DNF at 9%. Loved the writing but literally had no idea what was going on. Felt like it was too poetic for me - wanted more plot development, especially as setting and characters are being established. Love a good metaphor but was too heavy on the poetic nuances and not enough story elements.

I had a hard time at the start of this book. If this is also your experience I urge you to stick with it and keep reading. The twins, Arcade and Daffodil, along with their mom, aunt and grandma, all speak in interesting phrases and it slowed down my reading speed, but I eventually got the hang of it and I'm glad I did. Their way of life and all they endure is heartbreaking. The story that is told is beautifully written. To say I fell hard for Arcade and her sister is an understatement. I was invested in their well-being,wanting only the best for both, and when I got to the end of the book I felt a profound sense of loss and sadness.

Thank you NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for my copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

This book! It's both incredibly bleak and unbelievably beautiful. Based on the actual Chillicothe Six murders, McDaniels shares characters that are often ignored not only in the literary world but also in real life, showing their beauty and humanity in their desperate situations. Her writing is just sublime - I highlighted so many passages while reading - and while it isn't an easy book to read, it's one you won't forget. The ending was a gut punch that made me want to go back and read the whole thing over again.

Thanks to Knopf for the copy to review.

I've actually had to stop this one. The writing is beautiful but the content is so depressing that I might not be in the right frame of mind for it at the moment, I will certainly try it again because McDaniel is a master storyteller so for that, I'm giving this a tentative 3 stars.

Unfortunately I DNFed this book at about 50% of the way through.

I'm not entirely sure what about this book didn't connect with me. I think the story being told about missing indigenous women is very important, but unfortunately I am not really someone who connects with more poetic, lyrical prose. I do read books that delve into a lot of heavy topics, but every time I read this I felt extremely sad. Everything that happened to Arc and Daff was just a bit too much for me at the time.

I still really want to read Betty by this author but I think this novel was just not for me, but may be for other people!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was sad. Real sad. Like don’t read the day you come back from vacation sad.

Complex characters. Realistic, tragic situations.

Thank you Net Galley & to the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This novel is really deep and made me feel like I was really there. The author has a way of writing and making you feel a part of this and feel like you are watching. This book was hard to read - seeing another side of life that I had no idea existed. This novel is a lot but a strong read.

Undeniably raw, quite disturbing, beautifully written.
On the Savage Side is a story inspired by the unsolved murders of 6 women in Chillicothe, Ohio. This novel carries the lyrical writing of Tiffany McDaniel, her stories might be some of the most beautiful prose written today.
Arc Doggs is the narrator, she remembers a clearly twisted childhood with her twin sistser, Daffy and her drug addicted mother. The twins grow up to be- sadly- a lot like their mother, even though Mawmaw Milkweed tries to save them.
They bond with other women, like themselves, damaged, drug addicted, trying to find a way out. One by one, the women disappear and are found near the river. McDaniel paints a dark and painful existence for the twins and the women like them. It's a story that will stick with you and made you think for a long time after you read it.
4 stars.

Inspired by the unsolved murders of the Chillicothe Six this novel was Brutal from start to finish, its haunting and gut-wrenching,
It was really difficult to read, since it was emotionally draining.
The author did a good job, however the writing style was too poetic for my liking.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free e-arc.

If I had to choose one word to describe On the Savage Side by Tiffany McDaniel it would be haunting. This book and its characters will stay with me for a very, very long time. Based on the Chillicothe Six, a group of missing and murdered girls in Ohio, McDaniel tells the tragic story of Arc and Daffy.

What I loved:
- EVERYTHING. No, seriously. Arc and Daffy, our main characters, took me on an emotional rollercoaster. I felt devastation, hope, love, respect, denial, and a myriad of other emotions.
- McDaniel's storytelling had me in a chokehold. Her ability to repeatedly gut punch me and leave me asking for more is chef's kiss.
- The tie back to nature, which plays a strong role throughout this novel, left me paralyzed. Reading the perspective of the river at the end of each chapter in Part One was eerie and haunting. Pure brilliance.
- The way that even in the darkest moments of the book, I couldn't stop reading. Well, there was one part when I had to close my Kindle for the night, but I picked it up again first thing.

I could go on and on with a million more reasons why this book was a five star read for me. However, it won't be for everyone. The content is dark and heavy and I strongly encourage you to seek out trigger warnings before diving in. It has them ALL!

This was bleak and depressing. The writing and story telling was hypnotic. I felt joy. I felt sadness. Goodbye.

*sprinting to read Betty*

I was expecting to read a thriller but this book was so much more. It told the stories of women who struggled with addiction. These were women that the world never gave a second thought and someone saw them as disposable. The big reveal shocked me left my jaw hanging. My heart hurt for these women and the justice they never got. This book left me emotionally drained but it is one that will stay with me. Thank you Netgalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the ARC in exchange for my review.

I initially saw this pitched as more of a mystery, and it is not. What it is is an affecting, sometimes brutal account of these two sisters lives, the impact of addiction on them and on their family and friends, and a testament to the lives that slip away. Giving it 3 stars because of the often brutal and hard-to-read elements, but I think there is a certain reader who will absolutely love this.

I loved the cover, title, and thought this was going to be a great read. This was not particularly what I thought it would be and thus, I couldn't connect to any characters and found it quite slow. I wasn't a big fan of the writing style either.

I had to slog through this one sadly to get to the end and finish it. I appreciate it for what it was trying to do but just was not my cup of tea. I see why people loved it, but just not for me!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately, this was a DNF for me. I didn’t enjoy the writing style of this book, and felt it hard to connect to the story. I think this book is a great book, and I know many other people have enjoyed it, it’s just not for me.

The struggle I experienced while contemplating how best to write this review is unprecedented for me. Initially, while I slogged through page after page, it was forming in my head with a very negative slant. To be honest, it stayed that way until after I finished the book, did a bit of research, and sat back to think on it. There are still aspects that left me completely unimpressed, in general, but I have upgraded my rating for reasons I'll get into in a minute. First, let's go over the background and story ...

On the Savage Side by Tiffany McDaniel was inspired by actual events that took place in Ohio in 2014-2015. A handful of women, who would come to be known as the Chillicothe Six, went missing. Four of them were found dead while the other two have never been located. There were some potential suspects, but the case remains unsolved. If you're so inclined (as I was), you can find a couple of documentaries and some true crime podcasts and YouTube videos for further details on the original subject matter.

The book features Arcade (Arc) and Daffodil (Daffy) Doggs, twin sisters who grow up in an area of poverty and drugs and face a future of generational addiction, trauma, and abuse. Their only hope came in the form of Mamaw Milkweed, but that hope was ripped away from them, leaving them in a home of neglect with a mother and aunt who could barely function beyond their next highs and johns. As can be expected, there was no protection for them, and men who pay for sex don't always have qualms about taking advantage of the young girls left to fend for themselves.

Arc narrates the story, and we have no doubt right from the start where she ends up. Once we're given that bit of information, we're taken back to as close to the beginning as she can remember, and the timeline weaves back and forth from there. Through her, we meet a group of girls her age that she becomes close to, each facing their own demons but searching desperately for something positive. Great imaginations, big dreams and little joys are what get them through their otherwise desolate existence, one that becomes exponentially worse as the river is forced to open her watery arms to cradle the women cruelly disposed of in her depths.

If you're waiting for me to finish the synopsis with something uplifting, don't hold your breath. This is a bleak read set in a town full of despair and hopelessness. That was one of my first issues. The darkness was relentless, but in the end, I forgave that aspect because we're dealing with reality, and not everyone lives in a town of picket fences and manicured lawns. What I couldn't forgive was the incessantly poetic nature of the writing style. Everything, including the dialogue was riddled with it, and it didn't always make sense. Even the river narrated with purple prose (Which, by the way, was a narration abruptly dropped. Why? What was the point of it?) The style was distracting, to say the least. Also, what was up with so many of the characters having encyclopedic knowledge about math, history, and botanicals? I can see one of them being a brainiac, but not more than half of them.

I appreciate that the author attempted to give voice and humanity to women that society writes off as having asked for what they got due to the way they lived. These victims were more than sex workers and addicts. They were daughters, mothers, and friends. Sadly, this gets lost in the mire of creative writing. Had it been toned down, I could have basked in the beauty that shown through the darkness of the story, and my rating would have been much higher.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Knopf Publishing Group for making this egalley available for voluntary and honest reviews.

