Thank you to Edelweiss and the publisher for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.
My first encounter with Claire Legrand was when I read the book Furyborn. I absolutely loved it and I’m still eagerly anticipating the sequel. In the meantime, I found out that Legrand was releasing another novel and I knew I had to get my hands on it ASAP! So here I am, having read it and I’m finally ready to share my thoughts:
Summary (Goodreads): 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.
Review: While I thought this story was interesting, it didn’t quite hold the spark for me that Furyborn did.
I really liked that it featured 3 strong female characters who were all very different. Marion was a girl who was consumed by grief and while she could be annoying at times, her behaviour and personality made sense with what was happening in her life. Zoey was spunky and asexual and the kind of character you always want to root for. My personal favourite character was Val. She may seem like the typical popular “bitchy” girl, but there is so much more to her and the story really allows you to connect with her.
But apart from the character development and their interactions with each other, I didn’t really enjoy the story. I think my two biggest problems with this book was that it felt childish at times and that there were too many themes that the author was trying to address all at one go.
In terms of maturity, this novel was a bit too childish even for a teen read. I think my comments regarding this stem from my experience with Furyborn: while that was also a teen read, it had some maturity to it that made me take the story seriously. My feelings about this book might be a bit unfair in that I’m comparing these 2 novels together but it did affect my ability to enjoy this novel.
There were quite a few themes that the author tried to explore in this story …. but I felt that it was detrimental to the story in the sense that none of the themes were really explored as fully as they could be and it detracted from the story itself, leaving many vague plot points that the reader just had to deal with. Throughout the story, I was left with tons of questions that were just never answered. For instance, where did the monster that terrorized these girls come from? Why was the rock (is it a rock, is it the earth, is it the island?!) talking to these girls? And where did this random organization come from?! There were so many things that the reader was just supposed to accept and that really didn’t work for me. I want proper world-building and explanations for things or else I just can’t enjoy the story! Perhaps if the author had focused her attention on this rather than trying to shove in a bunch of feminist themes, it would have been better.
Now, before you take offense, I do think the themes that the author brought in were important. They should be addressed and we need more books that talk about sexuality and the struggles of women to be recognized as independent, to be more than just sacrificial lambs. But this just happened in bursts here and there and wasn’t fully developed. While the intent was great, the execution didn’t really work, making it a moot point.
Overall, this story had a lot of potential and it had an interesting plot. However, the execution was just not where I wanted it to be. I’m still looking forward to reading more by this author because Furyborn was absolutely fantastic. But this book gets a 2/5 stars from me.
Happy reading ~
i dontknow whyibut i klnew from the get go you werent going to love this and my heart cant take it. i feel like ive been stabbed*flails about being v overly dramatic*
Ahhh I’m sorry!! I really wanted to like it, I was so excited for it but I just didn’t feel like it worked for me 🙁