If you are looking for light-hearted fare to lift your spirits, this isn't it. this story is more on the soul searching, gut wrenching, finding salvation at the end side of things. on a positive note, it does put mental health, loss, grief, PTSD, and the use of trauma therapy into a good light. it shows how it can help. It is not just about mental health though there are also touches of mysticism, superstition, and becoming someone that you didn't think you were capable of for the greater good. a pretty good read all in all. do not read it if you are already depressed or are suffering from depression unless you're into that and it makes you feel better.

The Valley and the Flood is a unique story that manages to explore both mental health and prophecies. It follows a teenage girl named Rose Colter who is attempting to get home in the days leading up to the first anniversary of the death of her best friend Gaby. There are a lot of books that have themes grief and loss, but I still thought that exploring those topics through the lens of a teenager who lost her longtime bestie in a freak accident (something that I know happens in real life but isn’t really talked about) was interesting. Rose also has PTSD stemming from the death of Gaby, and Mahoney doesn’t shy away from describing how it affects her. In The Valley and the Flood, we get some pretty detailed depictions of Rose’s PTSD symptoms, and some snippets of the therapy sessions that she participates in (props, obviously, for normalizing therapy).

While driving home, Rose’s car breaks down and she finds herself in a small town called Lotus Valley, whose residents are very superstitious, which is where the prophecies part of the story comes in. Unlike many books involving prophecies, The Valley and the Flood does not lay out the entire thing at the beginning, but it’s still pretty easy to understand. When Rose shows up in Lotus Valley, she is unaware of the fact that her arrival is part of a prophecy that will bring about a flood that will destroy the town. She decides to attempt to stop the flood with the help of some new friends.

I did have to suspend my disbelief a bit, not only because of the whole prophecy thing, but also because Rose has vivid flashbacks of various points in the past year of her life. This helps fill in the gaps of Rose’s backstory, but still I couldn’t believe how vivid they were. Overall, though, this was a heart-wrenching, punch to the gut magical realism story.

Thank you to Penguinteen for this arc!

'The Valley and the Flood' is a YA novel with supernatural and magical elements that follows Rose Colter as she deals with the aftermath of her best friend's death. When her car breaks down in the middle of the Nevada desert, Rose winds up in this mystical small town where she meets Cassie, the town's most recent prophet, who tells her they've all been awaiting her arrival. According to Cassie, in three days, a flood will come and destroy everything, but Rose can stop it. Now, Rose must find a way to cope with the PTSD she has from her best friend's death and save this small town she can't explain her strange connection to.

Overall thoughts: I didn't get to finish this book, but the parts I did get to read were very well-written and quite magical. Mahoney did a remarkable job of introducing Rose's character, and I felt like I could understand her guilt and pain from the loss of her best friend. If you enjoy magical and lyrical writing, you'll love this book!

Make sure to look up TWs as mental health and loss are central parts of this story

WHY DID I LISTEN TO THE VALLEY AND THE FLOOD BY REBECCA MAHONEY?
The Valley And The Flood by Rebecca Mahoney has such a unique concept. I’ll admit that I first picked it up because I had assumed there was a cult aspect and I do love reading books about cults. However, that isn’t really what the book is about. Rather, I kept listening because of main character Rose’s character growth and for the magical realism aspect. This was a quiet sort of book that hit just right with me at the time that I had read it.

WHAT’S THE STORY HERE?
Rose Colter is driving through the Nevada desert one night when her car breaks down. She begins to hear a voicemail from her best friend Gaby over the radio. “Rose, are you there?” So, Rose goes to the nearest radio tower which is located in Lotus Valley. There, she learns that her arrival in town is part of a prophecy which ends with the town being destroyed by a flood. There’s also prophets which populate the town. As it turns out though, this is a book about PTSD and the very real trauma that Rose is dealing with.

WHAT DID I THINK OF THE VALLEY AND THE FLOOD?
It’s kind of hard to go into detail on The Valley And The Flood because it is a story where things are revealed bit by bit. Also, I don’t want to spoil you. What I will say is that I appreciated the exploration of trauma within. I thought the author handled it in a sensitive manner and was quite thoughtful as well. Additionally, I wasn’t sure what to make of the flood and magical realism aspect, but in the end, it really worked for me. This was a genuinely good book and quiet too. I think it’ll end up going under the radar, because it is so different from what else is out there. Still, it is totally worth picking up.

HOW’S THE NARRATION?
The audiobook of Rebecca Mahoney’s The Valley And The Flood is narrated by Phoebe Strole. It is 10 hours and 28 minutes unabridged. Strole has a voice that is youthful, so she was fitting to narrate Rose’s story. Overall, I tend to like Strole’s narration and this book was no exception. I am glad I listened to this book, but kind of think I would have processed it a bit better had I physically read it or listened to it a bit further out from having a baby (I am super sleep deprived which means not processing things perfectly). Still, this book was really good and I do recommend it.

