This was exhausting. It felt like trying to communicate with someone underwater, which, even when possible, isn't worth the effort.

** spoiler alert ** I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
3.5 stars
The concept is unique, the magic system is lovely and as a bonus all characters are LGBTQ+. Jarrett-Poole writes in this tactilely delicious way that makes you want to read more. She’s created a world where the ugly is shown for its beauty which is really wonderful.
I love Eli and was ready to watch her rip the world apart. Unfortunately, I feel like the tension falls apart and we lose the urgency and energy the book begins with. I wanted stronger relationships developed between the characters. For me, Cam & Eli’s relationship read stronger than her relationship with Tav even though they were the love interest.
I didn’t like the plot devices—using a dead name particularly, probably because I called that twist as soon as Tav mentioned Octavia from the movie. I will say this, Tav being the target makes me want to read book 2. I want to know who they are and what they can do.
There’s actually a lot in TGOHAG that makes reading a second book appealing. Jarret-Poole has created some very interesting characters and introduced stakes for the next book. This magic system is beautiful. I just wish the second half of this story had been stronger.

I received this title in exchange for an honest review, so here goes!

I really wanted to enjoy this book, but unfortunately it’s just not for me.

Pros:
The premise was engaging.
The cover was absolutely beautiful.
The overall world the author created was unique and vivid.
This story featured non-binary characters, which I found to be incredibly well executed.

Cons:
The storyline becomes quite chaotic.
The overall timeline of events is at times hard to follow.
I did not enjoy the ending, and will unfortunately not be continuing this series.

I truly don’t want to be too critical, especially because I believe that if this sounds right up your alley, it may very well be! And we’re already given the title for the second book with a tentative early 2021 release!


Overall I rated this title 2.3678 ⭐️’s out of 5.

Thank you so much to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review!

In this book, we have assassins and witches. We follow Eli who hunts ghosts. This book was magical and captivating. The characters and the storyline were well developed. The writing style was descriptive and immersive. I can't wait to see where the story goes from here. A great start to a new fantasy series.

The book is all over the place. It often meanders off and pauses the plot for flashbacks and scenes that add nothing to characterization or world-building. The plot is the basic steal-the-object quest, but it gets side-tracked a lot with obstacles that come out of nowhere and it just feels like padding. The stakes were high, but I wasn’t invested in it in the first place.
The magic in this world thrives on chaos. That makes for a really cool setting, but it also means the author can add random stuff for plot reasons and it shows. It’s a very strange world, but not as whimsical as it tries to be. It would’ve worked better if it didn’t seem like it was designed around the plot, instead of both mutually influencing each other.
To me, the most important thing in a book is compelling characters. That’s why I keep reading. But these characters were mostly meh.
Eli is an assassin created by a witch, and she lives in terror of being unmade. She’s part monster, made to kill, and part human, so she can travel to their world. She grows a lot by being around the humans, but besides liking coffee, she doesn’t have much of personality and I didn’t connect with her at all.
Like all the witches, Kite has a sort of Orange and Blue Morality, and she’s easily the most interesting character of the lot. She’s a bit of a wild card and it’s never clear which side she’s on. I loved that about her.
Tav is clearly the creator’s pet. Eli is immediately attracted to them upon meeting them and they mysteriously have powers no one else has. Perhaps because of that, I found them underwhelming.
Cam is one of my favorites. An average human in a magic world and way out of his depth, he’s both the comic relief and the not-powered character we can relate and root for. His sense of humor is amazing and he’s the most human and real character of them all.
This book had so much going for it, but it fell flat. The premise sounds awesome but the execution doesn’t deliver.

The queer rep here is really cool: Tav is non-binary, Cam is gay, and I think Eli and Kite are sort of exes.

I was anxious to read this and a bit nervous due to the reviews, but I liked it more than I thought I would! I think that in reality this is a 3.75/5 when it comes to stars. I liked the world building and the story itself but the pacing of this one really threw me for a loop. I also wanted more from the relationships between the characters (the LGBTQ rep was well done and I wanted more!). The magic system was really neat. Honestly I feel like I'm down for anything with witches no matter what! The background for this story was really intriguing for me, but I can see where, in places, the overall story struggled.

So yes. A 3.75/5 for me.

I wanted to love this book so much. Even when I was going through the first chapters and didn't click with the general atmosphere, I kept hoping to fall in love with it.

To be perfectly honest, I loved the glimpses of worldbuilding the author showed us: the Labyrinth, the Wastelands, the City of Eyes had all a distinct identity in my head, but I'm still not sure if that imagery was my own headcanon or something actually depicted in the book. There were far too few details, and I think it's a pity for a world that called for lore and legends and stories.
I instantly liked Clytemnestra, too: creepy yandere children always work their charm with me.

