Girl of Hawthorn and Glass

I have such complicated feelings toward this book.
I love the increase in fantasy stories full of queer characters. Having a found family story where all three main characters are queer was a delight. I also appreciated the complicated metaphor about trauma and healing. The writing was at times lovely and lyrical.
Unfortunately, the problems outweighed the good on this one for me. The biggest problem being that the first few chapters write a check the body of the book doesn't cash. It promises an interesting story about queer roller derbies, magical coffee shops and ghost hunting, but it delivers a magical other world story that just does not land the way the original chapters do. I would love to read the book this promised to be. The magic is chaos idea was interesting, but doesn't quite do for an explanation of why nothing made sense ever. I also felt generally that sometimes the prettiness of the writing was overbearing on the story, making it hard to follow. Everything felt ungrounded.
I think this author has promise and I would check back in with their future works, but I can't recommend this one.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!

Let me starting by saying that the letter to the reader was honestly one of the most validating things I have ever read: “Dear Reader, I want you to know it's OK to be angry. Your anger is important.”

Like YES WOW, THANK YOU.

Eli is such a great character, the whole fact that she's a made-up thing created by witches for their own purposes is such a great metaphor! Like how many times have we felt objectified and powerless and stolen from our identity?! I loved it so much.

And the greatest thing, EVERYONE IS QUEER!

AND THERE'S A SEQUEL!!

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity!