I must not have read the synopsis of this very carefully, it isn't a book I would normally pick up. While I am sure the horrific conditions of mental institutions was detailed well, I found it all very unsettling.

A smidge confusing, but otherwise a well done horror novel. The constant changes in viewpoints had me scratching my head at places. The ending more than made up for it.

une Hardie is struggling to fit in. Too bad that her family starts to push for her to be more like other women in the time (1951) and the story weaves back and forth to a time before June was sent to an asylum to what takes place when she gets there.

I rooted for June, but thought most of the story was kind of a bore. Probably because going back and forth in the story didn't do a thing for me. Probably because I watched American Horror Story: Asylum an kept comparing that to this while reading. I also compared it a bit to Victor LaValle's "The Devil in Silver" since I thought his book just like this one had a pacing problem. Also, I chose this book for the horror elements, but this didn't really have a lot of that in this book. I like to read horror that scares me, this one was just okay. Also we get the unreliable narrator piece in this one and I just get tired of authors relying on that all of the time in these type of books.

The writing was okay, I just didn't really like the whole book within a book thing that was going on. I also thought the flow could be improved. Maybe going back and forth to tell the story was when things started to not read as well. Maybe if we just read everything leading up to why June was sent away, and then just focus on her at the asylum, it would have worked better.

It was interesting to set this in 1951. You do feel for June who wants to write, and doesn't just want to marry and have children. And you can see (sadly) why her parents reacted badly to this. But at times I didn't get June, when she gets mad at her mother telling her to have clean clothes? I mean, yes, you need to be clean.

I have read every single Amy Lukavics book, seriously not exaggerating. She is amazing with horror and suspense. This one absolutely gave me chills it was so good.

Nightingale by Amy Lukavics

3.5 stars

June Hardie is your typical seventeen-year-old girl living in 1951. She has a boyfriend, comes from a good wholesome family, goes to school, and is learning how to cook. Except nothing is as it seems and the truth is her boyfriend is just another ploy for her father to have a booming business, her family is stilted and she hates her mother as much as her mother seems to hate her, all she wants is to go to college, and cooking doesn’t please her. Writing is her passion. June loves to write about the aliens that are torturing and rearranging her heroine. June Hardie can’t stop writing her story. Everything went wrong one morning and she woke up to find her parents replaced. Her parents are her parents now she is trapped in the Institution alongside girls who all have seemed to have encounters as strange as June. The Institution doesn’t want to help June and the girls have no hope of getting out the easy way. Getting better doesn’t seem to be an option. That synopsis that I wrote is a lot and it’s not even half of this story. This story is wild and there is far too much going on. It can be a bit overwhelming at times, but that’s what I like about Lukavics she packs a lot of social commentaries into a horror setting (usually not present day). I’ve always been fascinated by the 1950s housewife. I’m a huge fan of Revolutionary Road and I’ve written countless essays on the topic for literature classes, so this was right up my alley. It is all very Virginia Wolff combined with Sylvia Plath thrown into an outrageous horror setting. Lukavics’ writing is palpable and addicting. She is a well-crafted horror writer who knows how to intrigue and shock the reader. I wasn’t able to put this book down and felt like I just had to know what was going to happen next. The problem, however, was that I wasn’t a fan of the ending or the conclusion. It was lackluster, but I’ll speak more about that towards the end of my review.



“June thought of the story she wrote, thought about the aliens, always taking people away and changing them and trying to put them back as if nothing had happened. But nobody was ever quite right after coming back.”

Whimsical Writing Scale: 3.75

The main female character is June. I’ve noticed a pattern with Lukavics’ main heroines. I can’t stand them. They are usually very contrived women who are appealing to my inner feminist in the sense of me being like, “YAS, girl! Down with the patriarchy and the stifling confines of society, but also can you stop creeping me out?” The last heroine I encounter from her in Daughters Unto Devils was demon-possessed and wanted to murder her siblings. This girl wants to murder everyone and some point “satisfyingly” taints her family’s homecooked meal with her blood. It was weird, y’all. She has a lot of weird imaginings where she sees herself in the most horrifying and gruesome visions and she enjoys them. It’s a little too weird for my liking and she just feels skeevy. I felt like I was encountering a psychopath (and I kind of was, but no spoilers because it’s not that simple). She wasn’t a horrible character, but I wasn’t rooting for her. I just wanted to know what the heck was going on and why she was in this weird situation in the first place.


“She loved stories like that, the ones that made you realize how very created our ideas of safety and basic rights were.”

Kick-Butt Heroine Scale: 3

There is some girl group power in the Institution, but I didn’t really buy any of their friendships as a group dynamic. Everyone kind of seemed to be doing their own thing and was out for themselves. Eleanor is June’s roommate and she is one of the major characters in the Institution and is eventually June’s lover. I honestly wasn’t buying the romance because it all of a sudden happened, but it was different to see a lesbian romance in a horror story outside of American Horror Story. I just wasn’t buying it and also, that ending. How cliché. June’s family was a lot to take in. I didn’t like them and I’m not supposed to, but I kind of wished that their dynamic wasn’t so tainted. Also, the plot with her brother, Fred, escalated. I was supposed to believe he was this evil man, but really he was just a stand in for defeating the patriarchy in familial situations, which I’m not against, but I would have preferred more character development to get me to hate him.


“This wasn’t supposed to be a nightmare house, it was supposed to be a place built to make people feel better.”

Character Scale: 3.5

The Villain- Joya… Nurse Joya. She is like Sister Mary Eunice minus the nun costume and she’s less demonic and more Lovecraftian. This was all very Lovecraftian and I wasn’t against it because intergalactic feuds are interesting, but also, I know nothing about anything. I have more questions than answers.



“She savored her gift from the land of stars and voids.”

Villain Scale: 3.5

So, this horror novel is incredibly feminist and I loved that. It has a lot of wonderful commentary on the 1950s, suburbia, women writers, mental health treatment, hysteria, lobotomies, and family confines and expectations. I love all these things and it was a treat to read, but I have to talk about that ending and how I can’t really wrap my head around it, so here’s a quote that references Virginia Wolff and I’ll leave you with that before I give spoilers.


“Maybe having to exist in a single room forever wouldn’t be too awful of a thing.”

TAGGED UNDER SPOILERS All along June’s story was about herself and her own alien abduction at ten-years-old. Which makes sense to me because I suspected that must be the case because she knew too well how she wanted her character to be tortured and she just kind of was able to get it all down at unearthly speed. I don’t know anything about the aliens who abducted her or why. Then the whole thing about Joya and the other nurses being one entity and race that eats people to survive – they are basically earth bottom feeders and the aliens want to destroy them. It’s all very all over the place. The showdown was kind of cool and different from what I expected. But the ending, June has all these powers from her abductions (mind control, manipulation, healing, etc.) and she manipulates her fiancée into being her slave forever and then murdered her brother because he ruined her chance to go write and he had to go because reasons? It was just weird. I was unfulfilled and just felt kind of knocked off my rocker a bit by where the story decided to go. I just don't know exactly how I feel. Do I like this or hate it? No, but I am confused on processing my thoughts.END SPOILERS

Overall, I really enjoyed Nightingale and it has a lot of interesting facets that make it stand out from the horror YA genre. It’s not my favorite by Lukavics, but I do think it’ll find its fans. Especially those who love aliens and feminism and maybe Lovecraftian weirdness. This is one I definitely recommend!


Plotastic Scale: 3.25

Cover Thoughts: I live for this cover. The colors. The creepiness

Thank you, Netgalley and Harlequin Teen, for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

I wish I could say “What the hell did I just read?” in a good way, but sadly there is not much positive I can say about this book. Nightingale, supposedly a psychological horror, took nearly 200 pages to even get to some good horror bits, and the semi-interesting parts only arrived at the last 50 pages of the book. Until then, the book was just building up on the character, June – her home life before she was institutionalized and her life in the institution; both of which were pretty boring. June’s ‘eccentricities’ (or what we would calling being a 21st century woman) were never understood by her family, and they regularly bully her into acting their ideal of a young woman of the 50s. While in the institution, she is not being treated (obviously) but is instead trying (keyword: trying) to investigate the couple of deaths of the inmates.

