Firstly, Thank you NetGalley fir this ARC.

This story was a wildly creepy story.

I would say this book had almost two storyline’s competing for the attention of the reader.
The first being the pearls, then the second being the love story.
I really enjoyed the struggles that came with the pearls yet felt unsatisfied at how their part in the story ended.
As for the love story, the conflict that it built to almost took away from it, I would have loved to see how Amelia handled the fall out the came.

However, this book left a lasting impression and I’m interested what others have to say.

- first line: “blood got everywhere and mother wasn’t happy about it”
- short chapters!!!
- the writing is easy to read, albeit a little more telling rather than showing
- a story about embracing what makes us different and finding a place we belong
- welp .. that took a turn
- i feel like the first 70-75% did not at all fit with the last 25-30% of the book?
- the ending felt rushed and out of place i guess?
- i was disappointed how a particularly sensitive topic was used as sort of a plot point and glossed over

I loved the unique plot of this story. It is perfect for budding horror fans. I loved how there were nods to fairy tales and nursery rhymes. Overall, this is a book you need to read.

4.5 out of 5 stars

WOW this was a bizarre potpourri of interesting concepts that weren't really explored fully, though the final result was certainly memorable. Something about the combination of the writing style and the near-constant one-upping of plot elements to be more and more sensational and surprising reminded me of a modern V. C. Andrews, which was great and terrible. If you like body horror, sideshows, or murder, this book is for you!

I got this vibe of if Rapunzel was a horror story and they were mermaids from the description and it was pretty much accurate, minus the mermaid part throughout the entire story. It was good, but I don't know if I want to read it again.

Thanks to #NetGalley and publishers for the ARC in exchange for a review of #ConstellationsofScars

I really enjoy the whole theme of this book revolving around embracing your differences and finding people who love and accept you for who you are, and I thought the concept was really unique! Up until the last 30%, this would have been a 4-star but that ending was just so out of place and changed the pace of the book so much.

I need a day to process my feelings here. Good book, but dang!! I’ll dig in to this tomorrow.

Okay, I’ve processed this book and I’m ready to share my thoughts!! First of all, this pearl thing had me interested from the start!!! I may be a weirdo but I seriously would love to see how that works!!!! Ahhhhh!!

Second, Amelia was such a cutie! I really liked her sweet, people pleaser personality. [*****spoiler alert*****
I also love Gabe!!! How adorable was he!!! I love how he clearly loves Amelia!!! I am hoping there’s a sequel just so I can see them come together. It would really be great!!!

There was something off about Peter from the beginning. But for a while, I thought maybe he was just a jerk. *****Spoiler over*****
Anyway, my point is, the characters really add to the story.

Third, that plot was soooo intriguing!! For a while it was like watching a car accident unfold. Can’t seem to look away!! Then it went at breakneck speed to the end. The whole book was smooth and easy to read. And that ending!!!!! Ahhhh!!!!

I also like the nod to Bluebeard by Charles Perrault

There are so many questions that I have about the ending, which is why I chose four stars instead of five. But if there’s a sequel to add to this, I might just have to change my rating to five stars!! I guess we’ll see.

I recommend this to YA lovers. And to those who love oddities.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Midnight Tide Publishing for allowing me to read this for my honest and unbiased opinion.

Will be posted on my blog and Amazon shortly.

**ARC provided by NetGalley for an Honest Review**
This book took me completely by surprise. The blurb had me intrigued from the start and the intrigue continued throughout the book. For a young woman who can grow and expel pearls from her skin I had no idea what to expect or where the author would take such a story. It was all very complex and fascinating, I couldn't look away. I love that the author incorporated so much and so many different topics within the story because I was definitely on edge throughout. My biggest complaint is the abrupt end. It feels as if it was left far too open for me. Even without an epilogue with a HEA there were so many threads left dangling and I have so many questions. It does end on a good note but I'm a girl who lives for an epilogue, & so for this book to not have one and also leave me hanging it takes some of the thrill away. Overall I think this was a truly unique and fun read, I certainly enjoyed it from start to finish and now I'm left hoping the author left it open for another book down the road. Then again this is an ARC so maybe the final copy will have a more expanded end. Either way it was a great read and I'd def recommend checking it out upon it's release :)

This book was not quite for me. However, here are the things I liked!

I loved the character development. The beginning was rich in detail and the body horror was done very well. The process of the pearls being shed was terrifying, but even more so was the relationship between the main character and her mother. A bit triggering because of the mental abuse.

I also loved the vivid and rich details of the “museum”. The descriptions of the characters (exhibits) was done with grace. They were able to give differently abled people a vastness of character that I haven’t seen before.

This is a book that has great potential from the beginning. The character Amelia has a very unique medical condition that that makes her not only an easy target for others, but for a mother that struggles to keep them fed. What starts first seems as a blessing, soon turns into a curse for Amelia as every month her body becomes a human oyster as it produces numerous pearls. Her body becomes a battle field as it is littered with scars from each pearl that is purged from the skin. She is a prisoner to her disease and her circumstance with her mother preventing her from leaving the house.

Once she finally is able to escape, the plot that seemed to start as a story about survival and finding where you belong kinda then goes all over the place. Everything almost comes easily for Amelia in the 'real world', hardly any hardships. She comes across a very trusting, kind man. She falls in with people who seem to except her. It all just seems so . . . perfectly fitting into an easy storyline.

Somewhere along the way though it is almost as if the author decided that the reader should get a twofer. You know a two-for-one deal on storylines because near the end of the book, almost out of left field, there is almost a dark killer subplot going on. I don't know if it really fits into the rest of the overall book or theme, but hey it's there.

Overall, what started out good deescalated and became a bit of a mess as things became lost in the jumble. Characters dialogue and overall growth became stagnant and rushed. I had potential, just be prepared

** Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to review the ARC of this book. The above review is mine so I will own it **

Amelia narrates what feels like a memoir, and due to that format I felt safe to assume that she would be ok (or at least alive) in the end. She never knew her father, and her mother refuses to speak about him. Other than that, she had a relatively normal childhood until puberty brought with it a strange affliction that made her feel like a human oyster. In addition to the monthly agony of shedding pearls that burst from her skin in a bloody mess, there was the constant pain of loneliness and a longing to be like other girls, with friends, slumber parties, and boyfriends. Amelia's mother won't even let her sit outside, never mind have any human interaction or go to school. She is kept in the house at all times, and when her mother goes out Amelia is locked in the attic. As she grows older she comes to realize that her mother's protection is more from greed than love and that is when she flees the confines of her mother's home. With no real knowledge of how the world works or how to interact with people other than what she learned from books, she makes her escape with the hope of building a life for herself.

Constellations of Scars lands somewhere between the borders of Grimm's fairy tale, and body horror. It is a unique coming of age story with a fast pace that kept me turning the pages.

Let me be long-winded for a moment.

IF you like horror-fantasy stories with a strong Rapunzel vibe, IF you don't mind being "told" more than "shown" because the 1st person narrator is literally recounting events to the reader, and IF you can enjoy a work because of a strong concept as opposed to strong writing/storytelling, than I would recommend this book. If the above doesn't sound quite up your alley, I'd pass on this. Sadly, I fall into the latter category and this book just didn't connect with me.

I also think, despite the horror aspect, this book is written at a very YA reading level and I think I wanted something a bit more mature given the subject matter.

I have received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Constellations of Scars gave me some Rapunzel (aka Tangled) meets The Greatest Showman vibes. Which, if I'm being completely honest - I'm not mad about. Instead of having glowing hair that can heal, Amelia can shed pearls once a month. Sounds gross and trust me - it was. I was very glad that I was eating anything when that was first happening.

Just like Mother Gothel, she keeps her in the house and makes sure she is there for every shedding. At first, Amelia didn't seem to care that she was hovering over her.. but when was getting older she didn't like it anymore. She just wanted to be alone while it was happening because it was very personal and she was always uncomfortable. Yet, mother dearest didn't care about that. She cared about her precious pearls.

Now you are probably wondering why I got the greatest showman vibes. Well, have no fear. Amelia finally went on her adventure after she gladly left her tower/Mother Gothel. She winds up at a museum full of some amazing characters that don't hide their true selves. The bearded lady sings and falls in love. Wolf boy is a sweet heart. Oh, and there's a murderer amongst the crew.

Details. Details. Just know that this was so hard to put down and very addicting. I loved the little twists towards the end. Even though I did predict some of what actually went down throughout this. Overall, loved the vibes and now I need to watch some movies.

I overestimated my ability to deal with an abusive mother character, so I'm going to be DNF-ing this one for my own mental health. But what I read was pretty decent!