Rose is haunted by the death of her best friend nearly a year ago. Her car breaks down in the middle of the Nevada desert and she ends up in a strange town with strange inhabitants. Not all of them are human. The people there can tell the future and Rose's arrival is the harbinger of a flood that might wipe them all out.

TW: This book deals with drunk driving, death, PTSD, and panic attacks. Each person's experience with mental health is unique, therefore I will not be critiquing how that aspect of the book is portrayed. I'm simply glad that there's one more book on the shelves about mental health and processing grief.

Likes:
- Writing mental health issues as physical manifestations that follow over your shoulder was fascinating.
- Watching Rose come to terms with her PTSD diagnosis and work through her trauma hurt my heart for her in the best way.
- This book was fantastical bordering on magical realism. I definitely felt like the plot was an extended metaphor of someone working through grief and loss. I enjoyed it, however it did leave me feeling a bit lost at times. If I had taken more time in reading it, I believe it would have had a stronger impact. Even so, the book was powerful and I thoroughly enjoyed how it concluded.

Dislikes:
- The characters were hard to keep track of half the time because there were so many moving pieces. Because of this I didn't feel like their stories had the same emotional impact as they might have otherwise.

Thank you @PenguinTeen for sending me the free arc. This book is available now!

On paper, this sounds like a perfect book. A quiet contemporary about books, love and grief with some beautiful prose to go along with it. Unfortunately the execution was a little lacking for me and it ended up being pretty forgettable.

Just a warning, my opinion is definitely not that of the majority. In fact, considering all of the five star reviews I think I can put myself clearly in the outlier category. Usually with books like that I can understand why people love them so much, but with this I honestly can't. Its almost like I read a different book to everyone else, or missed something- which is entirely possible considering I started skimming the book toward the middle/end.

The thing is, I thought this book was objectively good- but just nothing special. The characters were fine but they didn't stand out for me. The magical realism was ok but definitely a that felt like it didn't belong in the world.. The dialogue was pretty ordinary for me. The writing was standard to me. I do love what the author is doing concerning mental health but the book as well.. a book was just okay for me.

The Valley and the Flood
By Rebecca Mahoney

I enjoyed this wonderful story about the effects of a death of a best friend in your life and the trauma you feel as you get past those emotions to try to move on without forgetting and honoring the memories. PTSD can manifest in many ways and I felt that this story through fantastic and magical realism did just that. The story is centered on Rose, who is just trying to get home to San Diego but end up in a small town in Nevada - Lotus Valley. There, new friends are formed and a flood to contend with.

Through a beautiful story with prophecy and a very unique plot, we are taken on a journey through that point in life where recovery and moving on from traumatic events happen.

Such a wonderful story I enjoyed.

I enjoyed this book, but while it starts out with almost creepy Welcome to Nightvale vibes, that kind of diminishes throughout the story, and it becomes something between “missing explanation for things” and “weird enough to not need explanations”, but not being either. Therefore, there were a lot of times when I lost focus, because it was unclear what was happening or why.
A big part of the story is this elusive tragedy we don’t have the facts about, that the main character lost a best friend to, but when we get the details 3/4ths of the way through the book, the secrets about it that are kept from the reader turn out to be very mediocre and normal compared to the buildup to it. It therefore feels like a lot of buildup for something normal, and the book would have been much the same even if we had known all of the details from the beginning.

This book tells the story of a teenage girl who is driving through the Nevada desert when her car breaks down. She is drawn by a radio transmission of a voicemail from her best friend, and follows it to a tiny mysterious town in the middle of the desert. It turns out that the voicemail was not the only thing drawing her to this place, as she is actually part of a prophecy that says a flood will destroy the town three days after her arrival. In the process of learning what to do about the flood, and this strange town, Rose also learns how to confront the grief and guilt she's been carrying about her best friend's death.
The writing style of this book is incredibly dream-like. It was vague (sometimes to the point of confusion) and the past and present seemed to float together in a way that felt very apt for what the main character was going through emotionally. The ambiguity builds up a sense of mystery and of being lost, but eventually comes together along the main character's journey. The town and characters were charming and quirky, which added some levity to a story which is actually very heavy and emotional. My only complaint are that I personally had a hard time staying focused and understanding what was going on at times, which I think was a result of the dream-like writing. Definitely an interesting book overall!
Thank you to Penguin Teen for a Netgalley ARC!

It took me a while to get into this book, but the story ended up being interesting. The writing style was generally really good but was at times somewhat awkward - the phrasing would pull me out of the story, which was too bad. Overall, would recommend.

