Although fast paced and rushed at points, the story was laid out well and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I just wish there were clearer moments of explanation and background but the moments got the point across and I felt connected to the characters nevertheless. The ending was beautiful and did make me tear up. I will likely reread the final piece to see how much has changed! Thank you for the opportunity NetGalley and Publisher!

I really enjoyed this book and finished it in one sitting, it was captivating and really held my interest. I loved Elwood and Wil and thought their characters were great, the plot was lovely and really pulled me into the story. Highly recommend this book!

From the moment I saw this beautiful cover I knew I had to read this. This story follows two former bestfriends Elwood and Wil. Will’s mother has disappeared and Elwood’s fathers cult like church has something to do with it or so Wil thinks. This book blends horror/thriller/romance and mystery all into one. I loved the book, the chapters switch between wil and Elwood both narrating. My favorite passage is “ Mom said dark thoughts were ships passing in the night. You can choose to watch them go. You don’t need to sail away with each one” Read this book you won’t regret it!

“Come find me in the trees. I’ll wait for you.”

if you like:
- spooky forests
- religious cults dabbling in sacrifice
- he falls first and falls hard
- so much pining
- mothman

Prepare yourself for Together We Rot by Skyla Arndt out 8/29

4.5 star rating rounded up.

Elwood is one of my favorite MMCs ever! He is so anxious and honest and adorable. Even with a demon riding passenger in him, he is just so *good*. He pines so hard for Wil. Hes just a little nerd obsessed with moths and this wild girl. I adore him.

Also Wil is up there with my fave FMC because she is simply so broken and unhinged. A wonderful combination. She got such "come at me bro" energy and she will fight to the end for what she thinks is right. She has such a one track mind that she barely sees herself falling for Elwood and its so amazing when she finally realizes.

One of my favorite things is when characters don’t forgive people. Shitty parents, friends, whoever it is. You don’t have to forgive the people who have traumatized you. Arndt gives us this with Elwoods father (and he gets the best kind of comeuppance) but she also gives us the repairing of Wil’s relationship with her dad. One had me cheering and then other had me crying, it was wonderful.

Arndt is going to be one to watch. Her writing is haunting, visceral, and beautiful. She so perfectly created the macabre air of this book. I have a hard time reading books with themes of religious trauma, and a few of the scenes were a little heavy for me but she handled them in such a perfect way.

As someone who reads a lot of big fantasy books, I was esctatic to be reading a book that was less than 300 pages. This was such a fast read, it was absolutely bingeable. The pacing was quick and easy to fall into. The plot was so perfectly crafted and I adore how Arndt chose to end the book (I cried again).

I am so excited to see what else Skyla Arndt puts on shelves! And I can't wait to grab a physical copy of Together We Rot once it comes out!

Arc received in exchanged for an honest review!

this was okay, but read a little juvenile and i didn't feel connected to the characters or what happens to them at all. i can see other reader enjoying this a lot tho!

— thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the free digital ARC.

It totally tracks that Arndt’s mentor is Ava Reid because I was totally getting that vibe this entire story. YA Gothic Horror Romance is the genre mashup of my dreams. Cursed small town, creepy cult disguised as a church, missing parent and the daughter still searching for her, estranged childhood friends who have spent years yearning for each other. It was so good! The plot unfolds over the course of a couple days and had a gripping, cinematic quality. As with most gothic stories, this one is pretty bleak and bittersweet. I fell in love with the characters eventually but wish it was a bit longer to really flesh everything out or started at an earlier point. On the flip side, the book is on the shorter side so the action starts pretty quickly despite the romance being slow burn. Overall, an enjoyable read and totally recommend if you enjoy this genre.

(( 2.5 ))
This book missed the mark for me. I think it was well written & the imagery was top tier. I did look up all the butterflies/moths mentioned & that was a cool touch. I was not invested in the love story, the cult wasn't as fleshed out as I would have liked & at no points was it angsty. The climax was anti-climatic. This book is less than 300 pages & took me a few weeks to read. Even though this book was not for me, it may be for a younger audience looking for a slightly paranormal romance with a splash of horror/light mystery.

I did receive an ARC courtesy of NetGalley.

I don’t know what to write. I ADORED this book. I’m absolutely heartbroken and totally in love at the same time. The prose was beautifull. The characters amazing. The ending an absolute delight. This book made me feel multiple emotions and that’s always a good thing when it comes to my sensitive ass. The way it was written feels poetic (think schwab or starless sea but not as heavy) but fluent, the storyline was great and the story very well paced. Elwood & Wil are gonna roam around in my head for a very long time.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. My opinion however is entirely my own.

