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Our Crooked Hearts

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for the first time in possibly 4 years, i can't stop reading YA fantasy.

and i'm having a good time.

i love these characters.

melissa albert is an amazing writer - this is lovely, and scary, and stunning, and fun.

i loved the exploration of mothers and daughters, and the romance barely gets page time but i loved it anyway.

this might have been five stars if the perspective wasn't shared - i didn't care as much about the flashbacks to the mom, i just loved the current-day daughter. but even still, this was so excellent! more melissa albert please!!!! i want more books in this series.

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This was the case of bad timing (I started this on vacation that was promptly interrupted by COVID and an inability to focus on reading). Objectively, I enjoyed reading OUR CROOKED HEARTS but I also just could not bring myself to care about it - it took me three weeks to finish which is almost unheard of.

This is my first book by this author and I really enjoyed their writing style and the descriptors they used. It really created such a unique atmosphere in the story. My favorite parts were the flashbacks to Dana (in the city, back then) and her discovery of magic and filling in the context of Ivy's (in the suburbs, right now) climatic story. I think readers who enjoy a dual timeline mystery will really appreciate this one and how well the two stories weave together for the big reveal.

The magic was obviously a large component of the story but I never felt like I fully understood it. Maybe this was due to my own apathy reading but I never grasped the system or rules or confines of the magic used. Which, as someone who loves magic systems in books was a big downside for me.

I think if this author/concept appeals to you, give it a try!

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The Suburbs, Right Now- Ivy seems like a typical 17 year old. She has (well had) a boyfriend, sneaks out and goes to parties, and is trying to discover just who she is. A strange encounter with a naked girl in the middle of the road and the discovery of a dead rabbit, however, leads Ivy down a path towards a series of events and revelations, helping her to unearth the truth, but this truth may come with a hefty price.
The City, Back Then- Dana, along with her best friend Fee, works at the family business, where she meets an older girl named Marion. As the trio begin a friendship, Marion draws the girls into a new world full of magic and the supernatural, but Marion’s desire for power soon leads the girls to dabble in some darker magic, magic that they may be unequipped to handle.

Our Crooked Hearts is a gripping story full of magic, the supernatural, betrayals, friendships, loss, love and strength. Ivy and Dana’s stories are told along two timelines–right now (Ivy) and back then (Dana)--and Albert brings these timelines together perfectly, creating a suspenseful page-turner. I enjoyed experiencing the events of the novel from both Ivy and Dana’s perspectives; each character is well developed and has a unique voice within their unique experiences. Our Crooked Hearts is a wonderful tale that shows the costs that the longing for power brings, as well as the power of love.

I highly recommend Our Crooked Hearts; it is sure to keep you on the edge of your seat. Thank you to Flatiron Books, Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for gifting to me audio and electronic copies of Our Crooked Hearts, given in exchange for an honest review; all opinions are my own.

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Rating: 4⭐️
Would I recommend? Yes

Publication Date: June 28, 2022
By Flatiron Books

Who should read this?
Fans of A Lesson in Vengeance or Book of Night or anyone who enjoys a dark fairy tale.

I really enjoyed this book. I loved the dark fairy tale atmosphere of Ivy’s perspective and the gritty urban feel of Dana’s. I was on my toes and wanting to know what happened next throughout the entire story.

What I Liked:
This is a fast moving, tense witchy coming of age story with a vengeance twist.
The dual time lines and shifting character perspectives worked really well.
The relationships felt real and complicated and messy. And there were so many types of relationships explored, friendship, marriage, parent/child, siblings. It felt real.

What I Didn’t Like:
The writing, while beautiful, felt overdone to the point of distraction at times.
The pacing in the last third of the book was a bit irregular.

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Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the advanced review copy. All opinions are my own.

Disclaimer: even though I was approved for this title on Netgalley, I didn't have a chance to read it before it released, so I decided to try the audiobook through my library, as I've had more time and brain space for audiobooks recently.

I really wanted to like Our Crooked Hearts, because I enjoyed the author's The Hazel Wood duology, but at 37% of the audiobook/near the end of chapter 17, I've decided to DNF this book ("did not finish") and not give it a starred review. The main two reasons are the author's writing style and the audiobook narrators. Albert uses a lot of figurative language to describe the settings the characters are in, and after a while it felt like the narration was metaphor after metaphor after metaphor. It was so wandering in its descriptions that I was getting lost in keeping track of the actual story. However, if you like this type of writing, then you're probably the right reader for this book (unlike me).

As for the narrators, there are two of them: one for the daughter's perspective and one for the mom's perspective. I didn't find the daughter's narrator to have a pleasant voice, and the mom's narrator was quieter than the daughter's so I had to constantly adjust the audiobook volume with the change in point of view. Also, the mom's narrator was dynamic when she was doing character dialogue, but it sounded like she was vocal frying during the narration portions, which made her voice really low and flat and disengaging. I don't know if that was an intentional artistic choice on the narrator's part, but it wasn't enjoyable to listen to, and I'm also worried about her professional use of her voice (vocal frying is not good for your vocal chords).

Secondary to these two issues - I'm not sure I enjoy contemporary fantasy when more of the focus is placed on real world issues and less on the fantasy elements. Yes, this book does have witches in it, but I feel like it's a subplot rather than the main focus like I thought it would be. I think I enjoyed Albert's The Hazel Wood duology more than what I read of Our Crooked Hearts because the main plot is centered on twisted fairy tales and therefore much more fantasy focused. If you liked The Hazel Wood for the same reason I did, I would caution you that Our Crooked Hearts might not be the book for you, since it wasn't the book for me.

Buy, Borrow, or Bypass: I would suggest borrowing this book in physical or ebook format (I cannot recommend the audiobook) and seeing if this book is for you. I do think it's well written, it just doesn't mesh with my interests and what I look for in the books I read. There is a slim chance that I would have enjoyed the book more if I had read it rather than listened to the audiobook, so maybe I will give it that chance someday. I really hope Our Crooked Hearts finds the readers that are right for this story.

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Our Crooked Hearts by Melissa Albert; Flatiron Books, 352 pages ($18.99) Ages 14 to 18.

...

Melissa Albert, author of the sublimely creepy "The Hazel Wood," spins another mesmerizing enchantment in this exquisitely written, disturbing novel of a mother and daughter, and of secrets, magic, betrayal and revenge.

The sinister tone of the narrative is set immediately with the opening chapter. 17-year-old Ivy has just broken up with her boyfriend after a party and is riding home on a dark road when he veers sharply to avoid hitting a naked, young girl standing in the road. The girl is laughing, fearless, taunting them – and calls Ivy by name.

The next morning Ivy finds a decapitated rabbit in the driveway, a discovery that provokes a panicked reaction in her normally stoic mother. Ivy then finds a wooden cigar box of her childhood treasures hidden in a safe in her mother's closet, a discovery that launches her on a mission to learn her mother's secret, to learn more about the gaps in her own memory. When Ivy's mother and her Aunt Fee disappear, Ivy goes in search of the girl from the dark road.

The narrative shifts between Ivy ("the suburbs, right now") and her mother and Fee at 15 ("the city, back then"). Dana had rare abilities to sense things even as a little girl; she and Fee began practicing magic in earnest through an older girl named Marion, at first as a way to punish a stranger's unwanted attentions and moving on to more powerful spells through a book belonging to occultist Astrid Washington, a terrifying figure: "her yellow irises had eaten the whites of her eyes away," giving her "the two-toned glare of a bird of prey."

The counterpoint between mother and daughter is fascinating. Ivy ponders: "the times my mother most felt like a mom was when she was furious on our behalf. Like a bad boyfriend. Like a little girl who didn't want anyone else playing with her dolls." Dana muses: "I've always liked to watch bad mothers. A mother can be a paring knife, a chisel. She can shape and destroy. I never really thought I would become one."

This skillfully plotted page-turner offers gripping suspense, unsettling scenes of magic unleashed, and a surprising love story.

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Wow.

Ok, so this creepy book is told in dual timeline POV - we read from teenager Ivy's perspective now, and her mother - Dana's - flashbacks to when she was a teenager. This writing style allowed me to understand Dana and why she did the things she did.
Ivy has always felt something off about her Mom (and 'Aunt, actually). As she begins to snoop around and unravel the mysteries of her past, and the enigma that is Dana, she discovers that magic could lurk closer than she ever thought possible and people are not always what they seem.

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Our Crooked Hearts by Melissa Albert is a witchy suburban tale. Ivy is a teenager who starts off her summer with a literal bang. This kicks off a reckoning between her and her mother Dana who has kept important details about her adolescence from Ivy. As she moves through the mysterious days, it's apparent that dark forces are near.

This book has very witchy vibes that fit the current aesthetic well. While ultimately this is a smaller story about how families can hide big secrets, you can feel how devastating these secrets have been in Ivy and Ivy’s life. This is a fantastic standalone if you like Albert’s other novels.

Thank you to Flatiron Books for providing an e-Arc of Our Crooked Hearts by Melissa Albert for my review.

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If you love witches/witchcraft books, this is a great entry to the genre. I read The Hazel Wood by Albert (I think it was her debut), and while it wasn't my thing necessarily, I knew I'd read another of her books - she really nails creepy and atmospheric writing, and that is certainly the case here. I had to put the book down in the first couple of chapters because one particularly creepy Ring-esque scene, like, had me SHOOK. But then, the story starts moving between Ivy, a 17 year old, and the exploits of her mother, Dana, when Dana was a 17 year old. Basically, at that point, you realize that the mom's story totally informs the current story, and the current story basically becomes uninteresting (like, I knew what I needed/wanted to know was going to come out in the mom's story and it did). At a certain point the current day story becomes interesting again, but I feel like the switching in perspectives didn't do the book any favors. Ultimately, though, it's a self-contained story and I liked it. Horror lovers, especially those who love a good witchcraft situation, will find a lot to like here. I think it'll be popular with young adults, and I'll certainly promote it to that audience, as they can't seem to get enough horror right now. 3 goodreads stars - I liked it.

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Our Crooked Hearts is the story of 17 year old Ivy, who kicks off her summer break by one night stumbling upon a strange, naked woman in the woods. What Ivy doesn’t know is that this mysterious meeting is not only the beginning of her new life, but also the culmination of a story that has been going on for decades. To understand her past and future, Ivy must face dark secrets that have been haunting her family for years.

This book has everything I love: queer witches, female friendship, difficult mother/daughter relationships, and cute romance, all wrapped in a truly creepy vibe. I loved the dual timelines: Ivy’s was the one that had me turning on every lamp in my apartment, and her mother’s had me up reading until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. It’s a true page-turner of a book and even though some twists were pretty easy to guess, the ending and the entire reading experience were beyond satisfying. Ivy and her mother, Dana, are both realistic, flawed characters, and I loved watching the way their relationship changed and evolved. Reading this book felt like sitting by a campfire and listening to someone tell a scary story with unsettling forest noises as background sounds.

TLDR: Our Crooked Hearts is the perfect book for anyone who loves creep stories that are complex, well written, and simply fun to read.

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I love The Hazelwood realm. Melissa Albert can weave tales like no other. Our Crooked Hearts is a phenomenal new world of witchcraft and secrets. The dual timelines created a story within a story, and it was so easy to follow. Ivy, our main character, has always had a stunted relationship with her mother. Her mother was always wrapped up with her best friend/sister from another mister Aunt Fee. The secrets that are stored up between the women in this family have the potential to break the family. I feel like it’s worth noting my opinion on Dana. Never once did I feel like she was wrong for what she did. Not sure what that says about me, but I totally understood her motives and intentions, even if her delivery was off. This book was twisty, shocking, atmospheric and engaging. A new favorite for sure!

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Melissa Albert is easily one of my favorite authors and I had been anticipating this book all year. It did not disappoint! This is a fast-paced, interesting read. If Melissa's prose doesn't immediately draw you in, the creepy story will! This is one with a few twists and turns that unravel expertly throughout the story. It keeps you hooked until the very last page. 100% would recommend.

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Melissa Albert is a modern lyricist. Her prose is delicious and unexpected. She combines words into magic. Metaphors you have never considered work perfectly. If you loved her first books and style if writing 'Our Crooked Hearts' will not disappoint.

It is a unique twist on witch lore. Bringing the genre into the modern day with definite nods to classical storytelling.

At its heart, 'Our Crooked Hearts' is a mother- daughter story. Told through dual time lines we get to see the points of view of each, the motivation to keep secrets, and how it unfolds in a family dynamic.

Overall, the story is great. I enjoyed the dual timeline as it is integral to know Dana, the mom's, motivations and past. Ivy is a relatable teenager and their dynamic familiar. I would have enjoyed a little more from some supporting characters, like Fee, Dana's steadfast best friend and Billy the love interest. The way Ivy and Billy's romance unfolds was sweet but almost a distraction from the actual story.

This is a strong recommendation for those who enjoy beautiful writing and the supernatural genre.

Note to parents: There is minimal underage drinking, mildly romantic kisses (nothing steamy), two LBGTQ characters, some violence and blood (not graphic), and magic (obviously).

Thank you @Netgalley and @Flatironbooks for early access to this ARC in return for an unbiased and voluntary review.

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Melissa Albert has done it again. Hidden magic, star-crossed lovers, a complicated mother/daughter relationship, and a rogue occultist... What more could you want?

Flipping between The Suburbs (Right Now) and The City (Back Then), "Our Crooked Hearts" tells the story of 17-year-old Ivy Chase (Right Now), whose suburban life is plunged into chaos when a naked teenage girl appears in the middle of the road one night.

We soon learn how this naked teenager in the woods is connected to Ivy's mother, Dana, who once was a teenage girl in the city who messed with the wrong kind of magic.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan for the ARC!

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Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with this ARC and audiobook.


Description from NetGalley:
The suburbs, right now . . .
Ivy’s summer break kicks off with an accident, a punishment, and a mystery: a stranger whose appearance in the middle of the road, in the middle of the night, heralds a string of increasingly unsettling events. As the days pass, Ivy grapples with eerie offerings, corroded memories, and a burning question: What if there's more to her mother than meets the eye?

The city, back then . . .
Dana has always been perceptive. And the summer she turns sixteen, with the help of her best friend and an ambitious older girl, her gifts bloom into a heady fling with the supernatural. As the trio’s aspirations darken, they find themselves speeding toward a violent breaking point.

Years after it began, Ivy and Dana's shared story will come down to a reckoning among a daughter, a mother, and the dark forces they never should’ve messed with.

The narrator did a good job with voices, but towards the end the reader does need to pay more attention to whose POV we are getting. I loved all of the relationships between the different women, especially for Dana. The dual timeline was a great way to tell this story. It is on the slower side for pacing, but that feels natural as Ivy discovers more of what is going on.

Overall: 4/5

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Much to love here- strong female relationships, family secrets, and lots of magic. Shares a lot of themes and concerns and images with THE HAZEL WOOD- Melissa Albert is developing a strong authorial brand based on cool, dreamy, witchy vibes, and I love it.

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Hail to the Guardians of the Watchtowers of the North, by the powers of mother and earth. Hear us.

If you can remember this line from the 1996 film The Craft, then run, do not walk, to your local bookshop and grab a copy of Melissa Albert’s new novel, Our Crooked Hearts, a tale of mothers and daughters, sisters by both blood and spirit, and the magic that binds them all together. A propulsive, binge-worthy read drenched in tension that’ll keep you turning pages well into the night, it’s a story that more than proves Albert’s impressive range as an author.

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✨ Review ✨ Our Crooked Hearts by Melissa Albert; Narrated by Chloe Cannon; Emma Galvin

This dual timeline story narrates a present timeline of Ivy and to her mom Dana in the past, both of whom are finding mysterious things happening to them. What is it exactly that Dana's hiding from Ivy and what is causing the strange things happening around them?

I enjoyed parts of this book, including the creepy witchy vibes that stretched throughout. The type of magic that existed here is fascinating, varying from practitioner to practitioner, which offered great flexibility in the way that the story could go. With that said, it also felt like the book was more artifice and action, and the fancy stylistic writing sometimes drew me out of the story.

I also found the dual timelines difficult to grapple with because sometimes they were more reflective than action-based which made it easy to lose track of who was narrating and what timeline we were in. The audiobook did change back and forth between narrators which helped but still I found myself confused at times.

I admit that by the end I was kind of ambivalent - things had happened sort of slowly and the wordiness put me off a bit. I'm glad I gave this one a shot, but I don't think this one was for me.

⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: YA; fantasy/magical realism
Pub Date: Out now

Read this if you like:
⭕️ YA witchy vibes
⭕️ dual timeline, mother-daughter storylines
⭕️ slow-paced magical stories set in a realistic setting
⭕️ dead rabbits

Thanks to Flatiron Books for the giveaway copies @itslizreading and I won, and to Flatiron, #netgalley, and Macmillan Audio for the audio version of this book!

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Ivy has always known her mom keeps secrets, but begins to suspect they’re darker than she imagined when a decapitated rabbit corpse appears on her lawn and her mother seems to know exactly what it means.

