Wow! This book was a LOT and is one that comes with so many trigger warnings - but if you're able to navigate through the heavy heart wrenching topics this was a well done story exploring these hard issues that some individuals experience. The history woven into this story was an additional layer that made for an excellent and captivating read. A story you're rooting for the MC throughout and the end leaving you dizzy to process when it is all done. It's just so well done.

"It is from her that we get our hot skin," Mamaw Milkweed would say, telling my sister and me that we had a touch of the witch in us. "You can't put a woman to fire and expect the flesh of the women after her not to feel that very heat. It is also from her that we dream the future."

holy craaaap THIS BOOK!!!! I LOVED LOVED LOVED it so much. The lyrical writing, the imagery and the heartbreaking and emotional story line?!? my god this was a book written for me!!

I am so enamored and in awe of Tiffany McDaniel's mind. This story never broke from its poetic writing and I just couldn't keep my jaw off the floor when thinking about how she wrote the heaviest scenes with the most beautiful language.

It was definitely a hard read, but one that was worth it. Finding out that this was subtly based on a true story of six missing girls in Ohio made it much heartbreaking and meaningful. I loved the tie ins to the author's Cherokee heritage and thought the story of these women honored the backstory beautifully. This one will stick with me for such a long time and is one that I will recommend to so many people.

I grew up in Ohio and drove through Chillicothe many times as a child. I mainly remember the smell (paper mill). This book deals with deaths/disappearances of the Chillicothe Six – six women who disappeared between the spring of 2014 and the summer of 2015, which I also remember. Many of these young women were drug addicts and sex workers. and drug addicts. Of these six, four were found dead and two have never been found. This book is a work of fiction based on the Chillicothe Six.

This is the story of Arcade and Daffodil, twin sisters growing up in the town of Chillicothe, caught in a family of addiction and prostitution. The twins do not thrive, but they survive, doing what they have to do.

Then bodies of their friends are found floating dead in the Scioto River. The twins must face tiehr past and try to avoid this series killer.

This book is tragic and sad, but so well written. The women in this book endure the worst life has to offer. They encounter family neglect, physical abuse, and sexual abuse. They are all battling drug addiction and turn to prostitution to pay for drugs. When they begin turning up dead, no one seems to care. The police put no time or effort into the investigations, because they are addicts and sex workers. But these women were still important. They were someone's daughter, sister, friend or even mother. Their deaths matter and to see how they were just cast aside is heartbreaking.

A tragic and heartbreaking story, but so fantastically written!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Knopf Publishing Group for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thanks #netgalley for this book in exchange for an honest review. This book had high reviews so I had high expectations. Unfortunately, I thought this was boring and unenjoyable. The best part was the beautifully written descriptions of the river. Otherwise, not for me. Don't recommend.

This was a beautifully written book. The author was a magnificent story teller. On the Savage Side is not for the faint heart. The family is incredibly poor, and the main girls really go through it. You follow the book through past and present timelines. This was a hard read, but enjoyable

This novel is beautifully written. There's so much authenticity to the narrator's voice, and the struggles that she endures in her early life are absolutely heartbreaking. It is a very heavy read though. While I wouldn't recommend this book for everyone, it is a stunning work.

This is a such a beautifully written book about addiction and poverty in small town America. It is based off a true story of women killed in Chillicothe, Ohio. Told from the perspective of Arc, of her life in the present and memories from growing up. It’s an emotional and powerful story filled with traumas and heartaches with a twist I did not see coming. If you can look past the difficult subject matter/trigger warnings it’s an eye-opening and thought provoking read.

This one is a hard to rate. It was extremely dark (even for me), but the writing felt like a work of art. I wanted so badly for a glimmer of hope but this book closely resembles reality.

I went into it expecting a mystery about real murders, but it reads a lot more like literary fiction. Parts of it kind of dragged on and the scenes are intense so it’s not for the sensitive.

Thank you to Knopf and Netgalley for the ARC.

Whew, I have a complicated history with this book. I'm a huge fan of this author and was thrilled to be approved for an ARC of this ... and it is so absolutely bleak and depressing while also being beautifully written, while also being overwritten at times, and ugh, I loved and loathed it at the same time.