What a weird and wonderful book! Short and punchy, Together We Rot brought together a story of two teenagers, Wil and Elwood, discovering the dark secrets their small town is harbouring. I’m not the biggest urban fantasy fan but I enjoyed the horror elements and though the characters were very well developed for the length of the story. The cult aspects, spooky imagery and fast paced were all really captivating. I do wish there was more romance all around, as the cover suggests, but with so much happening there really wasn’t time for too much kissing. Overall, this was a fun quick read that will definitely appeal to YA readers looking for a touch of horror in their fantasy.

Wow. Where to even start? What a strange, hauntingly beautiful gothic, ya novel. It dives deep into the forest allegories but the prose in this book were so beautiful at times, it literally stopped me in my tracks and took my breath away. Trigger warnings should be checked as it does look deeply into parental abuse (physical and emotional) but take away the cult activity, and the feelings of loneliness and despair were so relatable for my teenage self (and I won’t lie, my adult self at times as well but for different reasons) that I wish this book existed when I was a kid for me to hold onto for dear life. If you feel the slightest connection with the Earth around you, this book will hit you in ways others never have. Elwood is captivating and magical and such a light. Wil was difficult for me to tolerate at times but honestly, she reminded me of myself at her age …so full of rage and loneliness and just desperate for answers and to have someone in her corner. The ending left me in a stream of tears that I momentarily thought I was going to drown in. Seriously, well done. I felt this book deep in my bones and it won’t be leaving my soul anytime soon.

Also, shout out to the cover artist, that might be one of my favorite book covers of all time.

Creepy, haunting, spellbinding. The perfect fall read to keep you checking over your shoulder at night. I'm always here for a spooky forest and this delivered.

Together We Rot is an interesting book. Or maybe I should revise it- because it almost feels more fair to say that Together We Rot is an interesting short story with the ambitions of a novel.

The story itself is fascinating. Set in the isolated wilderness of the UP, the book is about two teenagers; Wil and Elwood. Wil's mother went missing unexpectedly; destroying her father and their family business in one fell swoop. It did not help that she accused her friend Elwood's family of being responsible either.

Elwood is from a hyper religious and very influential family. A year after Wil's accusation, he begins to uncover a conspiracy about his family that isn't just dark, but supernatural. If you love character with heaps and heaps of religious trauma, this is your character.

I adored the premise, the writing, and the settings of this story so much. The bones are fantastic. Skyla Arndt really has a gift for prose and sets up a gorgeously dark town with secrets you want to crack open. Unfortunately, I felt this could have been a series or much longer book. The beginning og the book starts slow, but then pretty much everything happens at once. The plot, friendships, and romance start running at breakneck speed and its super hard to emotionally catch up with it.

If you want a fun horror mystery with solid characters, I think there is a lot to love here, but I would have slowed the pace down quite a bit and given time for the characters to really grow.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This breathtaking cover and Gothic/paranormal horror story meet YA romance is a great debut that you shouldn't miss!

The sensitive subjects of parental abuse, grief, alcoholism, corruption, and cultism are blended with paranormal elements and a riveting writing style that easily makes you invest in Will and Elwood's story.

''Wil Greene's mom has been missing for over a year, and the police are ready to call the case closed--they claim she skipped town and you can't find a woman who wants to disappear. But she knows her mom wouldn't just leave...and she knows the family of her former best friend, Elwood Clarke, has something to do with it.

Elwood has been counting down the days until his 18th birthday--in dread. It marks leaving school and joining his pastor father in dedicating his life to their congregation, the Garden of Adam. But when he comes home after one night of after a final goodbye with his friends, already self-flagellating for the sins of drinking and disobeying his father, he discovers his path is not as virtuous as he thought. He's not his father's successor, but his sacrifice. For the woods he's grown up with are thirsty, and must be paid in blood.

Now on the run from a family that wants him dead, he turns to the only one who will believe him: Wil. Together, they form a reluctant partnership; she'll help him hide if he helps her find evidence that his family killed her mother. But in the end they dig up more secrets than they bargained for, unraveling decades of dark cult dealings in their town, led by the Clarke family.

And there's a reason they need Elwood's blood for their satanic rituals. Something inhuman is growing inside of him. Everywhere he goes, the plants come alive and the forest calls to him, and Wil isn't sure if she can save the boy she can't help but love.''