Thank you to the publisher and to Netgalley for granting me access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Whenever I review a book that I personally don't like, I always make sure to find at least one point of recommendation for people. I know that everyone has different tastes, and what may not be for me could be someone else's favorite, or vice versa. However, I truly could not find anything about this book that I would use to persuade someone to read it. I'm going to write this review a bit different than how I normally write reviews, and I will not be placing it on my blog or sharing it via Twitter (I will be sharing it on Goodreads, though, as an explanation for my star-rating). I know that the author, editors, and publishers all took a lot of time and energy to produce this book, and I don't want to dwell on each piece of negative criticism for too long. So, instead of hashing out my thoughts in essay format, I'm going to just do bullet-points.
- The writing and pacing were very poor. Everything was told instead of shown to the point where it felt like the author was just listing off things that happened instead of painting a scene, and we never spent a lot of time developing any one point of the story, even in the beginning with the mother. This also made for a severe lack of emotional involvement from the reader's side of things.
- The dialogue was stale and stilted. It either felt too formal or too awkward, and most characters were just vague impressions instead of fully fleshed out.
- The last 30% of the book didn't fit with the first 70% at all. It made the whole ordeal with the troupe of performers feel unnecessary.
- The emotional reactions from various characters at the end didn't make any sense. All of the characters seemed either robotic and devoid of actual emotion, or they were completely fine after two pages. It made everything completely unrealistic and unbelievable.
- There was a particularly sensitive topic that became an important part of the end of the story, and I completely disagree with it being involved in this story. It was written poorly in various different ways, and it ended up being used more as a shock factor than actually contributing to the plot, deeming it completely unnecessary and distasteful.

This book sucked me in with the cover and this super interesting character named Amelia who once a month, has pearls erupt from under her skin.. I went into this thinking we were getting some magical reason for what happens to Amelia, but its never really discussed beyond the the fact that this weird thing happens to her every month. Something that has made her mother rich, made her mother home school her, and keep her locked up in the house in secret.

While I did really enjoy alot of the story, we see Amelia escaping her situation and finding a new family that while at first doesn't know about her pearl problem excepts her for who she is.. I really liked Gabe he seemed like a great guy doing his best to live with his problems. He and Amelia just kind of end up as friends and he isn't really mentioned again until the very end. Everything just seemed to move really fast. One minute Amelia is sleeping in a shelter, the next night she is staying in a new town with the family of her new friend. Then she has a job, a boyfriend, and feels like shes home.. The couple of tense moments like when her mother eventually finds her, comes and goes so fast it felt a bit like it didn't need to be included at all..

While we did get some glimpses that a certain character has some probable psychological issues they are only mentioned in passing. Even if Amelia comments on it, she just brushes it off. The ending twist was definitely one that I didn't see coming, but that coulld be because there was no build up at all.. So if felt like it came out of no where..

While I did go into this story thinking it was going to something completely different than it turned out to be, I did overall enjoy it. I think if we could have gotten more build up to the important events, and more of the actual story I could have liked it even more..

Hahahahahaha what happened? Why? This legit horrified me for some reason. The mix of body horror and emotional trauma and the complexity of family and boundaries and...yeah this is string horror.

This book took me by surprise. I won’t go into great detail and spoil it. But I truly enjoyed the book. The plot was very believable and the characters were easy to remember as you read on. I’d definitely recommend to a friend.

This book has such a unique concept it’s what initially pulled me in. That and the beautiful cover art.

The story follows Amelia a young girl with the ‘gift’ of being a human oyster. Each month she harvests her own pearls from her very own back.
With a controlling mother that’s locked her away and paints the world as a place full of monsters ready to exploit her, she sets about finding her independence and setting herself free.

This book was up and down for me. The plot was interesting and the writing quick paced to keep interest, I think my issue was at times it was almost too quick.
Some events went into great detail such as her time spent exploring the local library, which I enjoyed but other really quite major events were given less than a paragraph to get your head around. To me, it made the writing feel a bit jilted at times and had me stop and wonder how we got there so quickly with no deeper understanding of the characters feelings.

I did enjoy the character development in this book, the nature of Amelia situation does leave you consistently questioning her relationships and I felt an almost tense worry about her and the people she interacts with through the book.

I think I would have liked this book if anything to be a little longer, more relationship building between main characters and certainly lengthier scenes for some of the time gaps, at times I couldn’t work out of weeks, moths or years had passed.

That said it was an enjoyable read defiantly suitable for the YA category.
Thank you for providing me with an ecopy of this book in exchange for my impartial review.

I could not find anywhere if this was intended for a YA audience but it definitely reads like one. Very easy to speed through with the conflict not very fleshed out and resolved almost as fast as it was introduced. With that being send I love the concept (although I wouldn't consider it horror) and I enjoyed the first half of this book but the ending happened all in the last 15% which was way too fast for my taste. Overall I would reccomend this for a fun quick read.