Decades prior, Dana finds escape from her difficult home life in witchcraft. With magic, she can make herself stronger, her life better- but a friendship with a magnetic stranger sets her towards the more dangerous side of magic. It’s only a matter of time before tragedy strikes.

The writing in this book is beautiful- descriptive, poetic- and it actively adds to the narrative. The plot is gripping and the pacing across the two timelines is well handled. Albert did a great job creating characters who are morally complex; even when I put the book, I kept thinking about the morality within the story, about what the right decisions for certain characters would have been. It wasn’t clear, and Albert lets the characters be complex.

While this is a YA book, I would recommend it to parents alongside their teens. A lot of the story investigates the challenges of loving a child, balancing protection with freedom. Parents were people before they were parents and Our Crooked Hearts understands how a parent’s baggage impacts their children. It’s no good for a parent to try to erase their past, but children also need to understand their parents as multi-layered, complex people. Learning to recognize that is an important part of growing up and this book explores it well by developing both Ivy and her mother as individuals.

The one thing that did bother me was the romance element. Ivy actively wants some space after the events of the story and the way she so quickly romantically attaches herself to this person felt rushed. Their dynamic is sweet, but I think the book would be stronger if there was just a hint towards future romance rather than them jumping right in. I think ending with possibility would feel like a more cathartic end of Ivy’s arc, too. For me, the story was about Ivy and her mom, and the romance felt like an afterthought.

Final note- this cover feels so wrong for this book. The cover feels slick and poppy, whereas this book was mysterious, nuanced, and dark. Truly a case of don’t judge a book by its cover.

Thanks to NetGalley and Flat Iron books for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

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7.5/10
Thank you to Ms. Cat Kenney at Flatiron Books for the eArc copy of this book! Receiving it did in no way affect my review.

Hello again dear reader or listener, I hope summer has been treating you well so far, aside from gestures vaguely at things happening in the world. For my part I have been feeling witchy so this promising piece of YA that I requested a while back was just what I needed.

Our Crooked Hearts is a double tale of mother and daughter coming into magic and its consequences, when they were each 16-17 years old. The mother’s half of the story is told in flashbacks so as to create parallelisms with her daughter’s present storyline, cleverly woven in such a way that what happened in the past is slowly revealed to optimally fit and complement what is happening in the present. Albert truly entwined her two plots brilliantly, filling in the blanks in the right moments or leaving them empty for even greater effect in select instances. I found this worked really well with the building up of both anticipation and dread as the whole tone of this novel is of something eventually going severely wrong, and the reader can’t help but hold their breath waiting for the other shoe to drop. When it does finally happen though you are rewarded with a satisfyingly wrapped conclusion that gives you the feeling of seeing the faraway light of dawn slowly break the darkness.

Albert’s prose is also absolutely beautiful yet simple, coming up with metaphors that I found to be exceedingly unique and sometimes weirdly specific but rendering the idea she wanted to send across so perfectly, that I often did a double take of ‘how this is so right?’. Using turns of phrase you’d never think of and yet creating the most crystal-clear image in your mind’s eye. In fact, while I tend to be more of a character driven reader, and this novel does have some very fascinating and nuanced character work as well, in this instance, I think that prose and ambiance was what shone the most for me. It made a relatively simple plot more memorable and the events and action flow uninhibited.

As for the characters there’s lots that you could focus on but I’m going for spoiler-free, so I’ll say this. Albert created some really flawed and lonely characters who in their almost desperate hope to find out who they are, and who are looking for a connection of some kind – be it between mother and daughter, or between friends – go to extreme lengths. Misguided actions, guilt, hope for something better, accepting that sometimes relationships can be maintained even when there’s walls between you and that you need to slowly work together to dismantle, if not completely, at least lowering their height a little. These are all themes in this book, as well as the importance of memories and our life experiences making us who we are.

At the same time however, I also can’t say that I was rushing to get to the end of this story either and I could’ve taken my leisurely time getting through it. To put it another way, this novel was overall lovely and with the upsides that I mentioned, but it is also the kind of book where, if you tell me you are specifically looking for certain elements that I know are in it, I’ll tell you, hey you can read this, but otherwise it’s not at the forefront of my mind.

So, dear reader or listener, if you are looking for a witchy book with no damsel in distress moments, with flawed characters who nonetheless persevere and try to do their best, while also fighting that feeling of disconnect from others, all rendered through beautiful prose and the occasional eerie moment, then this is the book for you.

Until next time,
Eleni A. E.

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