About The Book
Ivy and her soon-to-be ex nearly run over a nude young woman standing in the middle of a tree-lined road. It’s only the first in a string of increasingly eerie events and offerings: a dead rabbit in the driveway, a bizarre concoction buried by her mother in the backyard, a box of childhood keepsakes hidden in her parents’ closet safe. Most unsettling of all, corroded recollections of Ivy and her enigmatic mother’s past resurface, with the help of the boy next door.
Buy The Book: https://amzn.to/46Zvkoi
My Rating
I am still not sure what I think of this book because I found only one-half of the dual-timeline plot fairly interesting. Furthermore, I did not love the characters or the way the story was told. In the first few chapters, we get tossed right into the story – there’s no build up, or getting to know the characters, which I did not really love. I am all for a fast-paced book, but this was too much.
In this book, we follow Ivy, a 17 years old who has a strained relationship with her mother. However, once her mother disappears, weird things start happening, and Ivy starts to wonder if there are pieces of her life that she has forgotten. Ivy as a character was not necessarily bad, but she was a teenager who thought that they knew everything. This was irritating to say the least.
As mentioned, the book has dual timelines, so we have a present timeline following Ivy, coupled with a past timeline following her mother. The past chapters help us learn why this is all happening in the present, which is probably why we do not get much backstory at the beginning of the book. Unfortunately, I enjoyed only the past timeline chapters.
“So. Magic. It is the loneliest thing in the world.”
I would’ve loved the book just to be about the girls in the past, because those chapters were giving me ‘The Craft’ movie vibes, and I loved it. I liked Ivy’s mother in the past because she was very smart and strong. Seeing how all of this came to be, it was really interesting. It was dark and twisty, which is something I did not get from the present storyline with Ivy.
My biggest con in the book is the fact that Ivy, even after everything, did not understand her mother more or why she made the choices she made. Yes, some of the things her mother did were out of line, but Ivy had a hand in her mother making these choices. It annoyed me that she did not give her mother any sort of grace. However, I guess that a teenager for you.
Overall, the book kept me entertained, and the writing style was good. The plot was interesting enough, and I did not want to DNF the book. However, I just feel like this type of witchy story was not my cup of tea, but if you are looking for a dark, young adult, witchy book, then I would recommend you picking this one up.
In the comments, leave me with some more witchy book recommendations. Do not forget to like and share this post with others. And follow the blog to get post notifications.
Until The Next Chapter,
Bunny