I fell in love with Moira Fowley-Doyle's style when I read her first book, The Accident Season. I enjoyed her second book as well.

This book blew me away.

Ireland's troubled and abusive history + queer kids + feminism + rage + reproductive rights + magical realism.

Gorgeous words and a powerful story. Highly recommended.

Read for the Magical Realism square of Halloween Bingo 2019.

This review can also be found at Carole's Random Life in Books.

I really liked this story. I read most of the book in a single day and captivated by it. I decided to read this book because I was intrigued by the blurb and I am really glad that I did. This was one of those books that made me want to keep reading "just one more chapter" until I had reached the end.

This book is told from multiple points of view and it works very well for this story. Every point of view in this book really added something to the add to the overall story. I really liked each of the points of view equally which was a big plus for this book. I feel like Olive's point of view was the dominant one in the book that really pushed the story forward. Laurel and Hazel's points of view were equally important and usually gave me something to think about.

I enjoyed the way the book was laid out. Some things were lost and some things were found. How did all of this happen and what does it really mean? How do you get back the things you have lost that are important to you? I found myself really thinking about these questions as the characters made their way through this story. I wasn't sure how things would end up connecting and ran into a few surprises during the story.

I liked the writing. This was my first experience reading Moïra Fowley-Doyle's work and I am quite impressed. She was able to create a large cast of characters in this book that really came to life. There was just enough unknown to keep me guessing throughout the story. The descriptions were vibrant and I could really visualize what was happening at any given point.

I would recommend this book to others. I think it is a unique story filled with an interesting group of characters. I plan to read more from this talented author in the future.

I received an advanced reader edition of this book from Kathy Dawson Books via First to Read.

Initial Thoughts
I read most of this book today and did enjoy it. There were a few twists that surprised me and I had a good time trying to figure everything out.

I really loved the writing in this book. It drew me in and I just wanted more. I loved the concept, I loved the narrator, and I just wanted more of Fowley-Doyle’s words. Unfortunately I also wanted more from the story. It was so clear that a twist reveal was coming that when it happened it like “oh okay *shrug*”. I liked the relationship between the family members and friends in this book (though I will give you that the one is really weird and straight out of a reality tv show I saw once). This book is full of weird prose, it’s a great October read (since that’s when the story takes place), and I’ll be reading her next book.

I have such conflicting feelings about this book. The writing style seems to capture what I love most about magical realism and the plot seems to capture what I most dislike about YA lit. If I could excise the maudlin (and distastefully incestuous) romance from it, and half of the teenaged angst, I’d have thoroughly enjoyed the story.

“The house likes this. All the while dancing, the pulsing music, the slamming of so many shoes on the floor, so many drunken bodies against the walls and against each other, so many lips meeting, and hands meeting other places, in shadowy corners and on the dusty mattresses of the smaller bedrooms upstairs. The house revels in it. The walls beat like hearts, the floorboards groan, the staircase moans, and upstairs the bedrooms whisper sweet nothings.”

Colby Minifie’s performance in reading this audiobook really made it work for me. She brought it to life and gave it a warmth that kept me listening, when I would  have probably abandoned it had I been reading the text.

I read this for the Magical Realism square in the 2016 Halloween Bingo.

Ah-ha! Now we're starting to get to the bottom of things. I still like the prose and imaginative imagery. That, together with Colby Minifie's performance on the audio, is enough for me to forget to be annoyed with the first-person present-tense most of the time. The adolescent love drama is getting worse, though.