Twins Arcade and Daffodil grow up in a thick cloud of addiction, abuse, and trauma as they hide under their beds from the johns who come and go from the bedrooms of their mom and aunt. They've lost their addict father and their kind grandmother who gave them hope for a better future.

Unable to break the dark generational cycles, Arcade finds herself supporting an addiction with sex work as women she knows begin to disappear, bodies are found in the river, and a killer moves closer.
It's dark, the beautiful prose just keeps the deeply depressing story going further, and I wanted relief from how horrible and bleak their environment and lives were.

Thanks to Knopf and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. On the Savage Side was released on February 14, 2023.

DNF for me.

Extremely poetic and lyrical. I get that some people really enjoy this style writing, but it kept me from connecting with the story and the characters. Everything felt flowy and metaphorical, I felt I was tripping along with the characters!

When I read this was based on the Chillicothe Six I just assumed it was going to be more mystery/thriller than a book on down trodden women. There is definitely a place for this book, just not with me, or not me today.

The most devastating novel I’ve read since A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. Arcade and Daffodil are twin sisters living in Ohio who are muddling through adolescence with a myriad of hardships including drug addiction, prostitution, physical abuse, and rape. McDaniel relegates the mystery elements to the background to add a sinister tone and even more danger lurking. The lighter, hopeful moments are few and far between, but this is such an impactful, heart wrenching story with rich main and secondary characters as well as beautiful literary writing.

Netgalley and the publisher provided this book for review consideration, but all opinions are my own.

While McDaniel’s writing is captivating and her characters are multifaceted and dimensional, the bleakness of the story, mixed with some of the on page content, was too much for me.

I should have checked the explicit content warnings on Storygraph for this one. I got to about 20% and could not finish it.

I’d still recommend it for those who can handle the subject matter.

A very interesting read. I couldn’t help but but rather finish it in the single sitting as it was that good. I enjoyed it

This author’s books always intrigue me, but leave me devastated and desiring to pull away from reading for quite a bit because of heavy they are. Don’t get me wrong- her subject matter is important and she weaves her stories well! It’s just HEAVY. Also her continued trend of animal cruelty rubs me the wrong way, so I am not sure if I will ever reach for her books again.

If I had picked this one up, thinking it was a raw story about addiction, family, pain and how missing prostitutes don't get investigated in rural America, I might have hesitated but still grabbed this one. But this one was listed as a mystery. I thought there would be mystery, maybe even a little police procedural. Instead, there was just sadness. There is violence, abuse, animal cruelty, drug use, prostitution. There is definitely someone out there killing these women and the police are not looking for them, but that's it. I didn't learn anything about the true crime this is loosely based on. To say I'm disappointed would be an understatement. On top of all that, there is odd writing. Daffy, Thursday, Mamaw, and Arc all talk like they are writing poetry. Every single interaction with the aunt had "spittle, spittle spider, where you gonna hide her?" The words felt overly-flowery to moments that were dark and I found it distracting instead of adding an additional depth to any character. It was until Arc was mad and fighting back that she started to communicate and talk in ways that were clear.

I started this with my book club and only 2 of us continued reading because the childhood abuse was just too much. I wish we'd be warned how graphic it would be and that IT would be the focus and not a mystery at all.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

Wow. Its so hard for me to put into words exactly how I'm feeling after just finishing On the Savage Side. The storytelling by McDaniel was top notch, it will be hard to find another book that flowed so nicely as this one did. The story is SAD and DARK. Definitely be prepared for that but my goodness this is my first 5 star read of 2023. Captivating.

Way to much sex violence and vulgar language. Most of it added nothing to the book and was totally unnecessary.

Made it very hard to read the book. Found myself skipping through whole chapters just to get by the vulgarity.

Just can not recommend.

Not for me.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review.

Can not recommend.

What a wonderful book. I have never read this author before and i was hooked from the first few pages. The writing was excellent and the twist at the end was even better. Highly recommend this book!

A Most Brutal And Heartrendering Story!

