Thank you to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This book made me feel ALL the emotions. However, I really wasn’t comprehending anything until I got to about 41%. After that, it was still rocky in some areas, but I eventually pieced it all together enough to get the gist of everything. I think.

This is my first Hannah Capin book, so I was realllllly being patient with the writing style at the beginning, but I still found myself getting somewhat exasperated by the repetition. I feel like the lyrical writing got in the way of answering some major plot points for me. Some of them (like the time frame of this story) was answered in the last chapter, but I’m still so curious about the age of these girls, what kind of camp/school they are at, and what ever actually happened??? (Maybe this was a writing strategy to make us, the reader, feel like we are trying to piece everything together alongside Margaret? Which, if that is the case, it is cool yet still so confusing for the first 100 pages).

I also wish there were some added backstory and development to the setting because I couldn’t really connect with any of the Navy terms. I’m not sure if Neverland is more like summer camp or boot camp.

Also, even if this summer program were going on in the late 1950’s, how could they get away with operating after multiple fatal accidents???

However.

I am willing to push these questions aside because I actually loved the plot and was feeling A LOT of emotions while reading this. It was heartfelt, horrifying, and was hard to read at times, and I enjoyed it overall!!!

I Am Margaret Moore by Hannah Capin is a young adult paranormal thriller written in an almost prose style. Along with the different writing style this one also jumps around between timelines in the story in a unique fashion. The story is based at Marshall Naval School and involves four girls, Margaret, Rose, Flor, and Nisreen. Something happened one summer the girls came together and things have never been the same since.

I’ve read Hannah Capin before so the writing style wasn’t a surprise but while I wasn’t a huge fan of the style I didn’t mind it in the past. However, this time around I didn’t feel the book flowed well at all and a lot of the time I felt it got repetitive. What really bothered me though after wading through was I could probably tell the entire story in a couple of sentences so I felt like this was one long teen angst ramble that went nowhere surprising.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Margaret Moore and the Deck Five girls have spent each summer learning about Naval Academy life. They are a close knit group of friends, and this summer, Margaret isn't at camp. The other Deck Five girls want to know what happened to her last summer, when she left camp unexpectedly. As the mystery unfolds, the tragedy of Margaret Moore is revealed and avenged.

This is a ghost story mystery that is way too confusing for most readers. The timeline is difficult to follow, and details don't seem to connect. The ending does tie everything together, but the rest of the story didn't hold my interest.

Thankyou Netgalley for the advanced copy of I am Margaret Moore. 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?

I really enjoyed the friendship between the girls, and Hannah Capin brings back her signature lyricism from Foul Is Fair, but brings it up to 11. However, it became at points a little repetitive and difficult to follow. Not quite as propulsive as her past two books, of which I continue to be a massive fan.

I thought I understood what was going on until about halfway through the book. I kept reading knowing it would all make sense in the end, and it did! I enjoyed reading this book and the twists and turns.

#bookreview of #iammargaretmoore
5 STARS
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#paranormalthriller is part of this book's description and it did not disappoint.
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The beginning starts us off with hints of a terrible secret, the bond of friendship, and love.
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This type of story is meant to be a bit confusing because our narrator herself is a bit confused but that only made me excited to see the whole story unfold. Hang in there because the story as a whole makes you see the beginning in a whole new light.
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Margaret and her friends crave the truth and let me just say we get to know all the horrible scary details.
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Loved the writing and the ending was beautiful and tragic and satisfying and I loved every word.

Release date: 3/15/2022
Thank you St Martins Press, @netgalley and #wednesdaybooks for an early copy to read and give an unbiased review.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. It was fast paced, and was on the spooky side. I felt that the final outcome of it was easy to predict, but I still enjoyed the read.

I Am Margaret Moore is an unflinching and captivating story about the girls of Deck Five. Girls who have spent their summers together at Marshall Naval School. They've sailed together for years and now as this final summer has arrived it all feels the same but different. It's a haunting story and as a follow up to Capin's Foul Is Fair I was expecting I Am Margaret Moore to entrance me and sweep me up in every event as they passed. Capin has a unique and bewitching writing style and while I didn't adore this book as much as I hoped I would, the writing was superb once again.

From the first page this book was mysterious and while it was easy enough to figure out that something was up with Margaret, as well as the general idea of what was going on, I still was hooked on wanting to find out exactly what had happened to her. The further the story unfolded the more I found myself getting frustrated with my confusion over enjoying it. There were numerous portions of the book that seemed to drag because without answers the plot ended up running in circles. The more that Margaret got confused the more frustrated I got. From an overall story view I can understand why Capin chose to write the plot the way that she did, honestly I could see this becoming a really well done movie, but without being able to piece together a timeline or having visuals of everything that happened it was impossible to fully understand what was going on. It was a dark and devastating plot however and I did find myself captivated by it overall.

