Hello bloggers! It’s been a while since I’ve finished a book that I felt the need to review. My reading has also vastly slowed since beginning graduate school, so please bear with me!
SPOILERS BELOW!
Goodreads Synopsis: Life at St. Agatha’s School for Girls is anything but a fairytale. With ratty blankets and a torturous device called the box, it’s not hard to understand Eliza’s desperation to escape. When the timing is right, Eliza manages to run away with her best friend Millie, heading through the Louisiana swamps to the town on the other side. But the swamps may be even more dangerous than the orphanage. Silver and black fairies invite the girls to experience a world where they can have it all, but Eliza doesn’t trust the sparkling beauty. When Millie suddenly becomes violent and attacks another girl, Eliza knows something awful is about to happen. She will do anything to protect Millie but once Eliza remembers her own terrible secret, it is impossible to forget. The fairies’ songs call to Eliza and its getting harder and harder to pretend it’s all in her head.
I selected this book from NetGalley because I knew I needed to read at least 1 creepy book for the Halloween season. This book definitely satisfied that need. Per NetGalley, I cannot quote or spoil this book, so I will give a list of features in this book that remind me of other series, and allow you, the reader, to the determine if this book will be worthy or purchase!
- Evil Pixies: much like the mischievous pixies from Harry Potter, but combined with the evil tendencies of acromantulas and the creepy voice of the Basilisk.
- Orphanages: This orphanage is Annie with quadruple the issues and an evil orphan matron that trumps Ms. Hannigan anyday. The Matron is AWFUL.
- Nuns: The orphanage is run by nuns. While the nuns, well one nun in particular, is actually nice, nuns in general get a bad rep from horror movies.
- Swamps: Every good creepy movie or book has a person that disappears into the swamp, right?
- Asylum: Belle Rose is a wonderful Asylum where the main characters get placed in hopes of curing their maladies, but of course, treatment never goes as planned, does it?
I am going to stop here, or I may actually spoil this amazing book. PLEASE read it and discuss your thoughts with me!
SIKE! As an oversight on my part, I did not realize that this book was published some time back and I AM, in fact, allowed to spoil!
OKAY SO. Eliza’s evil mother dumped her on the side of the road-CRUEL- and she is subsequently adopted by evil fairies that demand a human sacrifice every 2 years. Here’s the catch. They wipe her memory every time she gives them a sacrifice so she feels no guilt and cannot tell anyone her evil deeds.
Eliza lives in an orphanage and she has 1 friend, Millie. Eliza and Millie decide to run away from the orphanage together and Millie finds the fairies in the woods. Too bad Eliza doesn’t remember them and Millie falls in love with them. Millie escapes to the fairies and eventually harms another child at the orphanage because the fairies told her too.
Crazy, right?
THEN Millie and Eliza both end up in a mental institution and Millie is diagnosed with Schizphrenia as a result of her belief in the fairies.
Ultimately, they both escape the psych ward, and Millie ends up as a sacrifice, but what I find so interesting is Eliza’s inability to leave the fairies behind and live a normal life.
She chooses to go back to them time and time again and kills her friends. Why can’t she break free or find some form of “cure”, or just kill the fairies? It certainly wouldn’t make such an interesting story line, but it’s certainly a thought!
SunflowerFiction 