The biggest flaw of the book is the writing style. After I started this book, I realized I had read another of the author’s book – The Women in the Walls – which too fails in delivering horror. The brand of horror is gratuitous gore reminiscent of a bad B-grade horror movie, and the dialogues can’t decide which era they are from. Most of the book just goes to describe what June is, never SHOWING what June is – I don’t need a run-down of the personality or what kind of person she is, show me how she reacts to situations and let me understand her myself! For a horror novel, there is no atmosphere; there is no building dread, no fear for the character (who you can’t even relate to) and no emotion evoked on the part of the reader, except for apathy and the occasional anger over her circumstances.

The ending, AKA, the Last Fifty Pages, deliver the twist, but by that time, I was so tired of this book, so waiting for this torture (of me) to end, I only let out a surprised laugh. My reaction was mostly along the lines of – really? This is what it was building up to? And then it DOESN’T EVEN DO MUCH WITH THAT! Then there are some more ‘let’s just have a Carrie-style showdown’ murder spree scenes(IDGAF about spoilers right now!) leaving us on an open-ended epilogue. Let me be clear – I liked the twist, I did not like the way it was executed. It tried for a Mara Dyer style story by the end and failed.

Shortly, one of the most disappointing horror books I’ve ever read.

This is much less gory than Lukavics' previous books, and readers will either love that or hate it. Nightingale is much more g/Gothic and less slasher. It wasn't to my taste, and the pacing was extremely slow BUT I think it will have its fans.

Title: Nightingale
Author: Amy Lukavics
Genre: YA
Rating: 3 out of 5

Seventeen-year-old June Hardie does not fit in. In 1951, young women are expected to want marriage and a family, and to know how to cook and clean and take care of their husband. June wants to write stories about alien abductions and travel the world as a writer. Her father forces her into a relationship with his partner’s son, and June finds herself practically engaged to the domineering boy, her dreams of becoming a writer shattering, along with June herself.

June ends up in an asylum, a hospital to help women get better. But things there don’t make sense. The words of the other girls make her realize she’s not the only one who thinks this, but those who speak up disappear or worse. And there’s something odd about the head nurse and the doctor. Maybe June really is losing or mind—or maybe there’s more to her story than she ever imagined.

This is marketed as horror, but I didn’t think it was scary—and I’m a big chicken. Instead, it was just weird. Okay, the complete lack of women’s rights plus what was expected of women was horrifying, but the rest of the books was just odd. June is an unreliable narrator at best, and I spent the entire book wondering what, exactly, the point was. The cover is beautiful, though.

Amy Lukavics writes horror fiction. Nightingale is her newest novel.

(Galley provided by Harlequin Teen in exchange for an honest review.)

I am unsure of even how to review this. I love a weird book. I am not the fond of gore. I thought with the institutional aspects this book would become a favorite....but that didn't happen! I just didn't like it. The past sections were boring. The gore turned me off. The ending was terrible.

June is 17 years old in 1951. It is a time where women are taught to be the perfect housewife and all that entails. June isn’t interested in being the perfect housewife, she wants to go on adventures, travel the world and write. Her family is horrified by this. Her father has made a deal with a potential business partner that his daughter will marry his son. She has no say in who she will marry. Her father knows best. She wins a writing retreat that her family doesn’t know about. She plans on not telling her parents or brother. Due to a phone call, her father finds out about the writing retreat. Poor June is grounded. After she is allowed out of her room, she explodes when she goes down to breakfast. She is suddenly on her way to an asylum to be cured though she doesn’t understand. What type of medical treatment will she receive there? Will she be able to leave or not?

The novel is more than about how a woman was taught and treated in the 1950’s. It’s also about survival, being true to yourself with some science fiction thrown in. I enjoyed the novel due to the mysterious behavior of June while living at home and while she was at the asylum. I enjoyed the novel so much that I am adding the author to my list for who to read and of course buy books.

**I received an ARC from netgalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review**

I was excited to start reading this book as I have heard great things about Amy Lukavics other horror books. It started off really strong and I was really curious to see where it would end up going. To say the least this book went in the completely other direction than I thought it would. Actually scratch that, it went in a direction I didn't even think was possible. Now normally when a book is unpredictable it's a good thing but in this case it was odd and left you thinking did I really read that? It didn't even feel like a horror book at all, which was disappointing.

