I'm sorry to say this was a huge disappointment to me. Going in, the description and the cover had everything I wanted. My biggest problem with this story is that I didn't connect to any of the characters. I simply didn't care what would happen to them and I kept reading, hoping that would change. I think the author's writing style is good and this is a solid debut. It just didn't work for me the way I had hoped. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read it!

⭐️⭐️⭐️.75/5 This started off as a 5⭐️ for me but unfortunately trickled further and further down as I kept reading

Positives:
- this has some beautiful prose and lines at times that truly were take a bite out of it delicious
- pretty much anytime a book has biblical trauma, body horror, cult, woods (etc) themes, I devour it & this really did deliver on that front

Negatives:
- the plot just felt very one note to me, & I found I pretty much completely stopped caring about the story and the characters halfway through
- somehow, the relationship felt flat and almost insta-lovey.


I really thought I was gonna love this one :(( I still enjoyed it, but I have some critiques that took me out of it, unfortunately.

A fantastic, spooky debut! Skyla Arndt did a wonderful job with the romance between our main characters and I especially loved her atmospheric writing style. I can't wait for my preordered copy to arrive!

I think I would give this 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4. It’s an incredibly quick YA horror read, with an interesting plot. Wil’s mother has gone missing and she suspects her bestfriend Elwood’s family is responsible. After a year of being estranged, they team back up and learn about his family’s secrets and town’s involvement with a horrifying cult, while also developing a relationship with each other.

I honestly wish this book was a bit longer and more fleshed out. The beginning took a little bit to really grab my interest but it definitely got there. Most of the main characters’ relationships took place before the book started so things are briefly mentioned and we don’t actually get to see them. The conflicts between Wil and Lucas, and Wil and her father seem to get resolved over just a few sentences, which felt too quick and unrealistic (which seems silly to even mention given this is a supernatural cult book but still)

The length and fleshing out are my only true complaints. They story itself was good, and the ending was really cute. There’s mild spice.

The book is YA and I think the writing style reflects that.

One of my most anticipated books of 2023 and I absolutely DEVOURED IT. There is no angel MMC as soft as the butterfly boy in this book and I just want to protect him at all costs. Together We Rot was strange and lush and creepy and culty and I was all over it.

Do I recommend? Absolutely. Eat it.

Nice fast paced thriller. What's not to love. A missing mother, an unloved son, a broken friendship, an isolated town, a creepy forest, a religious cult, and an unexpected ending! All the ingredients that will keep you turning the pages.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Young Readers
Group for providing me with an ARC of "Together We Rot" in exchange for an honest review.
"Together We Rot was a unique read that combined elements of romance and horror quite well. While it seems to be a straightforward plot of a girl trying to find her missing mother alongside her former best friend who's cult leader parents may have been involved in her disappearance, it evolves into far more than that. The characters are incredibly likable and well written. The book definitely has a paranormal aspect and the ending was not at all what I expected.

5 (fluttering) stars! This short little ya horror novel certainly packs an eerie punch! It reads like a horror short story (but extended) and just as faced paced. I couldn’t put it down!

Wil is searching for her missing mom all the while unconsciously grieving for the loss of her best friend, Elwood, since their falling out. He’s the son of the town’s church leader, the very church she suspects had a heavy hand in her mothers disappearance. But when Elwood overhears something he shouldn’t, he realizes more than just his life is in danger, but maybe Wil and the entire town.

I loved the imagery in this. It’s full of fluttery feelings, emotional vines (yes vines!), and a deadly cult that will stop at no cost. Elwood is the himbo love interest and Wil is the feral touch-him-and-you-die girlfriend and it just works so well for this story. I think the ending will satisfy a lot of people — it certainly did for me in its uniqueness!! I thought the ending was pretty perfect for this YA horrormance. Honestly, I’ve been dying to read this one for months. It did NOT disappoint. I wish it was longer. I am immediately going to pre-order the physical copy! This book releases on August 29th, don’t miss out!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced readers copy. It did not affect my views or review in any way.

