3.5*
Ah, creepy towns with hidden secrets, whee! Those are fun. Makes you happy for your own hometown, no matter how lame it may be, right? And our girl Violet is about to realize how much she took her former hometown for granted.
The Things I Liked:
- •The characters were pretty fabulous. Even the ones I side-eyed at the beginning (Harper a little, Justin definitely) I grew to love as the book went on. These kids have been through the damn ringer, and it shows. Even Violet, who grew up on the outside, has had too much trauma for one young life. But they're all really multifaceted, and all quite strong in their own ways.
- •Their relationships, both with each other and their families, were key. I mean, you can tell that there's going to be some drama in here. It's like Riverdale, in the sense that everyone seems to be permanent fixtures, everyone knows everyone's business, and everyone is hanging onto drama and grudges and unrequited love from fifth grade. And it's awesome.
Plus, the families' stories are anything but tame. Their secrets have secrets, one more messed up than the next. And obviously this can mean hiding a ton of crap from the people who you're supposed to love. Oops? Sometimes these can be repaired, sometimes... well Idk there's a sequel so anything's possible. - •Atmosphere? On point. It absolutely has that creepy, secluded town vibe. You know, the place that if you saw it off the highway, your ass would keep driving no matter how low your gas tank is? Yeah. The author does a great job making it seem the right amount of eerie and the right amount of contemporary.
The Things I Didn't:
- •Did this need to be a duology? Idk. Obviously the jury's still out, but I felt like sometimes things were moving too slow, and I wonder if it could have been condensed more? Maybe I'm wrong, we'll see when book two comes out. But I won't lie, it did feel longer than its supposed 368 pages (so say Goodreads and Amazon- I always double check if it seems off).
- •This might be nitpicky, but... how did no one from the town ever tell the outside world that it was so jacked up in there? Like- people were allowed to leave (think Archie's mom, becoming a fancy Chicago lawyer!), so you mean to tell me that no one was talking about people being brutally murdered in a small upstate New York town? Sounds fake 🤷♀️.
- •I am not taking this into account for rating purposes, but wow the formatting was hard to handle. Look, I get that they're unfinished and things won't be perfect, but there were no breaks whatsoever between POV changes, and in some cases no quotation marks when actual dialogue occurred and wow that is confusing. (I was told that physical ARCs do not have this same issue, so I assume that finished copies will be fine too, hence this just being a way for me to vent a little. And look, I try not to ever let it have an impact on my opinion of the book, but does it? Who knows!)
Bottom Line:It's a good story with an on-point atmosphere and characters I was invested in. But I feel it being a duology makes the pacing/plot suffer a bit as it seems a little watered down.