Quick Stats
Overall: 4.5 stars
Characters:5/5
Plot:4/5
Setting:4/5
Writing:5/5

First of all—dang that book was a brain-twister. Very weird. Very intriguing. Very entertaining.I loved it. Now let’s get into the nitty gritty.
Rebecca Mahoney masterfully weaves a tale of loss, intrigue, and paranormal happenings. The book involves frank, realistic depictions of PTSD, panic attacks, grief, and more.
Rose, our main character, is a entertaining, real, honestly quite broken, and occasionally a bit of an unreliable narrator. Her raw emotion drew me in from the start. I felt like I was right there with her, inside her head, experiencing the events of the book along with her.
Rose experiences a couple panic attacks in what are essentially flashback scenes, and as someone with severe anxiety and a history of panic attacks, I rarely resonate with books’ descriptions of panic attacks. They’re not wrong, by any means, but they just don’t fit my experiences. Mahoney’s descriptions of panic attacks, however, were pretty much spot-on with my own experiences. She describes them in a real way that never strays into the cliches that sometimes are present while describing panic attacks.
Secondly, I would like to talk about how much I ADORE Alex Harper. I wish we saw more of him, as we do Felix and Cassie. Alex had a terminal illness (essentially) that was cured magically (again, essentially). This toes the line of the magical healing trope, which I absolutely loathe, but in my opinion, because of the circumstances of his situation, and the fact that he has lasting effects stays firmly planted in A-OK territory. My favorite thing about him is his constant—and rightful—insistance that he is not fragile, despite chronic illnesses and his past illness. The other characters (mostly Felix) try to coddle him, and Alex has NONE of it. And I love it. That’s one of the things I hate the most about being chronically ill—the way I’m often treated like I’m breakable. Alex did a really good of articulating, and showing, how frustrating and kind of offensive that is, no matter how honorable the intentions.

The story unfolded naturally, and the pacing was really good. I typically don’t like books that take place over such a short period of time because the pacing is very hard to get right, but I think Rebecca Mahoney did a magnificent job. I was never bored, and it never felt rushed. Every next step was logical. The earlier twists and turns were appropriately surprising while still making perfect sense. The last couple twists/reveals felt as if the author showed her hand just a chapter or so too early leading up to the big reveal, but it wasn’t too big of an issue. That final resolution was not what I expected, but I really, really liked it. The morals were slightly heavy-handed, but they were important enough, and incorporated enough that it didn’t bother me.
All in all, Mahoney crafted a really solid debut novel that gave me a little bit of The Raven Boys vibes (it’s not at all similar, it just for some reason reminded me of that series), and I can’t wait to see what she comes out with next. Highly recommend!

I haven’t read too much magical realism, so I’m kind of a beginner when it comes to that subject. I also didn’t realize this was magical realism, so I was sort of confused in the beginning, but it becomes clear pretty early on that it’s being utilized in this book. I think it helped to enhance the story and show just how suffocating PTSD can be. I think it showed that, in a way, PTSD might not affect just the person suffering from it. This book, in a roundabout way, showed that it’s okay to seek help and that not everyone can get through trauma on their own.

This book was written in a very unique way and I think it was done well. I did think it got a little long winded at times, but for the most part the book held my interest and was a good story.

*Thank you to Penguin Teen and NetGalley for an early copy of this book in exchange for my honest review*

4.5☆

Characters-
The characters in The Valley and the Flood were so well written. Everyone was very three dimensional and their backstories added a lot to how they acted in the present. There was a lot of LGBTQ+ diversity that was nonchalant and as a queer girl, I loved that. The way the four main characters interacted was so perfect for them being teenagers. The interactions weren't too childish but they weren't too adult either which is often a huge mistake I see in YA novels. The main character Rose struggles with PTSD and panic attacks, and although I can not speak on behalf of PTSD rep, the anxiety side of things felt very real to me as someone who has been diagnosed with anxiety.

Plot-
If you were to ask me to give you my own synopsis of this book, I honestly wouldn't be able to. This book was strange and weird and very metaphorical and I loved that about it. My only gripe with it was that the ending felt just a tiny bit rushed.

Writing-
I didn't think the author's writing and style were revolutionary or anything, but it was really good. It wasn't too flowery nor was it too simple and the descriptions were always beautiful and easy for me to picture in my head.

Overall, I highly enjoyed this book! I would definitely recommend it to people who like weird and speculative books.

First off, I want to thank Penguinteen for sending me this book through NetGalley for review!

This book surprised me.

It's hard to give a summary but think prophecies, memories, shadow(?) creatures, and lot's of dealing with trauma. Of course like the name of the title there is a flood that threatens the valley but I don't wanna say much more than that because I'm sure the blurbs for this book are better than anything I could have written.

Please look at trigger warnings before reading this book.

