Book Review: SAWKILL GIRLS by Claire Legrand

Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand

Blurb:

Beware of the woods and the dark, dank deep.

He’ll follow you home, and he won’t let you sleep.
Who are the Sawkill Girls?

Marion: the new girl. Awkward and plain, steady and dependable. Weighed down by tragedy and hungry for love she’s sure she’ll never find.

Zoey: the pariah. Luckless and lonely, hurting but hiding it. Aching with grief and dreaming of vanished girls. Maybe she’s broken—or maybe everyone else is.

Val: the queen bee. Gorgeous and privileged, ruthless and regal. Words like silk and eyes like knives, a heart made of secrets and a mouth full of lies.

Their stories come together on the island of Sawkill Rock, where gleaming horses graze in rolling pastures and cold waves crash against black cliffs. Where kids whisper the legend of an insidious monster at parties and around campfires.

Where girls have been disappearing for decades, stolen away by a ravenous evil no one has dared to fight… until now.

My Review:

Earlier this year I read Furyborn by this author and I didn't really like it. But when I saw the blurb for this one and it sounded so amazing I had to give it a chance. 

Furyborn and Sawkill Girls are night and day. Sawkill girls is a story beautifully steeped in legend, bone-chilling thrills, and three very different girls. Once I picked it up I didn't want to pick it down and it was one of those rare books where I liked all of the characters whose perspectives the story is told in. I found myself feeling sympathy for Val, the girl cast as the mean girl, I cheered for shy mousy Marion as she came out of her shell, and I felt the struggle Zoey lived with every day. 

My one issue with the writing was the author's description of people. Describing someone as just a black man or a white man doesn't give me a real good picture. Not all people of the same race look the same, give me broad shoulders, and military buzz cuts and scars beneath one eye... something to tell me what the person looks like. 

I did like that the author chose to go with an LGBTQ romance as well as delving into an asexual character in this book. It was refreshing and I've actually never read a book where the character was asexual.

Overall, I really loved this book and it completely turned me around for this author's books. 

My Rating:

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

4.75 of 5 Stars! 

Book Review: BROKEN THINGS by Lauren Oliver

Broken Things by Lauren Oliver

Blurb:

It’s been five years since Summer Marks was brutally murdered in the woods.
Everyone thinks Mia and Brynn killed their best friend. That driven by their obsession with a novel called The Way into Lovelorn the three girls had imagined themselves into the magical world where their fantasies became twisted, even deadly.

The only thing is: they didn’t do it.

On the anniversary of Summer’s death, a seemingly insignificant discovery resurrects the mystery and pulls Mia and Brynn back together once again. But as the lines begin to blur between past and present and fiction and reality, the girls must confront what really happened in the woods all those years ago—no matter how monstrous.

My Review:

What first drew me to this book, even before I knew what it was about was the awesome cover. Then, as a Wisconsinite, the blurb immediately drew parallels to the Waukesha Slender Man Case so I knew I had to read it. 

This book is not a play on that case, there are of course similarities whether the author planned on that or not but this book is an engrossing mystery that will keep you on the edge of your seat trying to figure out: Who really killed Summer Marks? 

It's a gorgeously written tale of a small town that persecutes three teenagers with little proof, misconceptions, how the scars of the past have shaped the lives of those left behind after a grisly crime, and learning to heal from it all. 

This is my first Lauren Oliver book and after finishing I kind of (completely want to) want to go out and auto-buy all of her other books. The big reveal in this one blew me away, I never would have suspected it and the ending left me satisfied.

Overall, this is a perfect October read, or an anytime read when you're looking for a pulse-racing thriller.

My Rating:

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

5 of 5 Stars!

Book Review: The Darkest Star by Jennifer L. Armentrout

The Darkest Star (Origin, #1) by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Blurb:

When seventeen-year-old Evie Dasher is caught up in a raid at a notorious club known as one of the few places where humans and the surviving Luxen can mingle freely, she meets Luc, an unnaturally beautiful guy she initially assumes is a Luxen...but he is in fact something much more powerful. Her growing attraction for Luc will lead her deeper and deeper into a world she'd only heard about, a world where everything she thought she knew will be turned on its head...

#1 New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout returns to the universe of the Lux in this brand new series, featuring beloved characters both new and old.

My Review:

I've been excitedly waiting for The Darkest Star since I first heard it was going to happen. Luc having his own series??? Yes please! 

Luckily I was able to get a copy through a trade and I started it right away. The story hooked me right away, but it is solely told in Evie's perspective and I kind of wish it had been told in dual perspectives between Evie and Luc, or maybe even that the whole book might have been told in Luc's perspective, although now that I think about it the latter probably wouldn't have worked. 

You get a (small) glimpse of some of your favorite characters from the LUX series (hellllooooo Daemon!) but I could have done with a little more. Maybe we'll see them more in the next book?

Like I said, the beginning hooked me and the ending was great but there was a part in the middle that made me want to skim a few chapters and I thought the big reveal about Evie's past could have been revealed a lot sooner in the story. By the time it was revealed it was like, yeah I've been guessing this for what? 200 pages?

Overall, it was a good, solid read and I'm definitely up to continuing this spinoff series whether it's to be a duology, trilogy, or more but you know what they say about spinoffs: they're never as good as the original. 

My Rating:

🌟🌟🌟🌟

4 of 5 Stars!

Top Ten Tuesday: 10 Upcoming Releases on My Fall TBR!

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme started by The Broke and The Bookish and currently hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Top Ten Tuesday: 10 Fall Releases on My TBR List!

This week's TTT is all about books we plan to read this fall, and as per my usual I'm showcasing the fall 2018 releases I can't wait to read this fall!

1. Escaping From Houdini (Stalking Jack the Ripper #3) by Kerri Maniscalco

2. Time's Convert by Deborah Harkness

3. Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand

4. Broken Things by Lauren Oliver

5. The Darkest Star by Jennifer L. Armentrout

6. Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas

7. Kill the Queen by Jennifer Estep

8. For A Muse of Fire by Heidi Heilig

9. What The Woods Keep by Katya de Becerra

10. Inked by Drew Elyse

What fall releases are you looking forward to? Let me know in the comments or drop me a link to your TTT!

Happy Reading Bookdragons!

P.S. for those looking for a dark, sexy fall read, check out my upcoming release, Headless!