While reading it, it also felt like I was reading a rough draft of the book. Somethings were mentioned and are never talked about again and it just didn't really seem to flow very well. A lot of things were also left unexplained, which didn't help me understand what was happening in the book. I did like how we were learning about June's past and present at the same time. One chapter would be about the past and the next would be the present which I thought was well done.

All of the characters in the book didn't really have much of a personality except for the main character, June, who I found to be very whiny and annoying. She never really thought about anything she did or the result of her actions. Overall the characters just felt very fake and flat and I didn't like any of them.

I think the part I didn't like the most was the ending. It was a very open ending that didn't tie up all the loose ends and just felt very fake. It confused me even more and left me thinking what had I just read. The concept of this book was interesting and could have been great had the ending been different.

Overall this book was a flop in my opinion and I would't recommend it. I do plan to try her other books in the future as I have heard good things about them.

With an intriguing start, Nightingale keeps you reading with is mix of historical fiction and science fiction. Is what June experiencing real or some manifestation of her imagination? Unfortunately, as the book nears its conclusion, the story falls apart and becomes quite confusing, making you wonder what just happened.

Originally posted on Forever Young Adult on 2018 September 25

BOOK REPORT for Nightingale by Amy Lukavics



Cover Story: I Know Why the Caged Bird Screams

BFF Charm: Hell No

Swoonworthy Scale: 7

Talky Talk: Two Truths And A Lie

Bonus Factor: Asylum

Relationship Status: I’m Not Saying It Was The Aliens, But…



Cover Story: I Know Why the Caged Bird Screams

Why is this girl hanging upside down over a birdcage? Is she performing a Mission-Impossible-style heist to free the bird? Or is she—and this will become a theme—crazy? That and the fact that her hair seems to form the bars of the cage is enough to convey “This is a creepy horror book!” I kind of love it.

The Deal:

June Ellen Hardie is an aspiring writer in a lily-white, upper-middle-class suburb in 1951 America. Her family would prefer that she aspire to be a proper young lady instead, ready to get hitched and start popping out babies upon high school graduation. June is a terrible cook and has little interest in the domestic arts—let alone putting on pretty dresses and lipstick to lure a man. She’d be crazy to turn down Robert, the handsome son of her father’s business partner. She’d be crazy to run away to a writer’s retreat instead of planning her wedding. And maybe her parents are right—maybe she is actually insane, because she’s been sent to an asylum, and no one will believe her when she says her parents were replaced by aliens.

Trigger Warnings: this book contains instances of abuse, ableism, horrific treatments for mental illness, sexual assault, and the usual sort of gore you’d expect from a horror novel.

BFF Charm: Hell No

I feel terribly for June, whether she’s got a legitimate mental illness or the aliens really are conspiring against her…but whichever it may be, the last ten percent of the book guaranteed that I am staying far, far away from this lady.

Swoonworthy Scale: 7

It’s hard to get into a romantic mood when people are dying left and right, and the doctors in charge may or may not be aliens performing lobotomies, but that doesn’t stop June from getting her needs met—including one fairly explicit, steamy scene in the asylum itself. There actually is a pretty sweet romantic subplot, but don’t go into this thinking it will be a feel-good story of a star-crossed relationship.

Talky Talk: Two Truths And A Lie

Truth: I love unreliable narrators, and June’s story is a great example. It is impossible to gauge what is the truth, what is a lie, and what June believes is the truth. Is she “crazy” because she’s not the perfect white all-American domestic ideal, or is she mentally ill? Or worse—are the aliens real?

Truth: I had no idea whether I liked this book until about the last quarter, when I realized just how deep the unreliable narration went. Nightingale is the sort of book that demands your attention even after you’ve finished. Sometimes the language feels a little anachronistic, but that contributes to the discombobulating feeling the reader gets from June’s story. Is any of this real?

Lie: I didn’t love this book.

Bonus Factor: Asylum

All you have to do is say the words “this is set in an asylum,” and my finger is already hovering over the Goodreads “Want To Read” button. Aliens are creepy, but I will always be more horrified about the very real things that humans do to each other.

Relationship Status: I’m Not Saying It Was The Aliens, But…

I read this book feeling like I was possessed by the soul of the Ancient Aliens guy. I’m not saying it was the aliens, but IT WAS TOTALLY THE ALIENS, and why can’t June hear me screaming at my e-reader? GET OUT OF THERE! Save yourself! (Don’t read this at 3am in the dark, is all I’m saying.) If you’re buying this one for actual young adults, I’d recommend it for older teens.