This was a compelling and haunting story based on actual unsolved murders. Well written, it is a story that will linger, long after you have finished.
Many thanks to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I find it most challenging to write the first sentence of a review for a book I adored as much as I loved On the Savage Side. Another reviewer on Goodreads said that Tiffany McDaniel may well be the most gifted storyteller alive today. I can’t shake it. That’s how I feel, too.

With two, and now soon-to-be-three, books published, she has a trademark style of storytelling, one that has me hanging on her every lyrical, descriptive, imaginative word. On top of that, her characterization, the vulnerability and heart in her characters, the creativity in their imaginations, reflective of her own endless creativity; I never want to leave their stories behind, and in the case of On the Savage Side, I dreaded having some idea of their ultimate fates due to what happened to the “Chillicothe Six.”

Inspired by six women in Chillicothe, Ohio, who disappeared around the same time and their cases remained unsolved years later, these women lived and loved in McDaniel’s home state, and the part of Ohio she showcases in her books, an area left behind in some ways.

Arcade (“Arc”) Doggs is the narrator. She begins as far back as her memory takes her, as the twin sister to Daffodil (“Daffy”). Her father is in the military for a time and returns home a different man. He uses drugs to cope, and eventually that use spills over to Addie, the twins’ mom. The girls are young when this happens. Their saving grace is beloved Mamaw Milkweed. She provides a respite from the chaos and is their normal. Time with and lessons learned from her are cherished. Life changes for the twins again when Mamaw is no longer part of their lives.

Time and tragedy chip away at Arc and Daffy’s dreams. Their armor slowly falls away, as they aren’t protected from the ugliness and dark underbelly, until eventually they find themselves on the same path as their mom and Aunt Clover. With drugs they lose their hopes but never their friendships and closeness with each other. During this time they become friends with other women in the community who use drugs to dull life’s immense hardships. As with their mom and aunt, they also turn to sex work to keep money in their pockets and to buy more drugs.

The women are hopeful as they try to get clean, but they return to the same environment and stressors, and life has a way of resetting back to what it knows. One by one, the women disappear and are found in the river. Arc narrates until the very end. Even though I knew the direction the book would take, I never lost hope that someone would escape to a better life, one would overcome addiction, no matter how steep the mountain was to climb. McDaniel goes deep into the darkest, most painful places, but she always leaves some hope to hang onto in the goodness of the hearts of her fallible characters.

The way the story gets its name is derived by a lesson taught by Mamaw Milkweed. That gem is literally threaded throughout the book in a subtle way, and while I have to mention it, I will not spoil it for the reader.

On the Savage Side is a marketed as a literary thriller, and I agree with that classification, though thriller fans should be prepared for the finest, deep dive characterization there is, which keeps the story at a deliciously even pace. There’s an unease from the very first page, and there are twists I did not foresee, including the final twist. I don’t think the twists are in the front seat of the story; the characters, their friendships, and life struggles are.

As with all of McDaniel’s books, I hang on every word. I read, re-read, reflect, ponder, and more than anything I feel. The Chillicothe Six deserved a voice. All women who were once little girls with hopes, dreams, aspirations, and open hearts, who were sisters, mothers, and daughters, deserve a voice, to know love and be loved, and to find justice when a life is taken.

I received a gifted copy of this book; however, I also have it on preorder. Preordering books by our favorite authors is one of the best ways we can support them, and with more than twenty books in her arsenal, and only three published, I want to hear from Tiffany McDaniel again and again for a lifetime.

We follow Arcade, who, along with her twin sister Daffodil, grow up in Chillicothe, Ohio. They grow up in the shadow of their grandmother, mother, and aunt who influence them greatly in both positive and negative ways.

As they grow up, their friends and other women in their town start to turn up drowned in the river.

This book was beautiful, devastating, and harrowing. I loved reading about the relationship between the Chillicothe Queens and how they looked out for and cared for one another. The story draws from the true story of the unsolved murder and disappearance of the Chillicothe Six, women who disappeared or turned up dead similarly to those in the novel, and were dismissed because of preconceived notions about the "type' of women they were.

Betty is one of my favorite books, so I was extremely excited to read this. I think Betty still edges it out a bit for me, but I can't wait to see what's next for McDaniel.

Thank you to Netgalley for the Advanced Readers Copy of On The Savage Side by Tiffany McDaniel. While it was slow to start, it had a solid pacing and story for the latter half.