I Am Margaret Moore is written in beautiful, flowing, poetic language, but was not enjoyable for me, as I found myself reading to understand instead of enjoyment. I can’t even tell you exactly what happened with the story, because I found myself confused after finishing it. I think a girl fell in love with a boy, got pregnant, and he murdered her. I think her friends then killed him, but I’m not sure what is dreamed or imagined. This was not for me.

I Am Margaret Moore read more like a poem but at the same time, it didn’t. This book confused me so much at the beginning until it didn’t. This story made me so incredibly mad for women every where & especially women in places where their rights aren’t respected or are ignored.

“I do not believe in monsters that curl beneath girls’ beds and suck their blood. I believe in monsters with wide smiles, beautiful and bright, that live in grand old Victorians; that push girls into the mud; that take our voices and tell us what we are.” - Hannah Capin

I Am Margaret Moore tells the story of one girl and her group of friends who are just screaming to tell the story of a girl who was wronged by a man who promised her the moon and then some only to turn his back on her. It also showed just what happens to girls and women who dare to speak out against injustices against them & pin the consequences of actions on a man of “influence”. Because.. this man was never held accountable by the law or his peers. This man was able to keep his stature and influence while the young girl was labeled as a cautionary tale.

I thoroughly enjoyed the entirety of this book that made me so mad and yet so incredibly sad at the same time.

Maybe it’s the ebook format, but this story was very hard to get into. I had difficulty following the disjointed storyline and ended up abandoning this one after about 10% in. Maybe I’ll give it a try again sometime, but for now I’ll read a different book. Thanks for the opportunity to read this one before its publishing date.

This book is a unique take on the prep school thriller. Every summer, boys and girls gather at Marshall Naval School to show off their sailing prowess, and despite the strict discipline, they find moments to themselves, where their secrets both bind them together and tear them apart.

Capin's writing is both lyrical and repetitive, revealing the plot thread by thread. Her style is reminiscent of novels in verse, but sheers slightly more on the side of prose. I wasn't totally sold on the style.

I guessed the first of two twists in the first few pages. So quickly, in fact, that I'm not totally sure if it was supposed to be a twist? But it isn't explicitly stated until much later in the book. I'm staying vague here in case it was a twist. But I was motivated to keep reading to get the full story.

I loved the ending details so much, especially how the glass on a certain photo kept cracking inexplicably. Great finish to a unique story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the advance review copy of this book.

I really love Hannah Capin's writing style, lyrical prose yet modern, easy to read but poetic. Her stories are deliciously feminist and powerful in a way that is so important to women everywhere, now more than ever. I Am Margaret Moore is no exception and even though it was a heartbreaking yet all too familiar narrative it is also a battle cry and a promise of sisterhood throughout the ages.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I am Margaret Moore is an experience that I can't really explain as I don't fully understand it. I cannot give an accurate summary for you as it would give too much away (though you will find it obvious).

I very rarely ever give books a one star rating. I practically have to loathe everything about it as many books may fail on one level but shine on another. I Am Margaret Moore does not shine at all. It is written in some kind of poetic verse where the flow of words means more than what is actually being said. You have to wade through all that nonsense to try and pick out the plot. That opens a whole other list of problems. There are so many characters and time jumps that I found myself begging for it to amount to something and end. The attempt at a massive reveal falls flat and you begin to wonder if you've read it before due to similar plot points to other novels.

I cannot, in my right mind, recommend this novel to anyone. This choppy attempt at art missed the mark and did not find it's audience with this reviewer. Read at your own risk, and we'll be here when you're frustrated beyond belief.

DNF @ 10%

The story is incredibly confusing bcuz of the authors lyrical writing. It’s telling everything instead of showing us literally anything. At 10%, I felt like I should have learned something at all about these characters, and I hadn’t. I just don’t think I’ll get through this and enjoy any of it.

I went into this book open minded, but unfortunately, it just wasn't for me. The actual story and content wasn't bad, it just wasn't something that I enjoyed and had a hard time getting through. 

To start off, I didn't like Hannah's other book, Foul is Fair either. Honestly, I was kind of vibing with the plot and the prose, but the triggering plot line that had no warning, sent me into a full panic attack and that was not fun. I wanted to give her new book a fair shot, but unfortunately, I just wasn't vibing with it and had to DNF.

The biggest difference between the two books was that the prose was strange and I've never been a fan of trying to be ultra-lyrical to create confusion or mystery in a book. I couldn't follow along with anything that was going on because it was being coded or extra confusing and I understood nothing. It was like the book was written for prose, but decided to be poetry instead. Now, I usually don't have a problem with poetry or poetry based stories, but this was just made no sense to me. In addition, I don't want to have to reread paragraphs of text in order to understand of the story and the scene. 