Something that I enjoy about Capin's books is that she writes messy characters. The girls are not perfect and they make a lot of mistakes, albeit deadly ones. Margaret Moore, being the titular character got all of the attention and unfortunately I think that detracted from the story overall. I was really hoping to get to know the other Deck Five girls better especially considering how Margaret exclaimed from the get go that they were so close. With the odd time jumps and extremely open ending about everything I couldn't help but leave this story wanting more. As everything began to unfold we saw bits and pieces of how her friends moved forward but I personally didn't think there was quite enough closure.

Now Capin does have a writing style that isn't for everyone but if you've read Foul Is Fair and enjoyed it or if you enjoy incredibly lyrical writing I would recommend giving this book a try. It had a lot of potential for me and as I've thought about it more, I just kept going back to hoping we would get just a little bit more. So when that little bit more never came I felt underwhelmed. I think I'll sum it up with it wasn't bad but it wasn't what I had hoped for either.

→ 4 stars
★ ★ ★ ★
tw: gore, death, teen pregnancy, sl*t shaming

thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Lyrical and haunting I Am Margaret Moore is a book you won't be able to forget.

Reading this book was truly a unique experience. The author's writing style definitely isn't for everyone, but I really enjoyed it. The first third of this book moved pretty slow but did a great job of building up to the action. And while the details helped paint a vivid picture, I feel like some scenes were over-detailed, and focused too much on one thing. I also had a hard time following the dialogue and most of the navel-y (?) terms.

The turn this story took was wild. I predicted one main point in the story (yay me), but there were SO many twists and turns. And I think the cryptic, poetic writing style really helped with the dark and dramatic effect.

Watching Margaret slowly unravel the details of the summer was thrilling and gave me literal goosebumps. I absolutely loved the last chapter (if we can call it that) with the four together again. Honestly, my only complaint about the ending is I think after the BIG big reveal, the story kind of dragged on.

Overall this was a unique and dark book that I really enjoyed and very much recommend.

**Disclaimer: I received a free early access copy of I Am Margaret Moore by Hannah Capin through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for this opportunity.

I Am Margaret Moore by Hannah Capin is a young adult paranormal mystery/thriller.  The story is about a teenage girl named Margaret Moore who returns to her yearly summer camp for the last time, but something bad happened the previous year and they have to figure out what exactly happened.  I rated this five stars on Goodreads.  It is set to be published on March 15th, 2022.


Here's the summary from Goodreads:

Lyrical and haunting, Hannah Capin's I Am Margaret Moore is a paranormal thriller that tests the hold of sisterhood and truth.
I am a girl. I am a monster, too.
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? 

This book is not going to be for everyone.  Initially, I wasn't even sure if I was going to like this book.  I was excited to request it because I loved Hannah Capin's first two books, and didn't realize she had another one coming out.  However, when I picked it up, I found it kind of slow and hard to get into.  Once I got into it, however, I pretty much couldn't put it down.

The writing of this novel is just as the blurb says: lyrical.  It almost reads like poetry at places and I was really obsessed with how it was written.  It was super impressive to me.  However, I can see where not everyone would enjoy it.  It just really worked for me.  However, I will say that the inclusion of the navy terms was a little confusing because there wasn't really an explanation for most of them and sometimes it was hard to puzzle the definition out from context.

Story wise, I liked the structure of layering in the flashbacks so that the what happened last summer was slowly revealed.  It kept me guessing and needing to read to find out what exactly happened.  I didn't expect the twist/big reveal and I kind of loved that and love the twist itself.  I just really didn't expect it.  I won't spoil it because it's really important to not know the twist going in.

As I mentioned, it is a slower starting book, but this ended up working out for me.  I just found the story very haunting and I think it's one that will stay with me for awhile.  Again, this book won't be for everybody, but I do recommend that you check it out when it publishes in March of next year.

The ambiance of this book stood out so boldly. There were parts that I had to go back and think about because I was very confused. I'm looking forward to others reading it so we can chat about it!

I liked the idea of this when I first requested this, and the cover is definitely my style.

However the writing style of this really let this down. Aside from the narrator being unreliable, none of the characters really had a personality so it was difficult to connect to anyone at all. I disliked this so much I found it difficult to get through.
Adding to this I wasn't a fan of the military aspect, I didn't grasp that in the synopsis because I didn't realise that "Marshall Naval School" meant it was a Navy Summer School - which is on me to be honest.

I wouldn't recommend this to anyone to be honest.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I Am Margaret Moore is the story of 17-year-old Margaret, who returns each summer to the Marshall Naval School with her best friends Rose, Nisreen, and Flor. There's something different this summer though, and it's not just the knowledge that this is their first class summer, their last summer together before they start their lives in different corners of the world. This summer, time is out of joint. It's second class summer, it's third class summer, it's their Butterfly summer when they first met at 9 years old with grass-stained knees, it's the summer Margaret was 4 and fell off the pier into the lake, it's first class summer and they are seventeen.

If you found that last sentence confusing, buckle up. I Am Margaret Moore is told in non-linear fashion and almost entirely in metaphors. The blurb describes this book as "lyrical" but "verse formatted to look like prose" may be more accurate. For the first 2/3 of this book I wasn't sure about much: whether I liked the story, the writing style, the characters, whether I was even going to make it through. The plot felt slow and meandering, the characters seemed fairly flat. I wondered when the thrilling part of this thriller would start happening. I was sure this would be a solid 2 stars.