I really enjoyed the vibes of the book, which the cover captures perfectly. Together We Rot is dark and creepy. It is an eerie atmospheric tale with paranormal elements and an interesting cast of characters.
The story was beautifully written, alternating between Wil's and Elwood’s POVs.

I enjoyed this debut, and I'm looking forward to reading more works from the author in the near future

I have to start with saying that this is by far one of the weirdest books I have read this year (or probably even the past several years). That isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy it, it was a weird, wild, fast ride. I did find it short which I didn’t love because I was enjoying it. It is definitely one of those stories that will kind of stick with you because the images just won’t leave my head. I have no way of describing this story without spoilers so I will say it is about a boy and a girl who learn the hard way that their town has some pretty significant secrets it’s been keeping. The writing was very good. I loved the characters and felt they were surprisingly developed given how short this one was. The story itself does require a bit of a suspense of disbelief but I love a good urban fantasy story, and I liked that this one threw some horror int heir for good measure.

☽𝔹𝕆𝕆𝕂 ℝ𝔼𝕍𝕀𝔼𝕎☾

3.5/5 ✰

First of all, thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me this ARC (I will provide a link with a post on social media soon).

This was a novella with the potential to become a great novel. The book started slowly, and it wasn't until later pages that I found myself thoroughly engrossed in it, desperate to solve the mystery surrounding our main protagonists. A mystery surrounds the death of a family member of the main female character. As a result, grief is a recurring motif in this piece of writing. Nevertheless, I feel the most prominently highlighted significant theme in the novel is religion. However, I must emphasise that this image of religion is inextricably linked to religious trauma.

Although the narrative started slowly, as I indicated, it ended up exploring and answering the issue at hand. Still, I felt this section was hurried. I wish it had lasted longer, especially because the prose is quite good. Furthermore, the plot is intended to take place in two days, which made it seem a little unattainable to me. I too did not anticipate the conclusion going in the route it did.

Finally, while there are some references to body horror and various gothic themes, I would have liked to see more of this.

Overall, it was an entertaining book (I love the cover too), and I believe I'd want to read more of this author in the future.

I thought that this was a very good book. The story was compelling and had me on the edge of my seat the whole time I was reading it. I enjoyed the shorter chapters. I also liked having the dual POVs, I felt like I could understand both characters and relate to them way better. I really liked the idea that Elwood's parents were the leader of a cult and that his father was also the pastor of the church. The ending really blew me away and I was not expecting it at all. I loved that it wasn't a basic romance book where the two live happily ever after and together forever. I would recommend this book to my audience and my friends.

**I received an ARC of TOGETHER WE ROT as part of Skyla Arndt's TWR street team.**

Skyla wove together a haunting tale of cultism, natural horror, and romance that I won't be forgetting any time soon.

From the start, I was invested in the mystery of Wil's mom's disappearance—a disappearance she blames on the local church, The Garden of Adam. Headstrong and caught in grief, Wil is determined to do anything to get justice for her mom, whether that be by bringing her home or taking down the people responsible for her disappearance. But her mom's disappearance tears apart her friendship with Elwood: the preacher's son and her long-time best friend, who is adamant that his family has nothing to do with Wil's mom's disappearance.

What Elwood doesn't anticipate is the horrors that his church, and family, have hid from him for years. Soon Wil and Elwood discover that the forest that inhabits their town is not only alive, but it's after Elwood. Wil and Elwood, once best friends and now enemies, team up in order to stop the Garden of Adam from claiming any more victims, and to unravel the mystery of the forest once and for all.

I related to Wil's grief and to Elwood's feelings of misplacement. Both characters were so vivid and well-developed, having each their own (strong) personalities, and so were the side characters that helped them along the way (my favorite being Cherry, of course). It's important to note that TOGETHER WE ROT does address the topics of child abuse, child neglect, grief, alcoholism, murder, and cults. Each of these topics was handled very sensitively in a way that was not only respectful, but crafted an important thought-provoking dialogue for readers who may need it. I also enjoyed the individual character developments of Wil and Elwood as well as the relationship developments between Wil and Elwood and Wil and her father.

However, I do wish we as readers could have learned more about the mythos of the town and of the forest. Given that the forest was central to the plot, the lack of context and history undermined the story. There was significant potential to expand on the supernatural and horror elements via the forest, and I wish we knew more about its origins, how it worked, and its rules and boundaries. At times, the voice of Wil and Elwood were too similar as well (i.e.: their frequent usage of metaphors as a way to describe things as they were happening. I wish their voices were just a bit more distinguished).