Nightingale is available now.

It's 1951, and June Hardie doesn't want to keep house and find a suitable husband, she wants to write, is compelled to write, and she can't focus on much of anything else until her story is finished. A senior in high school, June applies for a writing program right after graduation without telling her family. When they find out she has no intentions of marrying the boy they've picked for her, she lands herself in an asylum where she meets other girls who are different. Things get even weirder when it seems other forces have nefarious reasons for keeping these girls locked up.

I wasn't sure what I was expecting from this book, but I was definitely surprised. There are many twists and turns, and one great mystery to solve. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. This book has an audience, a very cool audience, I am sure, I just didn't love it. It goes off the rails a bit, and that can be a good thing, especially in horror.

Actual Rating: 4.5 stars

Nightingale is a super creepy YA horror novel with feminist vibes set in the 1950's. I was really into it and would definitely read more from this author. It explores the constraints placed on female behavior and deconstructs traditional prejudice against women as authors of horror or other disturbing material. (Of course based on the misogynistic belief that women should only think of things that are sweet and virtuous)

The imagined 1950's American woman is the epitome of propriety and traditional femininity, but June is messy, rebellious, and obsessed with writing a disturbing novel about alien abduction and experimentation. She is a far cry from the daughter her parents want and expect. Told in an alternating timeline, we get scenes of Junes recent life as a senior in high school dreaming of being a writer instead of a wife to her boring boyfriend. This is interspersed with scenes of her in the current time having been committed to a mental institution for women where disturbing things are happening and things are not what they seem.

Nightingale is a smart, tensely plotted feminist tale of horror that definitely has a good bit of violence and gore as the latter part of the story progresses and the tension ratchets up. We also get a main character who is bisexual with great representation. This one really took me by surprise and I absolutely flew through it! I received a review copy via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Amy Lukavics' books are scary as shit. She has really set the bar for YA horror these days. There just simply isn't anyone like her in the field right now, able to capture character, voice, and chills all at the same time. While I didn't find Nightingale to be perfect by any means, I still highly recommend it for its originality, its representation (both for mental health and for wlw), and for its scare factor. I guarantee you've never read a book quite like this.


I had to admit I was a bit apprehensive about starting this. It's a horror novel set at an asylum. Usually such a setting is prime breeding ground for ableism. The patients themselves are the scary ones. I am so happy and relieved to report that this is not the case in Nightingale. The patients are treated horribly in this "hospital" but they are also the main characters. June finds a group of friends in Burrow Place and they are sympathetic, realistic people who are being victimized--and who fight back. The real villains are the doctors and the nurses. It was so refreshing. So if you're worried about the typical tropes that come with asylum-based horror, you don't have to worry about that here.


I really liked June. I thought she carried the story perfectly. She was always just so interesting and deeply flawed, and, at times, completely unreliable. She was a writer, of sci-fi! Of course, in the 1950s that wasn't exactly becoming of a teenage girl. Her parents had certain expectations of her, and writing about aliens and spaceships just didn't fit into those limits at all. I think it'd be great to say that June just bucked those expectations and forged out on her own; instead, though, she was much more realistic than that. Anyone who has been in a situation even similar to hers knows how hard it is to disappoint your family. You know how hard it is sometimes to be brave and individual. June struggled with her family's approval and reconciling that with her own dreams. As a reader, it's easy to get caught up in June's struggle here and immediately shift the blame to her parents when it comes to June's hospitalization. But June is just so unreliable, leaving so many key details out, that you just can't tell if she's being institutionalized for her "hysteria" or if something's really wrong here.


This book is not for those with a weak stomach, I have to say. There is a lot of grossness, a lot of gore. There are brains and bugs and lots of blood. Needles, gruesome deaths, lobotomies. There were also some truly terrifying, chilling moments, moments that have you feeling trapped and claustrophobic and hopeless. It was not an easy read.


One thing I really wish was that I had a closer connection to the side characters. There were quite a few of them. The girls in the Institution with June kind of blended together for me. There were only two that really stuck out to me, Simpson, the artist, and Eleanor, June's roommate and love interest. We got a pretty bleak first impression of Eleanor and I think for me it was hard to get past it. I wanted to ship the ship but there was so much else going on that I didn't think there was enough time to dedicate to the romance. It came on really quickly for me. And I hate that because I always want to root for the f/f ships.