The main problem here is that everything was too fast-paced, and it shows in the lack of details and characterization. Also, confusing action scenes and purple prose cannot replace a weak plot - something The Starless Sea was also guilty of.
The general idea was good and promising, as well as the LGBTQIA cast of characters. Maybe they needed a little bit more depth - mostly in their relationships: I would have loved to read about meaningful moments between Eli and Kite, or Tav and Cam, and less insta-love.

This felt like someone trying to write a book based on a really long detailed movie and just skipped over a lot of the good stuff, leaving only the skeleton of the story and characters.

Eli, an assassin, was created by a witch. Her job was to go into the human world and kill ghosts The Coven told her needed to be killed. Eli didn't ask questions and did her job well. That is, until she kills her latest ghost and finds out it isn't a ghost at all. Eli starts to question everything she has been told. Eli makes some friends in the human world and with those friends goes on an adventure of a lifetime to stop The Coven and of course, save the world.

I really wanted to like this book. The idea of it is great! Witches, ghosts, assassins, warlords, and magic... what isn't there to like?? Well, for me this story fell short and honestly was not well written. I felt that the character development was poorly done. There was little to no background information on the characters and I just couldn't connect to them. Eli has a best friend, Kite, who by the time the book was done I still knew nothing about. The setting was awesome and I loved it but again, there was really no detail so I feel I missed out a lot there.

Maybe an unpopular opinion - one of the characters is trans (which is totally fine) - but I found it difficult to read because of the "they, their, them" pronouns used. There wasn't enough detail in the story so these pronouns often were confusing and I didn't know who the author was talking about. This just threw me off throughout and ruined the overall flow of the story for me.

I just feel disappointed after reading this. I feel that the story had so much potential and just didn't follow through. All the characters had aspects I enjoyed but because of the lack of detail and background I couldn't get into them.

⭐⭐/5

** Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

When I saw that this book was being compared to Nevernight, I was excited for a dark, gritty, intense story. However, the writing felt really juvenile and cringey at times (example :Eli wasn’t just a teenage girl with heavy bangs falling over round glasses, fighting with her mother and writing bad poetry in her journal (although she did some of that, too). Eli was an assassin.) If I wasn't going into this book expecting it to be dark and intense like Nevernight, I might have been more open to the story but the comparison hurt this book in regards to my expectations in my opinion.

I enjoyed this book while I was reading it but upon finishing it, I feel like it was just okay. If this was a book I rated on just enjoyment I’d give it 4 stars but based on the actual content itself I have to give it a 3. I will probably continue on in the series and see how these characters grow and the world progresses.

“Even teenage assassins have dreams.

Eli isn’t just a teenage girl — she’s a made-thing the witches created to hunt down ghosts in the human world. Trained to kill with her seven living blades, Eli is a flawless machine, a deadly assassin. But when an assignment goes wrong, Eli starts to question everything she was taught about both worlds, the Coven, and her tyrannical witch-mother.

Terrified that she’ll be unmade for her mistake, Eli seeks refuge with a group of human and witch renegades. With the help of two humans, one motorcycle, and a girl who smells like the sea, Eli is going to get answers — and earn her freedom.”

The premise of this book is incredibly interesting and it had a lot of potential, but unfortunately it didn’t live up to that potential and I found myself disappointed to a devastating degree. What originally seemed to be a fast-paced and enticing story ended up being an incredibly slow burn that I wasn’t all that eager to continue.

While I enjoyed the uniqueness of the plot, the writing style often felt chaotic and I found myself struggling to clearly grasp what exactly was going on. It felt over and underdeveloped at the same time, and there were several times where I had to go back and reread entire chapters because I was extremely confused.

If there’s anything positive I have to say, it’s that the character development and the diversity and representation within the characters was wonderful. Had the rest of the plot been as well-written, this would have easily been a five-star read.

I wish I had more to say about this book (it’s not often I find myself lost for words), but I honestly just felt no connection towards this book. I think much of my speechlessness has to do with the fact that even after finishing the book, I still don’t understand it.

*Thank you to NetGalley and Dundurn Press for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!*

What a shame, I really wanted to enjoy this story, but if anyone asked me what this was about I would have nothing to say! The story was chaotic and I could not get into it at all. The only thing I liked was the fact there were non-binary characters within the story, which was a first for me. The premise was quite exciting, and the reason why I picked it up in the first place.
However, at some point I found myself confused to the point that I did not know if I was reading about something from the past or present, it seemed to intertwine, and which characters were actually there and which were a memory, or in the main character's mind. Just a chaotic mess overall I'm afraid. Unfortunately, I will not continue with this series.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review

I loved, loved, loved this book! The story is absolutely fantastic and I couldn't put It Down, I needed to know what would happen! Eli is an Amazing main character and I loved the plot and the writing style!