When I started it I was really thrown and had a hard time telling up from down but I think it's meant to be written like that to make us feel how our main character Rose Feels. I had a hard time getting into this book just because couldn't grasp what was going on and there was past and present moments that melted together. Obviously some is intentional and well done but some are just confusing. I also had a difficult time with knowing the characters until much later in the story. I thought Flora was Rose's friend until like 1/2 of the book had gone by. While the beginning was a little rough for me it really started to get good in the middle and I was fascinated by what was happening and what would happen next. This book made me quite emotional as we watch Rose deal with feelings of guilt, regret, and her past trauma. I think the concept for this book is really unique and although not exactly like "We Were Liars" I think if you liked that book you might like this. That being said I personally enjoyed this book more and thought it packed more of an emotional punch.

My one critique is that while the magical realism is cool it leaves the story very confusing. A lot of things aren't exactly explained and I really didn't get what was happening until maybe 65% into the book. It was hard to keep track of the many different aspects of this book and I don't really think things came together until later.

Overall, 3.5/5 stars and I would still recommend this book.

I want to start by saying a huge thank you to Penguin Teen for the review copy of The Valley and the Flood by Rebecca Mahoney.
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“Most bad things happen without malice, y’know? They just happen. Storms never wish anyone harm. They just come and go.” - The Valley and the Flood , Rebecca Mahoney. ( quote may differ from final version)
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Rating: 3.5 🌟
Author: Rebecca Mahoney
Publisher: Razorbill
Release Date: 2/23/2021
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This review will contain some spoilers so reader discretion is advised.
The Valley and the Flood started off strong and I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately it did not stay that way. While I understand that the events took place over the course of a few days , the story was really dragged out. It felt extremely slow and at some parts even boring. That being said, Mahoney’s representation of mental illness was well done. I thought the way she described panic attacks to be accurate. While everyone experience is different it was explained quite well. The events that cause Rose to have PTSD, which leads to the episodes of anxiety, and panic attacks are kept somewhat hidden until closer to the end of the novel. What I believed happened to cause her PTSD, was completely off from what actually happened. I will admit while I did enjoy the supernatural aspect of this novel I also didn’t quite understand why they were there? Other than a physical representation of people’s traumas, anxiety’s, and other emotions. I will say my favorite “neighbors” were the ones from the movie theater, the reminded me of the Shoot Sprites from Spirited Away. Overall I did enjoy The Valley and the Flood, I do recommend it, and I would get a copy for myself/ my friends.

My absolute favorite thing about this book, besides the beautiful cover, was the amazing writing. The style of writing felt almost majestic in a sense. I felt really immersed in the book as a whole, and I feel like I felt every emotion possible whilst reading it. I did however get confused throughout the plot, especially during the many flashbacks that occur. I also felt as though I didn't and couldn't really get attached to any of the characters. Overall a solid read I would recommend to others!

Actual rating: 3.5 stars

I don't know how much I'm a magical realism person, so I didn't really get into this story until 70% in cause it was disorienting and confusing at times just how Rose's PTSD affects her. Honestly, there were moments I felt like I wasn't smart enough for this book haha. The conversations around memory and perception left me 😰😅
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I really liked the characters though and how big the personalities of the supporting characters were. They felt so realistic that they kind of keep you grounded in the story since Rose deals with so many flashbacks and is constantly going between the present and her memories. Felix was that annoying one that is always freaking out and blowing things out of proportion but it would have been weird if everyone was calm about possibly dying in a flood.
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The writing overall was really good and in theory it was cool how Mahoney keeps you on edge like Rose, but as the reader I struggled with that a bit. I would recommend this to people who want to read a book with a teen struggling with grief and her PTSD diagnosis that often makes her an unreliable narrator, alternating timelines, and an apocalyptic feel that keeps you reeling and on your toes but also encourages you.

I started reading this book but it was not to my liking. This will unroftunatley have to be a DNF for me but will be rating it 5 stars as the writing was nice but the story did not fully speak to me. Its not the authors fault that this is the system created.

A beautiful use of magical realism to illustrate Rose's struggle with PTSD and grief. The cover is really beautiful.

First off, have you ever seen such a beautiful and unique cover?? That is what immediately drew me in to this book and I wanted to know what it was about. I really loved how the author used magical realism to explore PTSD and trauma. I did enjoy the story, but it was quite weird. The author embraced the weirdness and made it work.

I loved how beautiful the writing was and almost put me in a trance if that makes sense. I had to really focus and get totally immersed in the book to understand everything that was happening because we get flashbacks and just so many weird points as well. This book had me feeling all the emotions because I felt for the main character and her trauma from losing her best friend.

I just really really loved the unique plot of a girl who lost her best friend, getting stranded in the desert, finding a random town and finding out that she is like a prophet and the town is going to have a flood and they have been expecting her. I don't really want to say anything else because I went into it knowing hardly anything and it made it really beautiful and lovely.

The only thing I have to say is while I loved it, at the end I wasn't attached to any of the characters. It did make me feel sadness and I loved the premise, but not totally in love with it.