And then! Oh my goodness, and then! At 67% something shifted and this book fell into perfection. The plot goes from 0 to 100. Margaret suddenly gets a personality and some spunk, and I understood why she didn't hand much before. Little things that I thought made no sense suddenly clicked into place. For a book that I had been reading knowing exactly what would happen next, I suddenly wasn't sure where things were going. I started this book feeling like Hannah Capin was just a bit pretentious and finished it thinking she just might be a genius.

I want to add two caveats here: #1: I truly love well-written books that confuse the hell out of me. Nothing makes me love a story more than having no idea what's going on and trying to put the pieces together. If you like to know what's going on at all times when you read, this will not be the book for you.

And caveat #2: I see many reviews saying the twist was obvious. Without spoilers, I think these people might be misunderstanding what the twist is. I too was frustrated for the first half of the book, thinking I was being insulted as a reader, the author assuming I couldn't pick up on what was going on. However, what I assumed would be the twist was not it (it's really just more of a plot point you're assumed to have figured out before Margaret does), and I honestly think this was one of the least insulting-to-my-intelligence books I've read in a long time. Capin doesn't spoon feed us anything, trusting the reader to put together the pieces she's given us, and I love her for it.

This book will definitely not be for everyone. I can imagine many more people will hate it than love it, and that's perfectly understandable. As I stated, the writing is mostly metaphors. There is a lot of repetition. A LOT of repetition. But it's repetition with a purpose, and the payoff is so very worth it.

Content warnings: murder (on-page, fairly graphic), accidental death (on-page, not graphic), rape (on-page, non-violent), unwanted pregnancy, botched abortion, misogyny, military themes

I received a copy of I Am Marget Moore from Netgalley and Wednesday Books.

I thought this book was going to be a thriller and while it was thrilling this book was wholly unexpected.

The writing is a stunner.

The book is about Margaret Moore a girl who spends her summers at a naval camp. Only this summer is different because of what happened last year. A secret that can't be spoken.

If you like books written as poetry, this is one you will definitely enjoy! I am conflicted as the way the story is written was quite confusing with jumping around between second summer and first summer, with second summer being first, ummm that was confusing in itself!
Margaret Moore has a secret that she has kept from her closest friends at their summer camp at Marshall Naval School! It is a full of early wake ups and grueling activities but somehow these girls love it more than the real world. Unfortunately, the real world still comes in to play at the end of each summer!
Margaret Moore’s secret will be kept by the girls of Deck Five. There are suspicious deaths and missing teens all centered around a storm that becomes clear in the end!
Enjoyable if you can get through the writing style or if you really enjoy poetry! Hang in because the overall story is good and the ending is one of the best that I have read in awhile! Thank you Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!

There should definitely be TW for: rape/sexual assault, abortion, and even murder. This book surprised me with all the dark themes. It’s a VERY heavy read—lots of depressing content, and the ending is bittersweet.

I figured out early on that this story had happened long ago & that Margaret was unaware decades had passed, but there was still a lot that confused me. With her shifting back and forth through time, it made the story difficult to follow.

I Am Margaret Moore by Hannah Capin is a great book. I loved the setting, the plot, and the characters!

3 for neutral, I tried on multiple occasions to read this one, but was unable to get into it enough to finish! I will update if able to finish at a later date, but it’s just a bit too sad and slow for me, at this time!

Honestly, this was hard to get through and it did not make for an enjoyable reading experience for me. It's lyrical and it felt like I was reading poetry the whole time. I'm not a fan of poetry, which is why this book was not for me. However, I can see some people really loving this book so don't let my review put you off of you think this is a writing style that could work for you.

The overall premise is that you know something happened to Margaret Moore, but you're not sure what exactly, and you're not sure who should be held accountable. These questions are answered as the book unfolds, but, you know, spoilers. I'm not gonna lie though - even though these questions are answered, I don't think I really understood it all. It was kind of hard to follow.

From the first chapter, I was confused as to what was going on as it seemed to blend a narrative structure with a lyrical first person point of view so my brain pretty much said "no." I pushed on because I like to finish all the ARCs I receive, but I do think this is one that I would have DNF'd early on due to the writing style. That being said, there were a few interesting bits in here and I do think it was creative so I think 2 stars is an appropriate rating for me.

I do want to hit on one general thing - this author is really trying some different things and even though I didn't like this one, I feel like I'd still pick her books up in the future. I loved Dead Queens Club and gave it 5 stars, wasn't as crazy about Foul is Fair and I think I gave it 2-3 stars, and now this one I like even less. The thing I want to shed some light on is that each one of these books is not like the other. Hannah Capin seems like the type of author that just wants to try her hand at a bit of everything and won't let herself be pigeon-holed into one style. I think that's really admirable. Maybe I won't like everything that she does, but I am curious to see what she comes up with next.