Nope, nope, nope. I had to DNF it. I couldn't take the main character anymore. She could have fallen off a cliff and I might have cheered. She was super cringy and annoying.

Oh, I was looking forward to reading this book! The synopsis sounded intriguing, and once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down, it was so fantastic to read! The secret that River had had me itching to know more, and see how it was going to play out!

River was an interesting character to read about. She has her secrets, and she's going into things with her eyes open, trying to get in with the Graces. She's an unreliable narrator, so it was a bit of a game, figuring out a clear view of what was really going on.

I really enjoyed exploring this world of magic, and how things worked. With the Graces, and how what River was studying. There were a lot of Twilight parallels in this book, switching vampires for witches, and I'm not mad, I enjoyed the story. Though sometimes the descriptors got a little bit ridiculous.

That reveal? Yeah, all I really want to know is more details! I'm glad that this is the start of a series, because I need to know more about what that reveal means! It was interesting, but I don't really understand, totally, how it changes things!

I really enjoyed reading this book, and I can't wait to continue!

I actually bought this book and the second one as well. Super pretty and still something I would love to read.

I decided to pick up an older Netgalley book because I have way too many from before 2018 that I never read. I was nervous about this one because it was bigger and had this super gorgeous cover and was a start to another series. It was very middle of the road. It wasn't great, it wasn't bad. It was just okay. It did have some super Twilight vibes at times but overall it wasn't as bad as it could've been for the time it was written. I have no desire to continue with the series. I liked Summer and that was about it.

I found this book very easy to read and to get into. It was a great cure to my reading slump for sure!

What I liked about The Graces was how author Laure Eve makes readers question what is real and what is not; what is true and what’s not; and if there are such things as magic or coincidences. Nothing is as it seems. You might as well as leave your theories at the door because someone’s going to pull the rug right out from under you. I also liked the storytelling and twists, and the fact that it was such a “me” book. That was what drew me in and made it onto my favorite shelf. I hope that this book has the similar effect on readers, because it is splendid and magical…but not in the way you might expect.

The twist ending was very predictable and the whole book was a bunch of bad dialogue and poorly written world building.

I finally decided to pick up The Graces by Laure Eve. I had the book on my reading list for almost a year. I was in the mood to read a story with a creepy atmosphere, and I am such a big fan of stories that have witches. I saw the rating on Goodreads…it was lower than I had anticipated, but I decided to read it. I tried not letting the ratings bother my reading, and everyone has different experiences when reading. When it came to finishing the book, now I understand why The Graces has low ratings.

I’ve read some terrible books this year, but River is possibly the worst snowflake offender for 2018. River mentioned so many times that she was not like other girls…Okay, River is the definition of a “pick me” character:

Urban Dictionary:

A person who begs for the attention, acceptance and approval of a certain group in different things they say. In most case, it's to attain the attention, acceptance and approval of the opposite sex.

River is the living embodiment of a “pick me” character. River is introduced as the new girl who can’t make friends, and a bit of a loner. Though she has a hard time adjusting to her school, she is entranced by The Graces. The Graces happen to be popular siblings attending her high school, both rich and mysterious. It is rumored that the Graces are witches. River is madly in love with Fenrin, the only male sibling. River tries to be a cool girl with a non-conformist attitude, but she desperately wants to fit in with the siblings. Most importantly she wants to be like the siblings. Her life revolves on pleasing the siblings and pretending to be something she is not.

River’s home life is not great. Her father mysteriously disappeared, and her mother ignores her daughter’s life. River is given independence, and most of her life revolves around the Graces. She cannot live without them. River gets accepted into the group, because she becomes the best friend of Summer. River tries to be different from all the other friends of the Graces. River tries to be so cool that she makes it known that she is not interested in Fenrin, though as a reader, you know that she loves him. The love is pretty much one-sided. Because all the girls love Fenrin, the Grace siblings do not have permanent friends.

River is the only person that gets accepted into the inner circle, and rises to popularity. Although River is dear to the siblings, she is not fully accepted.

"The Graces had friends, but then they didn't. Once in a while, they would descend on someone they'd never hung out with before, making them theirs for a time, but a time was usually all it was. They changed friends like some people changed hairstyles, as if perpetually waiting for someone better to come along."

Summer is the goth, Fenrin is the hot dreamboat, and Thalia is the manic pixie girl. All the siblings are best friends with each other. Each character had dark secrets, and the friends were not as united as I had assumed. The siblings aren’t aware of the privilege and status they have. The Graces manipulate people and cause damage to the people that get involved.

The magic of the book is never really explained. Though the Graces are considered witches, the magic system is based on the intention of words. It reminded me sort of The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman. The Graces never really indicate whether they are witches. Each sibling has a different belief. Summer believes in magic, Fenrin doesn’t care, and Thalia is frightened by the supposed curse on the family.