Overall, I enjoyed this story immensely and savored it. It's a stunning debut, and a testament to the incredible work we'll get from Skyla in the future. I adored the creativity behind the plot (I'm a sucker for sentient forests) and I can't wait to see what she writes next. She's definitely an author to watch!!

I do highly recommend pre-ordering this spectacular debut!! Thanks to Skyla, NetGalley and Viking Books for the ARC. 🤍

Together We Rot is an atmospheric YA romance with some great supernatural elements. I did really enjoy this book (and that cover is gorgeous!), but I felt the shorter length was a detriment to the story. At less than 300 pages, there wasn’t a lot of time to build up the mythology of the town or get too much backstory from the characters. I would have loved to learn more about history of the Mourguewood and the Garden of Adam. All around, it was a pretty solid YA fantasy.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of Together We Rot in exchange for my honest review.

This book might be my first YA horror romance, and it was beautiful in the darkest way. I found myself highlighting quote after quote. This author has a way of describing that appears poetic, and I couldn’t get enough of it. I think her writing style is what hooked me first.

I loved that the main characters were flawed and shattered but were in love despite that and found beauty in each other’s imperfections. They weren’t described as these attractive characters. Instead, the writing felt real, honest, raw, and dark. However, It did take me a while to feel the connection between the two main characters.

I also enjoyed the parts that reminded me of the Goonies or Stranger Things with a group of teens working together to get to the bottom of the town’s creepy cult.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. So many elements were alluring and creepy at the same time. I do think the ending fell a little flat for me, but even so, if this is her YA debut, I’m excited to see what Skyla Arndt writes next.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Group for providing me an ARC.

Thank you to the author and to NetGalley for the e-arc. I was chosen to be part of the Street Team for this book but my review will be completely honest.

★★★★/5

First of all, I want to say that I liked this book and I'm happy I was given the chance to read it in advance. The main reason why I gave 4 stars and not 5 is that, imho, the author still has some way to go. While the plot is without a doubt interesting and her writing is amazing, the book lacks some fundamental points. The first couple chapters are captivating, everything moves fast and keeps the reader's attention high, but soon that speed begins to give in to superficiality.
I've read some say that this book feels like a short story that tries to be a novel. And that is the exact feeling I've got from the start. The book is too short for the story it wants to tell, the author doesn't take enough time to flash out the characters, neither she spends time to describe the town. While the atmosphere is unsettling and a little creepy, the setting doesn't feel real. The town doesn't feel real. The woods, that are the heart of Together we rot don't feel real. The author tries to convey this creepy atmosphere every time a characters talks about the cult or the woods, and yes, the writing is beautiful, there are some descriptions and paragraphs that are really poetic, but it all falls a little short when the expectations are not met. In my opinion, this book should have been longer and the author should have gone full horror. There's the Garden of Adam, the cult that secretly runs the whole town with homicide and sacrifices. There are the woods, where the sacrifices are made and that seem quite sentient. There is the secret of what Elwood really is... There was all the necessary to get a perfect horror story. I think if the author had dared a little more and the story had been longer this book would have been a-m-a-z-i-n-g.
The same can be said of the characters, which are not characterized enough and that, because of this superficiality of the plot - in which we never really explore the details of the situations - they are almost ghosts of themselves. I loved reading about the group of friends that helps Wil and Elwood in their quest, but both Lucas and Ronnie and Kevin are just extras, we never have the chance to know them, nor to get attached to them. Wil and Elwood don't have extremely deep personalities and even though the reader hopes that it will all end well for them, I can not say that I was really fond of them. I mean, the problem is, even though the story is good in itself, it’s not deep enough. I don’t know why the author wanted to keep it so superficial, instead of stepping on and using the elements that would've made the book unique and particular. My thought is that, being still a beginner, she needs time to explore her style and understand what she wants to do with the stories she tells.
Despite this, however, I repeat that I am very happy to have read this book and to have given a chance to this new author. The unsettling atmosphere is what I love in a book, the cult settings are always interesting and I really love the way the author writes. There are many poetic and very atmospheric sentences that made me say "wow" out loud. And I also laughed a lot in the scenes where the simil-scooby gang tried to investigate (badly).
For sure I’ll read the author's next books, I’m convinced that from here Skyla Arndt can only improve and I can't wait to see what next intriguing stories she'll create!

I recommend this book to all who like dark books and dark themes. Especially if you want to read something that has a creepy setting, a cult, a mothman and ritual sacrifices without being full horror, this is the perfect choice.