Although I've always liked college settings in books, it's been a while since I've read one.  With The Ravens involving witches and having such an awesome cover, I couldn't pass it up.

The whole time I was reading, I kept seeing the witches in American Horror Story Coven - loved that season.  Like Coven, sisterhood is an important theme in this story.  Kappas always put their sisters first and never go against them.  They believe they're stronger together than individually, something that's proven true several times over by the end of the novel.  The different types of witches and their magic are explained well, and I enjoyed seeing their varieties of powers.

While I really didn't care for Scarlett in the beginning, she changed my mind by the end.  Initially she comes off as judgemental, elitist, and kind of a mean girl, especially when it comes to Vivi, but undergoes several changes and easily has the best character arc.  She drives the story.  With Vivi's flighty mother who packs up and moves them at the drop of a hat, she's missed stability in her life and has never lived anywhere long enough to make friends.  Being settled at college for four years and joining the Kappas fills those voids.  I would have liked more explanation about how she's suddenly able to use her power after a lifetime of not knowing she was a witch.    

Some of the relationships didn't feel natural to me.  Scarlett's relationship with another character that develops near the end feels forced and out of place - it didn't seem to fit.  And then there's Vivi, who has a sudden case of insta-love with the first guy who's nice to her.  The strong friendships between the girls are much more genuine.  

While a couple of twists are easy to see coming, there's still plenty of action, tension, and mystery to engage readers.  The title indicates this is a series, but with no cliffhangers, it felt like a natural ending to me.  If there's more to come, I'll definitely pick up the next book.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

*Review will be posted to my blog on Oct. 15, 2020*

**3.5 STARS**

Thank you to HMH Books for Young Readers and NetGalley for giving me a chance to read this eARC.

My Attention: read in 2 days

World Building: Westerly College in Georgia

Writing Style: easy to read

Crazy in Love: some romance

Creativity: Sorority of witches

Triggers: violence, gore

My Takeaway: Don’t mess with a witch.

Likes:
*Love the diversity of these college witches, they come in all skin colors and races. The sisterhood between them shows even between Vivi and Scarlett who have a rough start with one another.

*The story is fun and even creepy at times. Even though these witches don’t mess with black magic, there is a villain who does! The twist is something I guessed earlier in the story but I did like how it took to the next level creepy.

*I enjoyed learning the history of Kappa Rho Nu. The witches being Tarot Card signs is different and it worked!
Scarlett is not as perfect as she seems! She has secrets and they catch up to her and her best friend Tiffany.

*I like the ending when it gets super dark and creepy! Definitely gets me in the mood for Fall reading and Halloween. The story reminded me of The Craft (movie) and Sabrina (Netflix show).

Random Notes:
Vivi was a little weak. She’s this girl dying to get away from her tarot reading/fortune teller mother and a life of always moving around. I liked the reveal at the end explaining why her mom raised her that way but personality-wise, Vivi had strong magic and that’s it! I just wanted a little more from her.

*The love triangle involved Scarlett, Vivi and Scarlett’s ex-Mason. It didn’t overtake the story, thank goodness.

Final Thoughts:
This story made me want to rewatch the movie The Craft so bad! The Ravens is fun, creepy, witchy and we got sisters who have each other’s backs. It’s perfect for the Halloween Fall season.

**I received this book from netgalley in exchange for a review**

"Magic didn't preach. It gave and took. This was the gift. This was the cost."†

If you feel like you’ve read this before, it’s probably because you have. The Ravens is a frankensteins-monster mishmash of every university magic secret society I’ve read/ seen before. It fails to bring anything new to the table. The magic system is boring, and the verbiage of the spells themselves is painfully cheesy. There isn’t even anything interesting about the main characters. They don’t particularly have any personalities, and are more or less interchangeable.

The new-girl-versus-upperclassman-mean-girl (over a boy with the appeal of stale bread) is soooo overdone. I honestly kept wishing this was gonna flip the script and give me some bi-girl f/f, but alas...

Vivi has approximately one (1) brain cell. I’m not really sure about this weird yearning relationship with breadboy since Vivi likes to throw around words like love and heartache when they’ve had three conversations?? Both (all three I guess??) "romances" in this book are, frankly, awful. The long-term relationship established before the start of the novel ended with zero fanfare. I'm so down for emotionally mature breakups, but both of them seemed entirely indifferent to ending things despite past implications that they wanted to spend their lives together? It was just really awkward to read. And then the two new romances developed** from NOWHERE (**i hesitate to even use the word "develop" because that implies there was some sort of organic growth).

