It is a rare thing indeed to find an author with as much command of language as Hayley Chewins. I was so floored reading this that I gasped out loud and hugged the book--I RARELY EVER HUG THE BOOK. But the imagination, the language, the poetry of the words and story, it all came together so perfectly I fell right into the cloister with Delphernia, who was such a joy. This is a story for anyone who's been pushed down and fought tooth and nail to rise. A book-friend for anyone yearning to sing, who perhaps never thought they could. This author is a new favorite, and I can't wait for everyone to read the magic of THE TURNAWAY GIRLS!

Although this one sounded interesting to me, I was not able to get into it. The characters just didn't grab me and I lost interest. I know others will be interested in it though.

This book has an enchanting story, filled with imagination, and is told with beautiful writing. I look forward to reading more from the author.

This lovely book is filled with music, music, music. It brims with it. It sings. I could get lost in the rhythm of the prose and live there forever. Simply gorgeous. 💚

This was a beautiful story written to transport you to a different world. An important story about empowerment and identity that I will definitely recommend to students!

Magical lyrical prose with a uniquely described world that the reader can definitely delve into. The story is definitely beautifully written and brings us a powerful message of self identity, self worth and empowerment

Not very sure if it would keep a child's attention but I'd still recommend.

*Thank you to the author and Netgalley for giving me an ARC in exchange for an honest review*

Twelve year old Delphernia has lived her entire life shut in a cloister in a cave with other girls where they make shimmer out of music. The people who live in the city depend on the gold made by the girls who have never seen the city or known freedom. Delphernia is unable to make shimmer and is mistreated by the sister who runs the cloister. When she is unexpectedly set free she learns that the world is not what she thought it was.

Hailey Chewins' debut is written with deliciously poetic language, pulsing with an achingly beautiful call to find one's own voice.

Lately I’ve begun to wonder who MG novels are written for— the children themselves, their parents or the teachers or librarians.

As other reviewers have said, the prose here is rich (and depending on the reader, demanding). It’s the sort of thing adults both admire and want to see children admire. As such I think it’s the sort of thing kids might be assigned to read, or maybe receive as a gift.

If an adult is impressed with this story, instead of either of these, I’d urge you to make time (in the classroom or at home) for reading it aloud. If my kids are any measure, children’s patience with, and connection to, a story will increase with the adults’ investment of time.

A side-note for the people who’ve noticed the oppression and misogyny themes - I’ve sometimes wondered how to teach children to take these seriously when stories treat them as both over-the-top and rare. That’s a topic that each caregiver must decide on their own how to address, but especially if you choose to take the time to share this story, I’d suggest you mention these things are based in reality. I believe society’s collective difficulty to believe the hurts of others is tied to the way extremes have been safely tucked away in the category labeled, “Fiction.”

My thanks to Candlewick Press and Net Galley for providing an electronic copy for my to review.

Turnaway Girls follows the point of view of Delphernia who has been hidden away and told her only purpose is to serve others by turning their music into gold. The problem is, Delphernia has music inside her too which muddles her place in a rigid society. She tries to hide her secret, but someone has already found her out. When she leaves the cloister with a strange young man, can she keep her secret hidden?
The strength of this novel lies in Delphernia's narration - she is not quite reliable in that her worldview has been so limited and manipulated. Being included as a reader in her slow but believable revelations about the world around her provides an earnest perspective and adds an interesting flavor to the story.

This book equal parts charmed and confused me, to be honest. I wanted to be swept away by Delphernia and her story, but my mind kept trying to understand exactly why Blightsend existed as it did and why the Turnaway Girls were part of it. It almost felt like I was dropped in the middle of a story. As magical as things were, I just needed that little extra foothold to feel a part of the story.

What I can say, is that Hayley Chewins has created a beautiful world in The Turnaway Girls. Despite any qualms that I may have had, I thoroughly enjoyed my trip through Blightsend. I'm eager to see what this author comes out with next.

Raised in a shelter cloister with other young women, Delphernia Undersea is a 12-year-old Turnaway Girl: girls raised to be silent, invisible; to weave male Masters' music into gold they call "shimmmer". Delphina is well aware of her place in society - Mother Nine beats it into her regularly enough - but still has a rebellious streak in her. While she can't make shimmer, she can sing; a forbidden action in this world. Girls are told that the sea waits to swallow girls with musical throats, but Delphernia must sing, so she does so in secret until the day a young Master named Bly comes to claim her. Once out of the cloister, Delphernia's world opens up, befriending a trans girl named Linna, who calls herself a Master and wears a dress covered in bells. Delphernia spends time with Bly, discovering more about him and his sister, the Childer-Queen, and in so doing, discovers more about herself and the society she moves through. It's time for rebellion, and Delphernia holds the key.

