The Scapegracers

I moved between liking and disliking the book throughout. I had an okay time reading it but I wouldn't reread the book. I thought of maybe carrying on but I'll let go. There's so many other books and series I need to get to.

I liked the friendship group and how they interacted with each other, but I didn't like the main character. I did like the casual touching amongst the friendship group. There wasn't much of a solid plot and I think that's what annoyed me the most. I also wasn't following along really because it just wasn't holding enough of my attention but it felt like there wasn't a good amount of plot anyway.

I really did not like this book at all. The prose was ridiculously overwritten, the characters were boring (and it was kind of interesting that the only non-villains who were jerks in a way that Sideways took issue with were trans people, hmm) and constantly made really stupid decisions. It seemed a bit goofy to me that the girls become friends so quickly, like one night this girl is paying Sideways $40 to be a freak show at her party and the next day she is ready to die for her?? A lot of dialogue felt very “author voice”, like when a character who was generally very fussy and worried said that their town needed more gangs.

For huge stretches of the book nothing happened. I liked the concept of the book devil when it came up but it was way too near the end.

3.5 ???We want some chaos. We want havoc. Bring us hell.???One of the epigraphs of this book is a Jennifer???s Body quote (???Hell is a teenage girl???), and I feel like that tells you a lot about this book. Sideways (it???s a nickname - thank god) Pike finds herself at the party of three of the most untouchable girls in her year. At school she???s mostly known for her witchery, and that???s exactly why she was asked here, to perform some magic during the halloween party. Freak everyone out. Sideways enlists the help of said untouchable trio - Jing, Daisy & Yates - and by doing so, unravels the magic the other three girls all hold inside, and binds the four of them together. ???The magic snapped back like a rubber band. It struck hard and all at once ??? A jagged, painful pulse reverberated from my lungs to my core, and I heaved in a breath through my teeth, wheezed a cough. There was a whistling in my ears loud enough to rupture my skull.??? I love how visceral magic feels. Sideways senses it in her entire body, and the writing is so reflective of that. At times it was a little overdone, but overall I think it really contributed to the atmosphere, this sense of magic being a full body experience. It brought it really close, and made it almost tangible. I think the style is one of the things that really won???t be for everybody, but it was for me. ??????Can girls not be soft and still be powerful???????Girls can. Girls are.??????I???ve seen some people comment on the immediacy of their friendship, but I think an event like the one they went through together is exactly the kind of thing that binds you together. And I believe in the magic of this created world enough that I can imagine if you feel magic the way they did, you???re not just going to walk away from the person who instigated it. The closeness of the girls was one of the things I liked most about this story. They???re all very different, but the way they care for each other and take care of each other without flinching, without hesitation, really appeals to me as a reader. I liked that they weren???t clean-cut, but a little (or a lot) ragged at the edges. I liked their anger, and how justified they felt in it. I liked their loyalty. ???Feeling witchy is a large part of successfully being witchy, and nothing makes you feel powerful like surrounding yourself with gigantic dripping candles.??? Lastly I want to point out the worldbuilding. It???s one of the things I feel ambivalent about in this book, but I???m going to start with the positives. The ideas we got - regarding covens, and spellbooks, and devils, were really interesting and exciting to me. I love when magic changes overtime, so the idea of older versus modern witch covens and traditions I think is really cool. Really liked Mr. Scratch as well - a lot of Calcifer from Howl???s Moving Castle vibes. And a small thing I wanted to point out that I very much enjoyed - the chapter titles. Not enough books make good use of them these days, and I really liked all the references. Very fun.???There was something repugnant about the absence of rage in me. I wanted my fury back.???Then in terms of negatives??? Starting where we left off: the worldbuilding did take very very long to really get a grip on. Really just the last quarter of the book we were introduced to these concepts that I think the story as a whole would???ve really benefited from being introduced earlier. Especially because they are so fascinating! I want to know more about them! I want these girls to know more about them! Show us what they mean! Secondly, and I think most importantly, the plot feels flimsy. I called the ???reveal??? in the first chapter and I don???t know if I was meant to, but if I was, then it just feels frustrating to have to wait until the absolute last moment to have it be revealed to our main characters. There are all these things happening that could be forming a plot, but they???re threads that kind of dangle. They???re not pulled tight, like the author didn???t have a good grip on them. When Sideways gets kidnapped by some weird, religious family, it???s obviously terrifying and dark, but we hear almost nothing of it after she escapes. It???s left almost entirely untouched until the end of the book, when all the threads are suddenly pulled taut, supposedly coming together, even though it feels messy and unearned. In addition, the writing of the characters constantly teetered on an edge for me. I know I said earlier that I really liked the writing style overall, and I did, but only just. Sometimes, the prose got too much, and I could feel myself cringe at it. Sometimes, the teenage-ness of the girls felt performative. Look, the author seemed to say, I know how teens these days act and speak. Look! Look! Look! I don???t want to have to look. I want to notice. I was on a similar edge when it came to the depiction of the girls??? queerness. I love them, I love having multiple queer girls in one gang, I???m totally here for it. But especially Sideways??? own inner monologue when it came to her attraction to girls felt sometimes a little bit too much like the author was like, hey, that joke you people on the internet always make about disaster lesbians, look! Here is one! She can???t think straight when she sees a girl! Again, I want to note that as a reader, I don???t need it shoved in my face. And obviously I don???t mean I don???t want queerness shoved in my face. I???m saying that as a queer girl (though not a lesbian) I felt the depiction really was on the edge of being performative in its intensity. As of right now, I am planning to read the next book in this series. I really hope it will flesh out the world and the plot, and be a more coherent story (and make this book a more coherent part of the series). I received a free ARC of this book from Netgalley in return for an honest review.