Author: Laure Eve
Published: Projected September 1, 2016
Pages: 432
Goodreads
Everyone said the Graces were witches.
They moved through the corridors like sleek fish, ripples in their wake. Stares followed their backs and their hair.
They had friends, but they were just distractions. They were waiting for someone different.
All I had to do was show them that person was me.
Like everyone else in her town, River is obsessed with the Graces, attracted by their glamour and apparent ability to weave magic. But are they really what they seem? And are they more dangerous than they let on?
This beautifully-written thriller will grip you from its very first page.
They moved through the corridors like sleek fish, ripples in their wake. Stares followed their backs and their hair.
They had friends, but they were just distractions. They were waiting for someone different.
All I had to do was show them that person was me.
Like everyone else in her town, River is obsessed with the Graces, attracted by their glamour and apparent ability to weave magic. But are they really what they seem? And are they more dangerous than they let on?
This beautifully-written thriller will grip you from its very first page.
What. Just. Happened????
I finished this book maybe ten hours before writing this post and I'm still asking myself this question. It went from this mystical, gypsy like witch novel to just shit hitting the fan everywhere. I didn't see it coming, I didn't know it was going to happen. Honestly it felt like I was watching Puella Magi Madoka Magica ALL OVER AGAIN (which, if you haven't, you should search it and watch it because then you'll know EXACTLY what I mean). I finished the book and my head felt like a huge question mark.
I got strung into reading this book because I thought it was going to be this kind of bohemian witch novel that was like "ooh are they into dark magic too?" but wow it was so much stranger than that. I honestly don't know how to react to it.
It's painfully obvious while reading this book how River wants to feel accepted and loved. Her mother is pretty absent in her life (except for when her friend's parents are like don't see our kids and then suddenly she's there? like aight mom of the year) and she's constantly seen as this weird book worm kid that no one wants to talk to. I felt that because I've been in that position, but she had this incredible obsession with Fenrin, one of the Graces. She was absolutely in love with him and so she joins Summer (another Grace, I believe the youngest) and she decides to use a spell to draw Fenrin to her.
That's a rough summary, but honestly that's what starts the whole thing. Girl loves boy, girl wants boy to love her, girl joins a witch coven to bewitch said boy. But then it gets weirder and suddenly things start to go very, very wrong. There's this point in the novel where everyone thinks that everything is going to be okay and that they were going to be besties and I'm just kind of sitting here like "mmmmMMMM someone see the calm before the storm cuz I DO".
And guess what.
Shit.
Hits.
THE FAN.
HARD.
Like people start disappearing, people start dying, people start threatening each other--it's a whole mess everybody. It was so hard to keep up with because it kind of came from left field. I was like where is this coming from, what is happening, why is it happening? It was very, very crazy.
The end was a little bit of confusion with a splash of disappointment. I thought it was going to go the route where River was gonna just be like peace, I'm out--but she goes back to the Graces and it's kind of like everything ends with this nice tattered bow and I just couldn't really buy it. I think it was supposed to be a kind of silver lining, but everything had gotten so dark so fast that I think it needed more time for that kind of closure. Which is really strange because I thought this book needed more but it's already 400+ pages???
Anyway, this book overall is a very plot based novel. The characters weren't flat but they weren't incredibly dynamic either. We kind of jumped through so many events that it was hard to see what these characters were really like and since I'm a character driven reader it kind of hurt my experience of the book a little bit. If you're into a more plot driven thriller, than this book might work out for you. Now it's not magic like the Grisha or anything, it's more like Wiccan type of witchcraft so it's not super exciting with fire bolts or whatever.
I didn't really... hate this book, but I wasn't impressed with it either. I was more confused than anything haha. Everything happened so fast that I wasn't able to really have it sink in. In the end it felt a lot like that one song in Into the Woods where they're all pointing fingers at each other and it was very, very panicky.
It was alright but just... what?
*I received an eARC of this book through NetGalley. This does not affect my review or my opinions about this book.*
*I received an eARC of this book through NetGalley. This does not affect my review or my opinions about this book.*
