When I saw that Mayhem by Estelle Laure was billed as a “supernatural feminist YA novel” I was immediately intrigued. It sounded like the type of book that I would love, and while the story was good, I ended up feeling like it would have made a better movie than a book (Gasp! I know!). In my defense, the author said they were inspired by the movie The Lost Boys (which I haven’t seen, so I can’t confirm or deny any similarities here).
As part of my blog tour stop for The Grey Sisters with Penguin Random House Canada, I also did a Q&A with Jo Treggiari about her wonderful book. She was kind enough to answer these questions over email, and provide some more insight into the story and its characters.
I’m super excited to say that today is my stop on The Grey Sisters blog tour! Thank you so much Penguin Random House for including me, it was lovely being able to partner with you to talk about this wonderful book. My full review is below, and later today I’ll also be sharing a Q&A with the author, Jo Treggiari.
“No guilt. No moment of awakening. No tearful repentance. My eyes slid over the signs and my heart remained unaffected. I’d made my decision long before we arrived. Those signs were just words.”
Reading a book about a 17-year old on a road trip across state lines to get an abortion may not sound like the greatest story, but in Unpregnant, Jenni Hendricks and Ted Caplan take this topic and spin it into a fast-paced, funny-at-times novel that also deals with the topic at hand.
“The dead deserve something,” she said, trying to explain in a way a layman might understand. “A remembrance, a marker, a place to rest. Death should be peaceful—the dead have earned that much. The bone houses—they’re a mockery of death. Burning them . . . it’s a last resort, not a way out.”
If you’re in the market for a beautifully written, atmospheric story to get you in the mood for autumn, look no further: The Bone Houses by Emily Lloyd-Jones is one you won’t want to miss.
“Do you want to know where Lucy went? She went to play the game. You can play, too. Find a partner. Find a key. Find the road. You have two days.”
What would you do if your entire school received the same ominous text message? I’d probably go home and hide in my room until people stopped talking about it, but the characters in Rules for Vanishing aren’t afraid of much, and decide to play this eerie game.
“I can see the dark things. They’re trying to hide, but I can spot them, hunched behind corners, pressed against walls. Shadows where there is no one to cast shadows. Nobody’s shadow would look like that anyway. Warped. Bony. Bent almost like branches. They are waiting. I can feel them. And they can feel me pushing back.”
“Magic was a mask Finn had slipped over her head so many times, she’d almost forgotten what her own face looked like. But that was just how she liked it.”