I really enjoyed this intriguing fantasy. The world the author created is unique and exciting.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own

I absolutely loved this!! This was such an interesting book with a great premise; kind of like Frankenstein meets The Hazel Wood. My heart was racing and throbbing and I was left breathless. There were some parts that were shocking but it just added excitement to the story plus relevant to the plot! Just so beautiful and that cover 😍

dnf-ed at 79%.
I wanted DESPERATELY to like this book but I just.... didn’t, at all. I wanted to stop reading at 30% but decided to keep giving it a chance. It let me down.
Good things: pretty much all of the characters are LGBT+ and it WAS a fairly unique fantasy idea. That’s basically (unfortunately) it.
I had zero feelings about the characters, I was not invested in the plot, the plot/conflict was murky AT BEST, the characters had no clear personalities, everything that happened was just like “okay....” or “that’s really weird” but that’s it. No excitement. Nothing. Just blah.
I tried and tried and tried to like it because of the LGBT rep but then, at 75% of the way through the book, the main character gets hit with amnesia and that is probably my most HATED trope to ever curse the literary-verse. It’s so boring. It’s pointless. It stops the plot. It’s just frustrating and not enjoyable to read. I already wasn’t enjoying the book to begin with and at that point I threw up my hands and called it a night.
Maybe in the last 20% of the book I didn’t read it will get better but I can’t do it anymore. Good luck to anyone who tries to read the whole thing.

I received The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass as an ARC from Netgalley and I was so excited to receive it. The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass is the first book in a duology. It releases June 2020.

In this book, there are two worlds: The City of Ghosts, the modern world; and the City of Eyes, the world of witches and magic. Eli is a witch-made assassin from the City of Eyes. She ventures to the City of Ghosts to kill said ghosts. She is the best, until her latest job goes wrong. Then she meets Tav and Cam and the adventure really begins.

The atmosphere in this book is palatable, sometimes creepy and sometimes enchanted. This is aided by fabulous descriptions of the scenes. You can vividly imagine the events and scenery. I can easily imagine this book being made into a tv show or movie. It reminded me at times of Labyrinth or Emerald City. The world building is great, but I loved the world itself and how it interacts with the characters. It attacks and helps people as it chooses. The world is almost its own character. It greatly affects the events of the book.

I love the characters in this book and how they are written. They are written as fully developed people rather than simple one-dimensional characters. I am going to try and not spoil anything in the book so that may limit what I can say. In most books, the ‘good’ character does ‘good’ things and vice versa. These characters, like people, have their own motives. Some good people do objectively bad things and some bad people do good things. And I am not just talking about the assassin. This includes even more minor characters. They all have their own motives for helping Eli and her friends or hurting them.

This is a beautiful book I would highly recommend. It’s a wonderful, imaginative read with well written characters. I greatly enjoyed this book and I think most readers will enjoy it as well regardless of whether you usually read YA or not.

Similar Reads: The Hazel Wood, Alice in Wonderland, Wizard of Oz, House of Salt and Sorrows

I was drawn by the beautiful cover but was let down by the story. It's a relatively short book but still., it took me almost two weeks to finish. There was nothing really to keep me interested - and I only finished it because I was kindly given an ARC of the book and I like to finish books I get via Netgalley - but i couldn't tell you what this book was about, the characters or anything really. I remember myself being very confused about what was going on, especially since I thought the beginning was pretty promising - something about the main character being an assassin/ghost hunter (?) - but, like stated, I can't really remember much about it. (hence the one star rating)

I’m already excited for the sequel of this book!

In this book you enter a darkly whimsical world of witches. Our made character, Eli, was made by a witch from Hawthorne, glass, and many other things. Eli was created to be an assassin that moves between the witch world and the human world. The story takes place when Eli is sent on a mission in the human world, and meets a group that wants Eli to help them enter the witches world.

The story discusses how angry individuals can feel in their role that society forces upon them. Plus, how individuals can break free of those roles.

The story contains representation of POC, non-binary, and LGBTQ individuals (there isn’t a cis white person in the story).

The way witches were described in this story was unique. They’re elemental aliens?

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book is really amazing! I really like it buuuuut... that end it feels like just ok.
Eli is a pet witch who was created to be a ghost assasin, she can't think, talk without permisson or even think in a independent life, she is only an "object". But one day everything change when she failed in one of her missions and then she can't return, or she is going to be dissarmed.

The first 50% of the book was awesome! I really love Eli and how she grew up in all the story, she met new people who help her very much in her mental issues beause for the first time she´s be treaten like a person, a real person with feelings and ideas and that it's a huge impact for her.

I think all the characters are important in some way buuuuuuut... ok, her chilhood friend in my opinion is the worst friend in the life!!! it's like... really?? are you sure she is you best friend?? I really doubt that.

Some situations were really strange.. I mean, is that really necessary? Sadly I can't say anything because SPOILERS and I want the people to read this book

But ok, I'm really interested about the second book because.. OMG what is happening next?