These Vengeful Wishes by Vanessa Montalban is a YA mystery that intertwines small town, found family, with a haunting beauty. This story has the ability to heal us all. This is a new folklore for me and I was excited for the exposure and to look more into the culture that it's rooted in. I also enjoyed the femme rage and believe this will be a big hit for young adults and readers of the genre.

I really enjoyed this one. The main character Ceci actually feels like a real teenager, making teenage decisions, which always helps a YA feel extra engrossing. I loved the way that folklore was woven into the horror, and created this awesome sense of foreboding and othering that made the book feel fast-paced. Montalban did a great job of creating that creeping, haunted atmosphere in the house, the woods, and the town as a whole. I found the way that Ceci’s art was used to be a really interesting format as well.

Will check community feedback from this publisher prior to requesting books in the future due to the formatting issues.

Yes it is uncorrected, but it needs to be accessible. If not, I cannot read it. I believe I have had this issue with EVERY single book I have borrowed so far, so formatting is not prioritized until printing, which makes ARCs to ereaders inaccessible.

I was already not feeling great and was beyond excited to get this, so to have yet another ARC not be formatted properly, it makes me want to cry. I don't think I will be purchasing this book when it releases due to this bad experience to be honest...... please make your electronic copies accessible. I know it's not a tech issue.

Thank you NetGalley, the publisher and the author for this e-arc! I’m excited to look into more work from this author in the future.

Thank you Netgalley for this e-arc. This is a YA horror, but I still enjoyed it. Cici is the female main character who moves back to her mom's hometown after her step father is arrested. There's stories of a witch roaming the streets at night and a haunted well. This gave me vibes of la llorona. If that is your vibe as well, I would definitely check out this author and book.

Lovely story, this. So lovely that I'm not going to finish the arc, and will instead wait to purchase it for myself once it is officially published.

These Vengeful Wishes, is a YA horror steeped in folkloric lore. The tale of La Cegua is woven, creating an eerie atmosphere that draws you in. While the plot is somewhat predictable by the halfway point, it remains engaging throughout. The author has a way of crafting a haunting, heavy ambiance. I look forward to reading additional books from this author.

Thanks NetGalley for the arc

thank you netgalley for the e-arc


3.5 stars

The cover really intrigued me to see and look what this book was about.

having said that, i really wished i liked this story more than i could have.
i did enjoy the story and the idea behind it overall, but i felt like something was missing from the story.
i just wished there was more of an horror element to the story, than i thought it would have.

I did like Ceci and Jamie together in the book. Jamie is very sweet in the book.
which i do like to see in books

“Choose me, it says. Look inside and walk deep, find the parts I keep hidden.”

High-schooler Ceci and her mom move to her mother’s hometown into the infamously cursed mansion of the Sevillas. Ceci finds herself entangled with the ominous voice of La Cegua, beckoning her to make a wish.

This YA dark fantasy/horror takes on a unique perspective from Central American lore. I think Vanessa Montalban does a great job in setting up the atmospheric eeriness and bringing the detailing to life. I think what I struggled with was connecting to the characters through their flaws, the lack of depth in the dialogue, and the overall pacing of the novel. However, I am happy to see the representative voice in this book for both cultural history and female empowerment.

This book lacks a sense of urgency, and I think it has to do with Ceci’s very ambivalent attitude towards her mother. But it also has a lot to do with the kind of scattered focus between Jamie, Ceci’s first actual friendships, the art scholarship, the mysterious girl who knows too much, the supernatural entity, Ceci’s mom’s past, the missing rich kid from 20 years ago, and the spooky house. That’s A LOT of things to juggle and Montalban quite frankly doesn’t - there are huge swaths of pages dedicated to Jamie and mystery girl Adel randomly appears, is forgotten, and then appears again in a way that, rather than building tension, makes it feel like she was an afterthought. It’s just not at all cohesive.

Huge thank you to NetGalley and Zando Young Readers for allowing me to read this ARC! Vanessa Montalban does an amazing job at writing characters and stories that are incredibly engaging and well thought out. The elements of horror were absolutely perfect and added the needed suspense. This is a great YA horror to start with if you are new to the genre and are wanting something suspenseful but not too scary.