Without giving too much away, Nightingale reminds me of a classic sci-fi/horror novel. It has a feeling of nostalgia that we don't see much these days, and I thought it was such a cutting, precise commentary and condemnation of American culture, especially with regards to women and women's rights. So timely, given our current political climate. If you're looking for a good scare, a compelling plot, and something that gets your brain going, this one is definitely for you.

June Harding is living the life every young woman 1951 dreams of having. Her father is a successful businessman with her brother following in his footsteps while her mother is teaching her how to be the perfect housewife. There's no pressure to do well in school because as soon as she graduates high school, June will marry Robert, the son of her father's business partner. Everything is swell.

Except it's not.

What June's parents fail to understand is that she doesn't want the life they've made for her. She has a passion for writing and wants to follow her dreams. If she can't get into college, then she can at least try and get into a writing retreat that would get her away from her sleepy suburb for a few months. But it's not just June's future that's at stake; her father's business is in June's hands. If she doesn't marry Robert, life as her family knows it will cease to exist.

Following entering the institution after an event June can only remember splinters of, she gets swept up in hallucinations that will leave the reader wonder what is real and what isn't. Her parents, the nurses, her doctor -- every "adult" in June's life believes she can no longer decide this for herself. What she wants, to be a writer, is ridiculous and clearly a sign that she's lost her mind. No sane young woman would ever believe she could make a living being a writer.

While June struggles externally with disappointed parents, terrifying nurses, mind-altering drugs, and other staples of 1950's mental institutions, internally there's a larger war being waged. As much as June wants to believe that she's shed herself of every aspect of the life her parents want her to live, June is aghast at the living conditions in the asylum. From the fact that sanitary napkins are on display in a bucket to someone else making her bed, June doesn't realize that she has become more like the young woman her mother trained her to be than she thought.  Outside, it was easy to rebel against direct orders. Inside, when given a chance to think for herself, it's clear how deeply ingrained in her the role she's supposed to play is. You can't undo seventeen years of being trained to be a certain way, no matter how hard you think you've rebelled against it.

There are clear sci-fi horror elements to Nightingale, but for me, June's upbringing was the most terrifying element. While this is supposed to be a look into the past, with today's political climate it could very well be our future: to play the roles assigned to us, to ignore the keys to our own happiness, to be subservient to the men in our lives. And if we rebel? The consequences are gruesome. We take our lives in our hands. Shady medical procedures, brainwashing, not being allowed to love who we want, or think what we want, or do what we want -- isn't that the real horror story here?

I’m not sure what I was expecting with this book, but I got something completely different. I’m always drawn to descriptions with asylums and the thought of a horror/psychological aspect, but in reality I think it’s not for me. I wanted to like it, but I found myself not connecting with the plot and not being able to follow it well enough. I felt confused at times, but I’m not sure if that was my own disconnected attention or itself. I’ve heard great things about Amy Lukavics novels, but I just don’t think it’s my genre.

The story takes place in 1951 and 17 year old June does not feel like she fits in, but she goes along with her parents' wishes, or at least goes through the motions. She is dating the son of her father's business partner, though she finds him boring and at night she secretly writings science fiction in her notebook. One morning she wakes up thinking her parents have been replaced by "replicas," so they promptly commit her to the Burrow Place Asylum, where things get even stranger. Her roommate, Eleanor, claims to be dead, while the other committed girls have even stranger "ailments." As other patients begin to go missing or die, June wonders what is really behind the treatments and those who are giving the treatments.

While I enjoyed the author's writing style, and enjoyed the relationship that developed between June and Eleanor, I did not find myself drawn to the overall story. The genre seemed to be horror/science fiction, but for me, the horror fell flat and unrealistic and some bordered on gross. The science fiction aspects actually through the book off for me, instead of being a twist, it was more a head scratcher.

Wow, this was painfully clunky and choppy. I got about a quarter of the way through it and I still am completely uninterested. The main character is not compelling in any way and the weirdly inappropriately timed sex scene in such an early chapter was a major jump cut. No thanks on this one.