Arcade (Arc) and Daffodil (Daffy) are beautiful spirited, identical twin sisters born into poverty while also the product of their mother and father being drug addicts. The book follows the girls from the age of six until the ripe old age of twenty-one where the crux of the story centers around a fictional account of the unsolved absolutely, horrific true crime murders known as "The Chillicothe Six". The one constant in their lives was their grandmother (Mamaw) who tried to give them the best in life that she could with morals, faith and knowledge to keep them on the straight and narrow that can always veer off the road at a moments notice when struggling against a family living in addiction and alcoholism. Unfortunately the lives of these precious innocents will take a devastating turn with the sudden death of their father and then of Mamaw when their young lives rapidly keep them fighting for survival without any guidance, support or supervision.

Many years later, the twins are still struggling for survival but always having each other as a security belt they have now become the opposite of any dreams of living a wholesome or good life. They don't dream of a future anymore only tired of being hungry and downtrodden, just sorely needing money for their next fix to keep them from the sickness of withdrawal. They have several friends all fighting the day to day death switch of surviving also but now a cunning and faceless killer is in their midst of Chillicothe and eventually one by one of their friends disappear without a trace until their bodies turn up weeks or months later in the river where all the young women had once found solace. Who cares about prostitutes and drug addicts? The town police don't seem to care until too many bodies begin to surface but these murders don't seem to take any form of priority in this dark underworld. Could the vicious killer be one of their own on the police force? Could it be the janitor at the local rehab center? How about the crazy, evil tattoo artist in town who is know for his violence to men as well as women? What about the local hourly beaten down and dirty creepy motel service cleaner who knows all the girls and is never without the single red glove he always wears? What about the many men who service all the women in more ways than one? How about a dark and dirty detective known for his perverted taste in little underage girls who would kill to keep his filthy secrets from being known? After Arcade finds two of the bodies on separate occasions she makes it a priority to find the murderer because she knows that Daffy and herself are now on the killer's agenda since he is well aware that Arc may figure all all the keys that fit the lock to bring him down but not before more murders occur and he is creeping closer and closer to the sisters and there isn't anyone Arc can turn to help save their lives so will this be their foretold future that was their unspoken destiny even before their birth? Is there anyone left who can help Arc find a different future instead of just surviving in this jungle world of tears and pain?

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant! This is a book that I won't ever forget. My heart is in such pain after reading this book and the tears were ready to flow so many times while I was reading this captivating yet raw, painful story. Beautifully although savagely told by the author " Tiffany McDaniel" who captured the pure love of twin sisters through the horrendous, ugly downfall into the insidious and seedy life of prostitution and addiction where they become less than human beings in the eyes of most of the public who are mostly repulsed by these poor women instead of feeling sympathy or compassion. I must admit I had to get used to the lyrical and poetic writing in the beginning although it didn't take long for me to get accustomed and found myself totally immersed in this author's quality of writing style. This book was truly a WOW! I have not read a book this moving of my heart and soul since the book ''Odd Man Out" by James Newman which I read a couple of years ago and found completely unforgettable and now this novel has captured my heart and shredded it in so many ways! I should think this book will be on the best seller list for many weeks and I hope that everyone will get the opportunity to read and feel all the subtle and blatantly loud emotions that vividly poured from this author's hand.

Highly, highly recommend!

Forewarning: Abuse, Sexual abuse, Child sexual and physical abuse, Graphic drug use, Violence, Explicit language, Descriptive murder scenes!
Do not let any of these warnings keep you from reading this book as they are a realistic view of living a degrading and demoralizing life as a woman in this devastating story.

I want to thank the author "Tiffany McDaniel" for writing this HEARTBREAKING novel and the publisher "Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor" and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this fantastic book and any thoughts or opinions expressed are unbiased and mine alone!

I have given a rating of 5 BRILLIANTLY UNFORGETTABLE AND SAVAGELY BRUTAL 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 STARS!!

Wow. Incredible storytelling. The intro says that it’s a book that’s meant to be read twice. I thought it was odd at the time, but I absolutely understand it now. This is one that I very likely will go back to…. To pick up on the hints that I may have missed.

My heart broke a million times while reading this. Absolutely a book that is worth a read.