Wow. This book is high literary fantasy that has the gift of empowering readers. Delphernia is a strong, intelligent heroine who motivates those around her. This is a male-driven society that doesn't want music, free thought, or questions. They twist the truth to suit their means, but this next generation of children is about to bring it all down. Hayley Chewins' weaves gold - shimmer - with words that nearly brought me to tears as I read. I was Facebooking and texting passages from this book to my friends, family, and coworkers over the last two days, because I could not keep these words inside me.

This is how you talk to middle graders. This is how you write middle grade fantasy that makes a statement, always respecting your readers. This is fantasy that holds our society up to a mirror and lets readers see for themselves how change is theirs to make. Diverse and gender fluid characters, discussions about gender roles and corrupt leaders, and a tale of self-discovery, magic, and music put this firmly on my must-read, must-have list, and my Newbery and Hugo watch lists.

The Turnaway Girls has a starred review from Kirkus. Author Hayley Chewins has a playlist for the book available on her blog.

Thank you NetGalley for this Advanced Digital Copy in exchange for my honest feedback.
This book was on my radar after one of the MG librarians that I follow gushed about this book. I also follow Hayley on twitter so when I was accepted for the Advanced Reader Copy I was super excited. My fear is that I’m not going to be able to fully convey how I feel about this book. I ADORED everything about this book. The writing style , the descriptions, the characters and the theme. It was just so good. Not only is this a book I would recommend for my nieces – it’s a book that I will re-read. Also – Hayley posted a song on twitter that goes with this book. I really wish I would have listened to the song before reading as I can just imagine Delphernia’s voice being like Hayley’s.

I’m not sure what to make of this book, except that it is undeniably beautiful. The language is so wonderfully lyrical that I almost don’t care about the rest of it. Which at the same time makes me wonder how many children will have the patience to stick with it and its rather adult themes of misogyny, slavery and politics, all wrapped up in highly poetic prose.

It’s short, which does help, but at the same time it packs in a lot without really explaining any of it, because it’s limited by Delphernia’s pov and she only cares about select things. I would have loved to have known more about the Childer-Queen. I would definitely have liked to have seen more of Bly and learned more about how Linna turned herself into a Master too.

But Delphernia is pretty self-absorbed and isn’t interested in other people, so we see only what she sees, which means a lot of things come out of nowhere and make very little sense. The idea of the Turnaway Girls was fascinating, but the rest of the society isn’t explained at all. Some men are Masters, and there is a Childer-Queen, but everyone else… no idea. The Custodian was flat and lifeless as a villain, and although Mother Nine was more developed, I still feel like there could have been more to her. As for the plot itself, because of the way Delphernia doesn’t pay attention, I did feel at times like I was missing a lot of vital clues – as well as wanting to shake her to make her wake up.

So I’m torn. It’s a beautiful, original fairy tale of a story, with a fascinating premise, but the characters and plot are sometimes lacking and the action moments were not as clear as they might have been. Sadly, my overall feeling is of style over substance. It is lovely, with a very strong message, but unfortunately it didn’t quite work for me.

2.5/5 Stars

*I was provided with an ARC of this book through Netgalley, in exchange for my honest opinion.

Oh dear, I nearly didn’t finish this, but I really try not to do that, even with books I’ve brought myself. But I really just felt like I didn’t have it in me to finish this book, for the life of me, I just couldn’t get into it. The very first paragraph had me so excited as I could tell that the author was someone who searches for the most beautiful and interesting ways to phrase everything. There were so many stand out sentences that I marveled at, but unfortunately the text as a whole just didn’t work for me. I felt as if I was constantly lagging behind the story, like I was always having to play catch up and unfortunately I didn’t manage to in the end. I was just over the halfway mark when I almost made that difficult decision to stop. But I gave myself some time away from it and decided to continue on, not because I particularly wanted to see where the story would go, but because I hate not finishing books. Especially as some books manage to turn things around by the end. However, I think that it’s only fair for me to expect to have a grasp on the story and characters this far in, but honestly I had no idea what was going on, it’s the longest state of confusion that I’ve ever experienced. I didn’t understand the characters, their world, or where the story was going at all. I’m so very disappointed about this because I truly loved some of the writing, but sadly it just wasn’t for me.

I didn’t really care for any of the characters apart from Linna maybe, as she was just so bright and full of life, compared to everyone else. And I liked the odd little Bly and how everything that come out of his mouth was poetry quotes, it was quite charming. I couldn’t quite figure out the Childer-Queen or Mother Nine and it actually really bothered me, they both seemed like they could’ve been really interesting characters if developed more. The Custodian didn’t do much for me in terms of being a villain, he was quite a disappointing one if I’m honest. And with the main character Delphernia, I mostly felt sorry for her because of the way Mother Nine treated her, it was actually quite shocking to be honest. My feelings towards her didn’t stretch beyond this sympathy though, which already made me less interested in continuing on.