It's sad too, because I was kind of interested in what the mystery of this boy was and what was going to happen. We hadn't gotten into the full plot line yet but I was too lost to keep going forward. The setting, the writing style, and really everything about this book was just not for me. I wasn't vibing with it and couldn't push myself to keep going. So, unfortunately, I had to DNF at 25%. 

I'm not sure if this author's books are meant for me, but I'm glad I at least gave this book a try.

I DNF'd this one. I couldn't get behind the writing style and upon looking at other reviews, it seems like it doesn't get much better.

DNF @41%

Well, I tried. But this book is just too confusing, and half of the time I don't know what's going on. The writing style also isn't my favorite. There were a lot of repetitive sentences and the story was all over the place. This book just wasn't for me.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The first half was so confusing and it left a lot to be desired. You basically in this book are left trying to figure out what happened to Margaret Moore but you don’t start to even have a semblance of an idea until around 60%? and I almost didn’t finish it but powered through due to this being an ARC. I wish I liked this more because there were so many interesting bits and I love YA mysteries. they’re so much fun! However this was just a complete miss for me and the pacing felt really weird and off. 1.5 stars. Thank you netgalley for providing an arc!

So this book is not going to be for everyone..

The writing style was a bit strange and it’s prose-like. It was hard to work out what was going on and really place the people, setting, and timeframe together. It was choppy sometimes back and forth in time. If that idea frustrates you, it might not be the book for you.

However, if you can just sort of go with the flow and let the story unfold the way it wants to without trying to work out all the details, it was totally worth the effort and absolutely amazing.

I really enjoyed this book. I enjoyed Margaret and her rage and I felt so emotionally invested in her.

Sometimes I read books without reading the synopsis.. I’ve had the book on my TBR for awhile and it sounded good when I snagged an early copy and I just kind of assumed it was a summer contemporary. It was.. but it wasn’t. I’m glad I didn’t reread the synopsis or try to expect a genre or anything because I felt surprised by the direction of the story and I felt like I did not see any of it coming. I mean.. I don’t want to spoil anything at all, but there were just so many emotions and shock! I am still so outraged about what happened..

I highly recommend this book, but I also highly recommend maybe checking out a sample before deciding.. it’s not an easy book to just slide into, but it was absolutely worth the read.

As much as I wanted to, I couldn't like this book. It took me forever to drag through it. I kept hoping it would make more sense, but it seemed to keep repeating itself over and over and it wasn't until literally the VERY end that it made any kind of sense. And while I might have been willing to wait that long to find out the truth (spoiler, I knew Margaret was dead from almost the get go), the style of the book and the characters really weren't enough to keep me engaged. I only finished it because I kept hoping it would improve.

Disappointing, but thank you for the opportunity to review.

This was another clever read from Hannah Capin, although, this novel had a different vulnerability present. It did tend to fall too heavy on the particulars of the sport but still remained a solid read.

Thank you to Wednesday Books for my copy in exchange for an honest review.
This was genuinely a good book just not my style. Once I got further into it, it was easier to read.
3,5 stars.

I want to provide the best possible review I can of this one, but this was a plot that truly just lost me a lot of the time. The story is broken up into these mini-segments with a title. There are not really chapters. It's just these headings and thoughts. It feels like a poetry book, but it's not poetically written. So, at first, I kind of enjoyed that, but then I started to get confused. I wasn't sure where I was in the timeline of the story or who was talking to me.

I struggled to get any of the characters to be fleshed out. They all felt one-dimensional, only living with Margaret Moore, and not existing without her in the picture. The girls all felt almost as though they were one person, and it made me never find a connection with one of them or their story.

This one was not for me. I liked the location and setting, but the way the story was told really threw me, and I wasn't ever able to find a way to enjoy it.

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this one.

Thank you so much St. Martin's Press and Wednesday Books for this advance ebook copy!
I could have screamed when I got this email!.😘

I Am Margaret Moore by Hannah Capin was such a wonderful book!
This is why I love a good YA/Thriller story! And Capin did such an outstanding job with this one. Now I've got to read her two other books and hope they're as amazing as this was!
People should go nuts over this anticipated book!

What I loved:
The creepy, twisted turns this book took.
The writing is honestly unlike anything I've read before! Its absolutely amazing!
These characters are divine and the tension is outta this world here!
This is one book you need to add to your TBR pile because it f'ing wild!