Nothing happens in the first half of this book. I almost DNF'd, though I'm glad I didn't. At around 60%, sh*t hits the fan. But, whew, that was a long intro... all of that info dumping could have been condensed in between climactic scenes. The twist was meh, because it was so obvious. I called it in one of the first chapters.

This wasn’t a bad read, but it wasn’t a particularly good one either. I’m not super invested in continuing with the series... but I do like witchy ladies, so maybe someday, if I can remember this amidst a stream of other series doing the same thing (albeit slightly better).

†check against final text

I absolutely ADORED this book. It was a really fun read. The witchy elements felt dark while not reaching into adult territory. This is a really accessible fantasy because it's set in the real world at a college and just feels really familiar. The main characters were really interesting and I love how the two POVs complimented each other. There are a couple of scenes of mild gore, but I don't think they were overly descriptive or too much. Definitely a great read and I highly recommend!

Modern day sorority witches?! Sign me up!!

I was totally hooked by the premise of this book, a coven of college aged female witches masked as a sorority, told from the perspective of one rising senior aiming to be Sorority President who is hiding a secret from her past, and told from an incoming freshman who is trying to find where she belongs.

I could NOT put it down. It’s very campy, and a tad bit cheesy, but they’re 21 year old witches, what do you expect?! It’s Mean Girls but with magic. I loved every word of it, I think it is going to be a huge success for Danielle Paige and Kass Morgan. Thrilled to get to read an advanced copy, thank you NetGalley.

4.5 stars rounded up.

Great dual POV that also has deep POV of the characters. This book has two authors and they do a great job seamlessly integrating all those aspects together. This is a New Adult/college story with a YA feel. 

This is for you if you like magical realism, stories about finding your own path, sisterhood/friendship above all else, and/or a good mystery (though I wasn’t surprised by the end).

What a fun and refreshingly new tale involving modern day witches! What a way to hide coven - in a sorority. It takes hell week to another level! The novel alternates between 2 narrators. One is the Raven sorority President hopeful, Scarlett, who has dark secrets in her past which may prevent her her candidacy. Next is college bound Vivi, who has no idea she's real witch after years of calling her mother a fraud for reading the cards. The two characters are paired together as Big and Little as they uncover secrets and magic surrounding the sorority. The Ravens is a light and fun read. There's a lot of character building in this story. I'm looking forward to seeing where book 2 takes all these characters.

A great first book in a new series. If you love witches, betrayal, and secrets then look no further. A wonderful collaboration between these two well known authors.
Thank you to NetGalley, Edelweiss, and HMH Books for Young Readers for the opportunity to read and review The Ravens by Kass Morgan and Danielle Page.
#TheRavens
#MustRead2020YA

Although I don't like sororities, I love ravens, so this YAFF book was a must-read for me. Bestselling authors Kass Morgan and Danielle Paige cleverly take a twist on the fact that cliquey sorority girls are often called 'witches,' and literally turned their characters into them!

As a cross between The Craft and Mean Girls, reading The Ravens is some of the most fun I've had in awhile. The pace is easy, the characters well-developed and loveable, and their adventures spooky yet hilarious. 

The Ravens will definitely be a favorite among readers who love to read about bffs, college experiences, and dark secrets.

Thank you Anna R and HMH Books for the ARC!

I really enjoyed the book. The characters were really relatable. My attention was held the whole time. I didn't have a difficult time following along. The prose was well written, not overly poetic which I like. Overall, I give this novel 4/5 stars. There was something missing that I couldn't put my finger on, but I still highly recommend this novel.

It has been a hot minute since I have found a spooky, witchy little tale to sink my teeth into. Luckily The Ravens provided just about everything I had been craving.

It’s a little bit The Secret Circle and quite a bit of The Craft, but it somehow takes the good parts of those witchy icons and melds them into something that matches the time we’re living in. For the most part at least.

Let’s jump right in, shall we? 

The Ravens follows two very different members of the exclusive, secretive Kappa sorority house. Vivi, a freshman recruit, has bounced around from town to town for all of her life and has never found a home or family to call her own. Scarlett, a junior vying for the sorority’s presidency, is the latest in a long line of her ambitious family’s powerful witch-y lineage. When things start going threateningly awry in their house, the girls begin to realize that there is nothing more powerful than a witch scorned. 