I feel like I just keep running into YA horror books that are just not for me. Normally I absolutely adore YA horror, but lately there's just something that's not working for me. I was expecting this book to be along the lines of "House of Hollow" or "Small Favors," but the writing and storyline just didn't live up to my expectations. The romance was underdeveloped and relied heavily on the characters having a previous relationship. It was basically a shortcut to get them together quickly. There was also a ton of animal death at the beginning of the book and I couldn't find any content warnings relating to that, so that is a big miss.

Basically I just didn't feel connection to the characters and I think if I had, then I would have really liked this book.

Book Name: Together We Rot
Author: Skyla Arndt

ARC
Thank you to PENGUIN GROUP Penguin Young Readers Group, Viking Books for Young Readers, and NetGalley for an ARC of Skyla Arndt’s Together We Rot

Stars: 4.5
Spice: 2

Standalone
Plot Centric
Fast Paced
Dual POV:
YA Horror Romance
((Horror is Creepy, not Grotesque ))

- Topics
- Greif
- Acceptance
- Abuse
- Growth
- Power
- Sacrifice
- Tropes
- Friends to Enemies to Lovers
- Cult
- Dark History and Town Secrets
- Can't Fight the Feeling Any Longer
- Not Exactly a HEA
- Thoughts.
- Solid YA
- Great 4th Act Twist
- Bitter Sweet Ending
- Love That Is Unsettling Horror not Grotesque Horror
- Great Creepy Halloween Vibes

4.5/5 stars
thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group for sending this arc!

if you like horror, and even if you don’t, there’s a good chance you will love this book. Together We Rot follows the POV of wil, a girl trying to uncover the mystery of her mother’s disappearance, and elwood, the son of the cult leader who wil is convinced is responsible for her mother’s disappearance. oh, and elwood just so happens to be wil’s former best friend.

this book was such an easy and incredibly enjoyable story to read. the characters are portrayed so well as real teenagers. all the teenage angst and pettiness is there. additionally, i thought Skyla Arndt’s writing was beautiful. i genuinely could not believe this was her debut novel. she uses her prose and metaphors so well to induce the goriness and horror in this book. some of her descriptions are so gut-churningly gross, and it works so well for the story she’s trying to tell. this book has bugs and cults and mystery and even dashes of body horror, and i absolutely loved it. my only complaint is that i wish it was longer. such a complex story was packed into such a bite-sized book, and while Arndt did manage to fit such a fulfilling story within less than 300 pages, i can’t help but think about how much more could’ve been done with this story had it been longer.

however, this was still such an amazing read. if you like weird, shy boys who are head over heels in love with stubborn, tough, scared-of-vulnerability girls, and if you love a little cult horror moment, i’m begging you to pick up this book.

This book was not for me. I found the plot and over all story very weird. I just felt like something was off about this book.

I really wanted to like this book. The concept was interesting but the execution fell a little flat. The character were all very one note and very typical of a YA.
The cover was absolutely gorgeous.

I really, really enjoyed this book. What a fantastic debut novel! The romance was so soft, but also so much more than I was expecting and I fully fell in love with Wil and Elwood. I felt their chemistry off the page, the grumpy and the (literal) sunshine.
I loved the cult aspect of this book. Humans are sometimes scarier than the monsters, and I felt like Elwood's father and the sheriff of the town really showed how true that is. The religious motifs were handled so well. So even though my favorite scary trope lately has been "There's something in the woods," it felt like the true horror here was what someone would do to satisfy their own ego--if that is in the name of religion.

Some other things I loved:
The cover! It's so gorgeous.
Elwood's transformation, both in his character arc and the literally metamorphosis. I loved the descriptions of him becoming one with nature, and I loved as he grew a backbone.
The friends. I definitely relate to Kevin the most, and though he seemed the most 2-dimensional of the bunch, I thought he was a fantastic supporting character and I found myself constantly rooting for him. I also loved Lucas, Ronnie, the dad, and absolutely adored Cherry and her tarot-reading session.
The book's ending was a little bitter sweet, but it also felt like the perfect ending of the story.

My only complaint, if you could even call it that, is sometimes the timeline of events felt a bit skewed. Like the characters would say two days past, when it's only been one, or maybe there wasn't mention of transitionary actions and they'd suddenly be doing something else or in a different position or place in the room.