The idea of the Turnaway Girls intrigued me massively, but once I got the gist of it, I was still confused and it fell a bit flat for me. I can’t work out why, but I just expected it to be a bit more, to mean a bit more, but it all felt too metaphorical to me. When I thought that I’d understood something, I’d then learn something different, like I thought that only boys could be masters. And I thought that all men were masters, but some men can’t make music and so are treated as slaves. There just seemed to be a load of random facts that we were given that weren’t fully explored or simply didn’t make sense, like I didn’t understand Mother Nine’s conflicting actions or her connection to the Sea-Singer. I also didn’t get who the Mothers were and how and why they were chosen, as there had been nine of them all together.

I previously stated that I enjoyed some of the writing a lot and I still standby that, but the plot just wasn’t good. I felt so lost the whole way through, without a steady and strong plot to follow, another reviewer mentioned feeling liked they’d missed bits of the story and I can’t think of a better way to describe what I experienced. I keep saying confusing, but it was exactly that. The world building was patchy and the setting was non existent for me, because I just couldn’t conjure any of it in my head, it was trying to say the least. Someone else mentioned that they think that this would have worked better as a YA instead of a Middle Grade, and I have to wholeheartedly agree. There was potential here for a great book, but it lacked a certain depth and clarity, that felt masked by the beautiful writing. I don’t think I could personally recommend it, as I just didn’t really enjoy it, but most of its reviews have been four or five star ratings, so it may just be one of those subjective books that everyone responds wildly differently to.

The Turnaway Girls started as a very unique, very beautiful story but quickly descended into more of the same in the form of fantasy metaphor. It essentially reads like The Great Illustrated Classics version of The Handmaid’s Tale, where women are oppressed and made silent, and men are all terrible and oppressive. While the writing is poetic and beautiful, I’m not sure the reading audience for which the story is intended will quite get much out of the deeper, political narrative it seems the author is trying to convey.

Our main character, Delphernia, possesses the ability to make music-and gold-from her own voice instead of using the music of others to do so. She wishes to be free of the oppressive, hateful headmistress of the convent (for lack of a better term to describe the place). The only problem is that Delphernia is a Turnaway Girl, a girl that turned away from her reflection in a mirror, and she is not even supposed to make noise-only transform the noise of others who are skilled in making music (males known as “Masters”) into gold. Essentially, Delphernia is a slave.

After we meet Delphernia, the rest of the book entails a very slowly moving plot that loses focus on the events of the story and picks up right at the end, after all of the characters are introduced and painted, very flatly, as good or bad, for about 70% of the book. As a result, the mythology is shallow-the main part of the book that drew me to be interested in it. By the end of the novel, the plot is lost in the subliminal message. If this were YA instead of Middle Grade, the book would be more effective.

This book was extremely descriptive in the beginning almost to the point of slowing down the pace of the action. I really liked the lyrical nature of the prose as an adult but it may not keep the attention of younger readers who are used to an attention-grabbing beginning.

I felt the world was very unique and described in such a way that the reader is completely submerged. There are some moments of abuse towards the main character. There are themes of being told you are nothing and rising above. There are deep themes of identity, self-worth, and it is an overall empowering message.

Thank you to Netgalley and Candlewick Press for a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Fitting for the protagonist, the writing in Turnaway GIrls had a lyrical quality that was lovely and evocative. It took actually more than halfway through the book before I felt like exciting things began happening plot-wise, so you'll definitely want to recommend it to readers that love to amble through a lushly described story. Great characters and I do think I'll find myself reflecting on this more and more, it's the kind of story that stays with you.

A gorgeous cover, The Turnaway Girls is a beautiful middle grade book that leads with the message of being your true self.

I wasn't sure what to think of this book, but once I got halfway through, I really started liking it a lot.



Delphernia is a turnaway girl.  She is being raised with the other turnaway girls by Mother Nine.  Mother Nine is extremely abusive (trigger warning).  The turnaway girls make shimmer (gold) when they hear music, but Delphernia can't make it.  She would prefer to sing, but girls who sing are taken by the sea.



The Masters come to take away some of the girls.  They play music and the girls make their shimmer.  Delphernia wasn't chosen at first, but then a boy showed up later to take her with.  The night before, that same boy heard Delphernia singing.  Her singing also created golden birds.



After she leaves the cloister, Delphernia spends time with Linna, a girl Master.  She trusts Linna with her secrets.  Something happens that puts Linna's life in danger.  Delphernia needs to try to overcome her fears, forget everything she was taught, and save Linna.



This was a beautifully written story about a girl who was told she was nothing and realizes her self worth.  



I gave this book 4 stars.  Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for providing me an arc for review.