Thanks again NetGalley, Publisher and Author for the chance to read and review this amazing book!
I'll post to my Social media platforms closer to pub date!

Synopsis:
Each summer the girls of Deck Five come back to Marshall Naval School. They sail on jewel-blue waters; they march on green drill-fields; they earn sunburns and honors. They push until they break apart and heal again, stronger.

Each summer Margaret and Rose and Flor and Nisreen come back to the place where they are girls, safe away from the world: sisters bound by something more than blood.

But this summer everything has changed. Girls are missing and a boy is dead. It’s because of Margaret Moore, the boys say. It’s because of what happened that night in the storm.

Margaret’s friends vanish one by one, swallowed up into the lies she has told about what happened between her and a boy with the world at his feet. Can she unravel the secrets of this summer and last, or will she be pulled under by the place she once called home?

Review:

Thank you so much, Wednesday Books and Netgalley for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

While reading 'I am Margaret Moore', I went through so many emotions: sadness, anger, outrage for what our main character was going through, but even though this book evoked strong feelings in me, the only thing I could think about was how confused the plot made me. I tried so hard to like this, and I didn't, so it'll be a hard book for me to review.

Lets' first talk about the characters. I think that, at it's best moments, 'I am Margaret Moore' is very much a character driven book. Margaret was a layered character, which I appreciated, but I had some real problems with the other characters. I could feel the authors hand so much in this aspect, because it felt like all characters that weren't Margaret herself orbited around her, and only existed for her. Especially the boy from the storm: I knew nothing about his character, which kind of bothered me. I think that this was the intention of the book: to make things appear kind of hazy, but to me it felt kind of sluggish, and made it harder to connect with the book.

The plot and set-up was very intriguing, and by far the strongest part of this book. The plot twists were crazy, and to be honest, they were the only reason why I kept reading. I think that a lot of readers will connect strongly to this story, because it is very timely, in that it depicts female rage, and the #metoo movement.

The writing and pacing is where I had huge issues. The style is being called 'lyrical', but I don't think that's quite right. What you need to know is that the experience of reading this is like reading poetry, because the plot doesn't necessarily follow a linear timeline, and because at times it can feel nonsensical. However, I love reading poetry for the profound insights that it gives me as a reader, but, this book gave none of that. So sadly, it left me feeling empty, and ultimately, very, very confused. I also felt that the pacing of the story was way off. Like I mentioned earlier, it has a dreamlike quality to it that feels hazy, but it doesn't float along easily and beautifully like one would expect: instead it feels jarring and disturbing.

While taking all of these things into account, I didn't always understand the experimental ideas of 'I am Margaret Moore', but while I couldn't love it, or even like it, I'm trying my best to appreciate it.

Anticipation: 3.5: Synopsis is intriguing, paranormal thriller?!
Enjoyment: 1: WAIT WHAT OH NO

--> 1.75 stars.

I really enjoyed this book. There were thrills, mystery, and close friendships. It definitely got off to a slow start but quickly picked up about a third of the way through and by then I was so invested that I couldn't put it down. If you like thrillers and mysteries this is going to be the read for you.

TWs: sexual assault, blood, gore, death, abortion

I'm going to be honest, the blurb for I am Margaret Moore didn't really interest me, but because I loved Hannah Capin's last novel, Foul is Fair, so much I decided to read it anyway. As it turns out, it was an excellent spur of the moment decision on my part, because I ended up really loving it. It's been awhile l since I've read about rich people drama and this was a special kind, if for no other reason than the way Capin flawlessly captures raw emotions in her work.

I am Margaret Moore was a bit difficult to follow at times, and even though Margaret is supposed to be an unreliable narrator, I did think it got a little too convoluted at points. I don't mind unreliable narration, but I did feel like I ended up having to re-read parts multiple times. However, I still really enjoyed the book as a whole, especially when it came to Margaret and the rest of the Deck Five girls. Sisterhood was an important theme in Foul is Fair as well, and it's one of the reasons I ended up loving the book so much in both cases. There's a very wild, intense bond between all of the girls, Margaret, Rose, Nasreen and Flor, but it extends out to all of the girls, even though most of them are nameless and have no real role in the story.

I also really loved the plot twist, which I hadn't seen coming since I had forgotten that it wasn't pitched as a contemporary novel, and the way the story really began to bloom after the reader finds out. It definitely ended differently than I thought it was going to, but I really, really loved it. If it weren't for getting so confusing at times I'd have given it 5 stars, but I'm hoping that it's something that will have been smoothed over by the time the finished copy comes out.