But everything else was so enjoyable, this little nitpicky thing doesn't even matter.
I can't wait to see what else comes from this author!

When Wil's mother disappears, she's certain her best friend Elwood's family was involved. Unfortunately, he sides with his parents, opening a rift in their friendship that hasn't been resolved a year later when Elwood realizes that Wil was right. Oh, and that his parents are planning to ritually sacrifice him to a forest.

This is a fun YA adventure story as Wil, Elwood, and friends band together to try to save Elwood and figure out what really happened to Wil's mother. The plot is fast-paced and the characters are built out enough to be believable without bogging down the backstory.

This was a pretty average book. I didn't love it or hate it. I didn't have any strong emotions for it at all. I can definitely see why someone might like it more than I did though. I don't typically like books about cults,.but this one didn't bother me.

I loved this book. I was so excited for it when I saw it on Penguin's upcoming releases and was so excited when I got the arc. This was such an interesting story. It was such a beautiful gothic and paranormal story. Not only was it a great paranormal story, it had themes of parental abuse, grief, and cultism. I feel like the author did a beautiful job of blending those themes together. I love the relationship between Wil and Elwood as it is friends to enemies to lovers. This is such a great debut novel and I'm so glad I read it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Teen for an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a solid YA gothic horror book. It definitely feels comparative to something like Rory Powers or Erin Craig. This book was a solid three star book for me, I think this book is going to appeal to lots of readers who like murder mysteries as well as young love and gothic romance.

The plot was interesting -- it features the two main characters trying to take down a cult and solve the mystery of Wil's mothers disappearance. I loved the paranormal elements that were worked in, it gave very creepy vibes. I will admit the beginning of the book was a little bit slow, but it did eventually start picking up.

I also liked the writing in this book, it definitely evoked emotions and made you think, especially considering the dark topics that it touches on. And there were dark topics in this book.

The ending of this book was excellent, I very much like how it played out through the book, and the conclusion.

Overall, this was a spooky, dark, gothic horror mystery/thriller that teens will enjoy.

Two ex-best friends work together to stop a cult and uncover long hidden secrets about their town. Will the truth set them free or destroy them? Let’s find out!

Read if you like: YA paranormal romance, YA suspense/horror, town secrets, creepy stories, friends to enemies to lovers, mystery, cool magic, fast paced plot, big personal growth.

Wil’s mother went missing last year and she thinks her former bestie’s family had something to do with it. She has proof that Elwood’s father is doing some weird rituals in the forest and no one will listen to her. Elwood’s life is a ticking clock. He knows on his 18th birthday he will have to fully dedicate his life to their secretive church. But when he realizes that his role is not as a leader but a sacrifice, he turns to the only person who will believe him. Wil agrees to hide him if they also find out what happened to her mom. They soon realize that the secrets protect a strange power not only in the forest, but also growing inside Elwood…

This book was really cool and creepy. Wil and El are that classic weirdo duo with a lot of baggage and of course they’re living in a completely isolated and equally weird small town. The little homegrown cult has their hands in most of the town’s business so for everyone else it’s ‘turn a blind eye and business as usual’ until someone gets a little to close to knowing the truth. You get that familiar mystery/suspense story but all the pieces are unique so you’re constantly wondering what is real and what is imagined and just how it will pan out.

This is a short read and very fast paced. Sometimes it’s a bit too fast so I wouldn’t have minded a little more transition, background, or worldbuilding to fill out some of the edges. But your questions are answered and you are left hoping that good things will happen for our duo. Their relationship is as much of the story as unravelling the truth which makes it a good balance between downright horror and romantic suspense. A great little read when you are in the mood for something different.

Thank you to NetGalley and Skyla Arndt for a copy of this book for review.

It has honestly been a while since I've read a true young adult novel and I'm glad this was my first dive back into the genre. Together We Rot is fast-paced, weird, and wonderfully written. And in all honestly, I didn't read the synopsis truly before diving in and half-expected this to be a zombie novel based on the title and cover; I was pleasantly surprised and it helped me become further immersed in the story.

Skyla Arndt's writing and prose is both beautiful and haunting. For readers searching for novels to devour during autumn and Halloween, this novel is the perfect place to start.