I liked the premise behind this story, the curse, the wishes, and the stories about La Cegua. Figuring out how the wishes worked and how to end the curse kept me interested. I also liked the mystery centered around Ceci's mom's past. I had a hard time connecting with Ceci, something about the voice of the character didn't fully draw me in. I also wish Myra and Di were more present, like Jamie was.

This is a horror book geared towards young adults. It was REALLY good but I felt like it needed something a little more. It was still REALLY good! I would recommend this to my YA horror people. I would like to see this redone and feel like it is a complete without the feeling it is not complete.

“‘Santa Aguas rules. If you hear someone call for you from the forest, you don’t answer. You don’t stare too hard through the trees, and you never walk into the woods at night alone.’”

I enjoyed this quite a bit, and it had the feel of being both familiar and not at the same time. On the one hand, a girl moving back to her parents’ hometown to live in a spooky old house and face the trials of being the new kid in high school is so trope-y it should have its own genre by now. In that sense, I found it easy enough to sink into this book because the premise was already familiar. Ceci could easily have been the city mean girl stuck in the backwoods, but while she holds herself and her feelings at a distance, she’s never hurtful or snobby. I enjoyed the way she comes to love the locals, and the friendships/romance end up feeling very wholesome.

On the other hand, Montalban brings something new to the table with la Cegua’s mythology, and I suspect that’s what most readers (like myself) picked this up for. Though I do wish we’d gotten a little more of a deep dive on the broader la Cegua mythology rather than just what’s been invented for the purposes of this story, that is, for the most part, where the book shines. Fiction can always use the diversity, and the image of the veiled horse-head woman haunts the pages and the edges of the woods, ever-watchful and ever-vengeful.

That being said, I did not find this book remotely scary and wouldn’t classify it as horror. Since Ceci is never afraid of la Cegua, it’s difficult to see her as a threat, and the book goes to great pains to show her as the victim of an abusive marriage rather than the aggressor. It’s more of a supernatural/urban fantasy deal, and more than the specter of la Cegua, I think what will stick with me most is the wonder of the cavern when Ceci discovers it and the magic of feeling as though anything is possible with the wishes (whose consequences we’re told about far more often than we see on the page, which again reinforces la Cegua as Not The Villain). If it sounds like something you’ll enjoy, it’s worth the read! I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Zando Young Readers.

I review regularly at brightbeautifulthings.tumblr.com.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the copy. The opinion is my own.

3.5 stars.

So I guess the first thing I have to say is that this is a YA horror novel and it shows. I'm not the target audience and I'll be honest and say I never read much YA. It's a first person POV and there's a cute romance plot in there too besides the mysterious supernatural story .
I found I started enjoying the story more at around 40%, before that I felt it was too slow and a bit boring but I liked when it finally started to pick up.
Finally I did find it predictable which isn't necessarily bad as I enjoyed the writing.
All in all, nice book to spend the time with if you like YA supernatural stories with a bit of an edge of mystery and horror (and I feel I need to say this considering the whole YA ratings complications, no spice. The couple did grow on me as the story went though.)

Absolutely loved this book! The pace was perfect, the story was perfect. That's Netahlley and to the publisher for the ARC.

The best part of the book is the creepy folktale about a creature with a horse skeleton for a face that lures men into the woods. However, that's the only thing I liked. The pacing is uneven, making it hard to connect with the characters. The gloomy atmosphere is there, but the suspense is weak.

I enjoyed this supernatural / horror very much. The characters were well developed, and the suspense kept me engaged the whole time
An angsty teenage girl and her mom move into an old mansion with History shrouded with secrets at in a small town. Things start getting weird. Wishes are granted at the expense of others. There are plenty of typical high school experiences coupled with some heavy, real-life scenarios included.
Thank you Netgalley for the advanced copy. I would recommend this to any teen looking for a thriller.

Unfortunately, this book just wasn’t for me though I was very excited about it. The synopsis was intriguing, but the book fell flat for me. I ended up DNFing at 42% because I just wasn’t really into the story. I felt like each chapter promised more for the following chapter but didn’t deliver.

That being said, this book is definitely for someone. That someone just wasn’t me, and that’s okay.

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this book!

This is a great, higher-stakes YA horror novel with great messaging. I loved the folkloric representation and the way the main character shifts over the course of the novel, and also that ending!