘freak by proxy’, the weird girl’s sister, protector and only friend. She’s a real girl with real problems.

If she was going to disappear into her imaginary world and make herself a target all over again, it wasn’t like I could stop her. But she wasn’t keeping me in there with her. Not anymore.

Skye’s story explores family, friendships and secrets, and the lengths we will go to in order to protect them. The family dynamics make it seem inevitable that Deidre will follow where her monsters lead her. It also seems predetermined that although Skye should never have been cast in the role of her sister’s only protector that she would feel the pull of this during a time of crisis, no matter how much she wants to hold onto the new life she has forged for herself.

I loved the alternating chapters, which told me what was happening now and caught me up on the past, giving much needed context to the present. For a long time I expected Deidre’s behaviour to come with a mental health diagnosis, even if some of her monsters were real. While Deidre came across as weird I never found the creepiness I expected from this book.

I was eagerly anticipating the appearance of this book’s monsters from the first time I read the blurb, but I found them disappointing. There was such a build up to them and while I loved their form, their voices didn’t work for me. I did find out why that was but even then it didn’t sit right with me. Their motivation was barely explored and their history was only hinted at. The resolution to their story was a let down for me.

If I could review this book in two parts, I’d be giving ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for the pre monster part and ⭐️⭐️⭐️ after they arrive.

Content warnings include bullying.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the opportunity to read this book.

Once Upon a Blurb

The Blair Witch Project meets Imaginary Girls in this story of codependent sisterhood, the struggle to claim one’s own space, and the power of secrets.

Sixteen-year-old Skye is done playing the knight in shining armor for her insufferable younger sister, Deirdre. Moving across the country seems like the perfect chance to start over.

In their isolated new neighbourhood, Skye manages to fit in, but Deirdre withdraws from everyone, becoming fixated on the swampy woods behind their house and building monstrous sculptures out of sticks and bones.

Then Deirdre disappears.

And when something awful comes scratching at Skye’s window in the middle of the night, claiming she’s the only one who can save Deirdre, Skye knows she will stop at nothing to bring her sister home.

Everything is something.

Marley was the oldest of eight neighbourhood friends, known as the Albany kids, and the mastermind behind their summer Adventures. Aidy, Teeny, Bigs, Harrison, Ruby, Nick and Olivia would join Marley, riding their bicycles around Cadence, California, enjoying the camaraderie and excitement of their scavenger hunts, never once reaching the end, always “in pursuit of a goal Marley never fully explained.”

Then Nick accidentally shot Marley. He and Olivia are the only ones who really know what happened that day. Five years have passed and Olivia is now older than Marley was when she died. The seven remaining Albany kids have all reunited for the first time since Marley died for one final Adventure.

“Trust me. The Adventure is going to have a different purpose this year.”

The story unfolds through mostly alternating chapters, some focusing on the lead up to Marley’s death and the others beginning the morning of the fifth annual memorial held at the City Hall. This provides a picture of the effect this tragedy has had on the individual Albany kids, their group dynamics, some of their family members, and the town of Cadence as a whole.

No one in Cadence wanted to remember what Marley’s death actually did to the living.

Marley was a complex character and I was never entirely sure if I liked her or not. I loved that she wasn’t portrayed in an entirely positive or negative way. I liked Olivia’s tenacity but at times her dramatic way of seeing everything irked me, although I understood the reasons behind it. I adored Nick, who was 11 when he accidentally shot Marley, and has had to essentially live with his pain alone, even though it wasn’t his fault. I enjoyed getting to know so many multifaceted characters, many of whom were keeping secrets, from others and sometimes themselves as well.

I hear a lot about gun violence but I consider myself very lucky that I can’t personally comment on its effects on the minds and lives of the adults and children who are left to try to pick up the pieces of their forever changed lives. If there’s one thing recent news items have shown it’s that we are currently failing survivors of this type of violence. It’s painful to read about but books like this are so important for both young adults and the young at heart.

Just some of my takeaways from this book are:

• We need to be sensitive to the different ways people grieve
• We can be haunted in so many ways
• The meanings we attribute to our memories and experiences can alter our perceptions
• People may be wearing social masks to pretend they’re okay when they’re really not at all. Don’t be afraid to look beneath the surface. “Let’s make it so that we never again have to ask ourselves, How did this happen?” Having said all of this, I don’t think I can explain what this book is about anywhere near as well as its author; I’d encourage you to read Bridget’s review, which can be found here.

Content warnings include discussion surrounding accidental death and suicide, description of a character’s death as a result of a gunshot wound, and body shaming.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc., for the opportunity to read this book.

Once Upon a Blurb

Five years after the accidental shooting of Marley Bricket, her friends, who were there the day she died, reunite when a box of letters from Marley is found in her former home. The discovery leads them on a scavenger hunt that reopens old memories, wounds, and betrayals, and leads them to question what they thought they knew about Marley’s death.