This was a great read! It was a crazy tale but sheds light onto the struggles as a transitional teen. It was very interesting and I’m so glad I read it.

old wounds is an upcoming horror novel about a kentuckian cryptid that is fed young girls as sacrifice in exchange for stopping bad things from happening in the local community. but when sex and gender are not the same, how does it decide who to choose?
when two trans teens, on the run from conservative ohio, find themselves trapped in the backwoods of this folk-esque nightmare, they are forced to come face-to-face with this dilemma, as well as the beast itself. is max a danger to erin, or is erin a danger to max?
logan-ashley creates the ultimate trans horror akin to the powerful voice of alison rumfitt. the themes are sharp and the discussions controversial. the feeling of dread follows you throughout like a creature in the night.
i see myself in max and my trans sisters in erin. our voices are finally being heard and represented, and i cannot wait for logan-ashley to be at the forefront of this media liberation. thank you to netgalley and to the author for this arc.

This book was incredible! I loved the rich imagery and the fantastic characters. This was done so well! It was so refreshing to see trans main characters and have the plot centered around their queerness. I’d love to see more stories like this! Maybe if there were it would t have taken me until 40 to come out. Kudos to the author, what a phenomenal first novel!

*Thriller*Excitement
While this was not my favorite book, I did enjoy the story. It was different from my usual reads. The characters were great. Would definitely recommend this book.

This book exceeded all my expectation. Two transgender teenagers leave Ohio to head to California for a better life. During this road trip they experience car trouble leaving them in a small town. The locals in this town aren't what they seem to be. This book kept my interest throughout and had me cheering for the teenagers until the very end.

Thank you NetGalley & the publishers for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Cryptids, horror, LGTBQIA+ , great trans representation what else could get better? Murder, death? This was a great book, fast read and at some points I was terrified for max & Erin. I felt like I was sitting there in the backseat of the car. I would definitely read another by this author. I can’t wait to read the final proof & more by this author. Thanks to netgalley & the publisher for ARC!

Trans horror is so special, and this book is purely, unequivocally trans. It's hard to explain the starkness with the way it portrays the feeling of your very being shoved into a box to die a slow, horrifying death, and how much fear, anger, and pure need can come from that reality. Not only that, this book is so sure in its transness, it reveals in it, in the right for trans kids to exists. As much as being trans can cause horror, it is not their fault that some deny their reality. Who they are is not a question. Yes, they can be messy and emotional and make wrong decisions, but they are all that and they are still trans.

Supernatural horror twists with the horror of humanity, and it makes for a fantastic book.

I devoured this book …pun intended! It was what I want in a thriller with lots of twists and some nail biting scenes. I loved reading about characters that are normally written about and we need more. Stories with trans people can be just as compelling as a cisgender person. Those kids had a lot of spunk. They fought monsters that were human and supernatural.

Powerful and gripping. An emotional journey through 2 characters talking about their experiences with transitioning all while running from a crypitid ready to consume them both.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!

This was really well done! Beautiful characters and storytelling, a compelling narrative, and it really propelled forward and rested in appropriate sections. Really great

Sadly this just wasn’t for me. The monster was cool and very visceral, the premise was great, and Max and Erin were believable characters. There was just something about that I really can’t put my finger on. I think maybe this could have been a short story for me and I would have enjoyed it so much more. It felt very rushed.

I know this book will have an audience. There is a lot of potential here. It just didn’t stick for me.

Thank you NetGalley and Delacorte Press for the Digital ARC.

Thank you to the author, pubishiers and all the others involved making this book in general but also allowing me to read this book via net galley in exchange for an honest review.
Words can not state how much I loved this book. I do believe it could be on track to be a beloved classic. It is simple and effective with its delivery and I am stunned. Its got alot of spunk ,heart and so much blood. I don't want spoil any of it but there are some things that could be triggering to some withen so I would look at that before reading.
If you don't want any form of spoilers don't read further ok? Just go pre order or go ask your library if they can get it.
Anyway Max and Erin were so realistically written they felt like people that I was worried about the whole time. I was like oh no the kids! Someone save the children! But they are both strong and smart and they got that in control.
The trans related horror elements felt like they mattered and were put in carefully, not for shock.
I loved loved loved the monster. If there is art of it floating around if anyone has a link ide love to see!
Its hard for me to review when its something I enjoyed this much.
It felt like a really good horror film and it was vivid till the end.
I hope Max and Erin meet again and get ice cream or something nice.

I really loved this, and immediately it enters my trans horror literary canon alongside Andrew Joseph White and H.E. Edgmon. I love a spooky forest, I love queer kids in complicated situations, and I love Creatures, so really this had it all. I couldn't help but think of my younger brother, who has a hard time passing, and has often confided in me in his jealousy of our trans cousin who so easily passes, and it made me weepy for much of this book. The fact that the cryptid almost defied my expectations by not NOT eating Erin because she was trans, but because she just wasn't scared, was very cool actually. I love the fact that these two kids are trans and it defines their entire lives, but it does not define the reason they weren't killed. That's just because they've been through enough shit that they just weren't afraid anymore. I thought that was super cool.

I love the cover art for this book so much!
This thriller/horror was so good. I especially like Max's character but overall character development was so well done. I am excited to read more from this author. I really enjoyed their writing style. I will be buying a few copies of this book when it releases in September. And I'll definitely be recommending it to my friends. Thank you for letting me read an ARC copy.

This book is cinematically horrifying. Deeply unsettling in both quiet and loud ways. It's perfect. Logan-Ashley Kisner explores the terror of what may lurk in the woods with the very real, evil violence that trans youth face every day. I knew I'd love this book from the premise, and I wasn't disappointed.