Where this book truly shines is the pure cinematic quality of it. For real, this book is crying out to be adapted by the CW. And as an avid lover of trash CW shows, I had a blast picking through the chanted spells present throughout the pages and imagining wind picking up threateningly as bad omens. The atmosphere of this book is undoubtedly a mix of camp, horror, and gothic aesthetics. It was great.

The deep female friendships and loyalties in the book were good as well. These are girls that love each other for more than each other’s magic. And we see the love persist, even when bonds strain.

Speaking of strained bonds, I’m going to chat about Scarlett and Vivi. Vivi was fine, her dialogue flowed naturally and I really liked how she interacted with Ariana and even Mason-- though I really don’t like that they felt the need to include this tired trope of Vivi “falling in love” with Scarlett’s longtime boyfriend. I’ll hop to that in a second. Vivi was fine, but she was very mild. We kept hearing and hearing about how her powers are so great-- once in a lifetime kind of witch-- and she… doesn’t really do much at all. We also don’t know why she’s so great?

Vivi, to me, was a placeholder in Scarlett’s tale. Which is funny because I spent about 65% of the story not liking Scarlett. When we first see Scarlett interact with Vivi, she is rude and elitist, making fun of Vivi for her choice in clothes and hair-- just really catty shit that came from nowhere. She is also jealous and slightly controlling of her longtime BF, Mason. I think that a great deal of the Scarlett v. Vivi tension didn’t particularly need to be in there. There so could have been a way to put these two in conflict that didn’t stem from the usual “jealousy over a boy”. (Also, I’m sorry but I don’t care what kind of “blessing” you give, it’s shitty to date someone who your friend had been dating for years.)

BUT. Scarlett had an absolutely fabulous character evolution over the course of the novel and I ended up really rooting for her. She became the one I was glued to for every page. (Though I wish we would have gotten a bit more with Jackson.)

The mystery aspect of the book wasn’t super groundbreaking, but it did have some cool twists; some that I saw coming, some that I did not!

The descriptions, coupled with the gothic atmosphere are what really makes this story shine. I can just picture myself being snuggled up in bed with some popcorn rooting, jumping when wild ravens appear. 

So yeah, there were some aspects of the book that I really enjoyed! Though it wasn’t done in an overwhelmingly original manner, it was a good-time book! It was what you expect from a spooky YA story about a coven of witches!

(One more thing: Goodreads says this is apart of a series, but it didn’t really leave it open for another book, so I’m curious if that’s really the case?)

3.5/5


**Thank you to #NetGalley for giving me an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Blog Review (Live on 7/28): https://www.chill-with-jill.com
Instagram Post (Live on 7/28): https://www.instagram.com/chillwithjillsbooks/

4.5/5 stars - To Be Released in January 2021.
Thank you NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children's Book Group for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

The Ravens takes place at Westerly College, a Southern college campus in Savannah, Georgia.  Kappa Nu Rho is the smallest, and most exclusive, sorority on campus.  And for good reason - if you want a bid, you better be a witch.  This novel rotates between the perspective of freshman Vivi and junior Scarlett.  Vivi has no idea she is a witch and attends Westerly against the wishes of her mother.  Scarlett comes from a family of Kappa and Westerly alum and is under pressure from her family to become the next Kappa president.  The junior pledge class of Kappa has a dark secret, one that will turn all of the Kappa's world upside down. 

This book was a lot of fun to read and kept you on toes.  There were a lot of twists, turns, and revelations you won't see coming, even if you think you know what's about to happen.  The Southern atmosphere lends to the mystery that unfolds as we learn more about the coven's past.  There are a lot of fun pop culture references and I also enjoyed seeing many of Georgia's iconic locations coming into play.  The writers do a great job blending the lifestyle of being a member of Greek life in with the bond and power the sisters have of being part of a coven.   Any one who enjoys mysteries, books involving witches (duh), and/or stories of friendships and the strengths and hardships that come with it will enjoy The Ravens.

What a fun and refreshingly new tale involving modern day witches!  What a way to hide coven - in a sorority.  It takes hell week to another level!  The novel alternates between 2 narrators.  One is the Raven sorority President hopeful, Scarlett, who has dark secrets in her past which may prevent her her candidacy.   Next is college bound Vivi, who has no idea she's real witch after years of calling her mother a fraud for reading the cards.  The two characters are paired together as Big and Little as they uncover secrets and magic surrounding the sorority.  The Ravens is a light and fun read.  There's a lot of character building in this story.  I'm looking forward to seeing where book 2 takes all these characters.