I wanted to love this book, but it missed the mark, slightly. I enjoyed it but felt like it was a really great novella that found itself lost in the page count of a novel. The central plot point, the two being taken hostage and offered as sacrifice, doesn’t even show a glimmer of starting to happen until we are more than 40% done with the book. Everything before that is spending time with our characters as they escape their respective homes and hit the road. This time is used to develop the characters and fill in their backstory, it isn’t wasted, it just spoon feeds the audience way more than we need and goes on too long. And some of the scenes in the car get to be a bit much… We get a list of novels in one of our character’s bags, then a list of the albums available in the car, then we go back and forth between song lyrics and reading from a novel aloud? It felt really forced, and I felt like it was telling me a lot more about the author than about the characters. So, I didn’t love that. I feel like the story would have been much more visceral if we had only one or two of these setup chapters and then got right into the central conflict, letting more of the characters’ backstories leak out as they fought for their lives instead of having it all front-loaded.

Once the characters meet the central conflict the pacing was good. It felt a little disheveled and disconnected, but that was mirroring the characters’ experience and it worked. Both of the protagonist’s were very lovingly and honestly created, and they did both feel genuine and real. Sometimes they felt a little too easy or convenient, showing two different sides of the teenage trans experience in a way that felt like a clear set-up. Still, I felt like I knew them both, and the chasm between their personal experiences did factor into the story, though it felt like it came up and was resolved more quickly than I would have liked. If anything, they just felt young to me. Both are 18, and this story is right after they have graduated high school, but for a good portion of the story they both read younger, as maybe 16, or so, and it is a little hard to really accept their logic and decision-making when they are actual legal adults. There just felt like a discrepancy, and while characters in horror stories always get a little leeway with their decision-making, and while both characters had their own personal traumas and internal conflicts mediating their decision-making, I still felt like they were ignoring their hard-earned, lived experiences and acting in ways that felt more like sixteen-year-old kids who stole their parents’ car.

The writing itself was mostly fun, save for some cringey moments quoting songs and poems. It kept my attention and propelled the characters forward in ways that I wasn’t ever bored. I liked the central conflict and the symbolism it offered, how the dangers in the woods and the dangers of the humans around you are different types of threats that can prove equally deadly. The central protagonists weren’t particularly interesting, they felt expected and a little boring, but they served their purpose in the story. The way the central conflicts were resolved felt a little too easy, and also not very surprising. That isn’t to say the ending was unearned, or not fulfilling from a reader standpoint, I just hoped for a little more. Considering the symbolic elements of the central creature in the woods, the fear of “normal” society, and finding the inner strength to save yourself against society, there was so much more viscera to be scooped out and gobbled up in the never-ending night of those Kentucky woods.

When all is said and done, considering the topic, this story felt very gentle. There is nothing wrong with that. I have read a decent amount of other queer- and trans-horror, including stuff classified as YA, and many of those felt more graphic and threatening, for the characters and the readers. This felt more didactic than experiential. I didn’t feel like I was put in the place of these characters, I felt like I was given a lecture about what these characters experienced. And that is fine, the characters were compelling and won me over. The bloody action in the woods was well-done, whether fighting humans or beast, and the ideas around what they experienced and why were all fun to think about and play with.

I want to thank the author, the publisher Delacorte Press, and NetGalley, who provided a complimentary eARC for review. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I'm honestly not sure what to make of this book. The primary thing I want to say is to read the trigger warnings in the author's notes. I also need to emphasize that there is something that I at least believe to be classified as sexual assault that is not within the trigger warnings, which the reader should be aware of.

Beyond the trigger warnings I don't fully understand this book. While it is a horror one, it made me feel less scared and more sad really, though I am outside the age range recommended for it.

I read this book over the course of 9 days, which is a bit long for me, so that could be why it feels this way, but the pacing felt rushed, especially towards the end as things wrapped up.

The good things though, are that these characters felt real. They react in ways I think a person would actually react if faced with what they're facing, and their actions have lasting consequences, instead of just ending with the book ending. It's not every day you get a story like that, though it does seem to be becoming more common now.

Overall, I'm glad I read this once, and maybe I'd need to read it again to fully understand what happened in it, or maybe it's meant to leave you confused (which also is not my favorite kind of story). It's an interesting edition to trans horror at the very least.

Amazing debut! 3.75/4 stars⭐️!

What I loved!
-The cover is so creepy!
-the dedication & author's note had me teary eyed--really powerful.
-that monster honestly sent shivers down by spine, the descriptions were really vivid.
-I liked how there was the beast but also the bigger threat seemed to be the men who were feeding the beast. It was so tense when Erin and Max would split up!!
-woods/creepy small town setting eeeeek!!

Comments!
-The first 30% was A LOT of telling instead of showing, which definitely provided a foundation for the characters but felt very slow in the beginning because of it. (book picked up so much afterwards and was a wild ride to the end!)
-Same with the dialogue during the beginning, felt a little off (this completely improved after the first quarter though!!)

Overall I really enjoyed this!! Amazing premise for horror and solid debut. Really looking forward to seeing what's next for the author. More trans horror please!! (also i saw this was originally a screenplay?! now i want a movie too!) 🏳️‍⚧️👻🤍

Thank you to the publisher & Netgalley for the ARC.

Perfect for fans of Andrew Joseph White, OLD WOUNDS by Logan-Ashley Kisner tells the story of two trans teens on their way to California to live out & proud, falling into an old mystery with a cult and a cryptid that might want to kill them.

This book ruled. I could tell from the very beginning that it was going to be good because the author actually took the time to develop the characters, who were allowed to be flawed and have a lot of depth. I feel like I'll be thinking about Erin and Max for a long time. I also enjoyed how much this felt like a horror movie, and all of the little moments where "the unique experience of being trans in a horror scenario" was allowed to shine. Super interested to see what this author writes in the future!