This book is messy with drama. River is accepted into the lives of the Graces. She gets involved with drinking and partying. All the characters are messy. There are ridiculous events that happen in the book. Even though I don’t like the characters, I found them to be entertaining, and the book was laughable. Like I mentioned, the romance is one-sided. Fenrin is a tease and a flirt. River sees signs of Fenrin being interested in her, but he never acts on it. Fenrin doesn’t have permanent relationships with women. I felt that Summer might have had romantic feelings for River. I would have liked to see a romance between the best friends rather than Fenrin and River. There was one character that I did not like because he was there, and his name is Wolf. I did not care for him, but he plays a crucial part in the story, which I never saw coming.

"It was easy to romanticize tragedy, like you suddenly transformed into some sort of Byronic hero, sitting in darkened rooms with crystal glasses of whisky, hair tousled and artfully lank from all those sleepless nights starting at the walls and cursing the gods."

I couldn’t take the book seriously. It reminds me a lot of Twilight, but with witches instead of vampires. Fenrin and Edward are similar, but Fenrin is not a stalker like Edward. Neither is Wolf like Jacob. River is an unreliable narrator, and a try hard. There were a couple of twists that did make the last half of the book more enjoyable. I initially rated this book 2-stars, but I did like it more than I imagined. I do look forward to reading the sequel for this series. The second book will be in Summer’s perspective from the synopsis on Goodreads. I am looking forward to reading about this problematic siblings and their angst.

Final Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ (3.25)

At River's new high school the three most mysterious, most popular students are the Grace siblings, Summer, who is River's age and her older siblings, twins Fenrin and Thalia. Everyone says the Graces are witches, and River, wants nothing more than to be taken into their circle. The Graces by Laure Eve has a very mysterious air to it.

River is an incredibly unreliable narrator, and there's this sense throughout that she is leaving out something big, but what is it? And is there really magic or not? River's interest in the Graces is a full-on obsession, and as the pieces fall into place, the reader starts to understand why. This book is an excellent Halloween pick.

The beginning was kind of boring. I was reading it for the sake of reading it. And because the cover was pretty. But as the book progressed, it became more and more clear that River (the main character) is ABSOLUTELY INSANE. Her past begins to come into play, and the story gets DARK. Which is exactly where I like it. I read it on a stormy day. It was shockingly fabulous. And I am SO excited for the sequel.

First off, I would like to thank the publisher and author for providing me this ARC to review. Please note that the version I read was an advanced copy, and certain events/language may be changed in the published edition.

“That night I think we were trying to fight against death, against boredom and banality, against everything that made us cry and stare at our futures full in the face with dread.”

Stars (Out of 10): 3.5/10 Stars

Overall Thoughts: I really wanted to love this book, because I absolutely fell in love with the amazing covers. However, it seems it didn’t really do it for me. I felt like a floated along through the entire book, reading and enjoying the story, but not feeling connected, never feeling worried or scared when bad things happened, and never feeling happy or overjoyed during the happy moments. Additionally, even though the plot idea was pretty intriguing, I felt the main ‘twist’ was way too obvious way too early, so by the end I kinda already knew what to expect, and the secrets that everyone was keeping.

The Good: I really liked the dark atmosphere the book kinda seemed to have, and what the ending could mean for book two (even if parts of the ending felt vague). I also did enjoy reading this, just less so than a lot others for reasons below.

The Bad: I did not find myself really caring about any of the side characters, and the MC even less so. I also am not the biggest fan of books with little plot in the beginning, and it felt like this one floated as things were beginning to build up. And while later that become important later, while reading it just wasn’t that enjoyable. Additionally, the most important part of the plot was pretty predictable.

SPOILERS BEGIN HERE

The Characters: If I’m being 100% honest, I don’t think anything appealed to me about any of the characters. In the beginning, it seemed like the Graces we were supposed to be intrigued about were just so full of themselves, and in the end, they weren’t as special as they were made out to be. Additionally, I did not care for River at all throughout the entire book, and it made the entire book weaker in my opinion. I never cried when she was dumped by the Graces or was never pitying her when she felt like she would never belong. And with a book that felt as emotion based as this one, it left me hanging that I wasn’t able to connect with the characters and be influenced as they were.

The Plot: While this is what kept me reading, and wanting to see if I was right or not, it was way too predictable to actually keep me on my toes. There were way too many obvious hints too early on, and by the time we heard a bit more about the father from River’s mother, the truth about River clicked so easily. However, if the author takes this series the way I think she might be, and gives Summer/one of the Graces POV in book 2, book 1 could very well be an amazing villain origin story.

My one other main issue will have to be the vague, flip floppy feeling ending. I almost upped the rating of the book after reading most of the ending, because I loved how the book seemed to suddenly make more sense. At one point, it almost seemed to click that, of course!, this was a villain origin story! And I loved that. But then in the last 5% or so, suddenly River was fixing everything? But then it seemed like she was plotting with Marcus? And it felt like River’s true thoughts and meaning seemed far too vague and hidden for it to be as hard hitting and solid as it needed to be.

DNF. The writing was dull and the main character was just too much for me.

The Graces follows River as she snakes her way into the inner circle of the Grace family. The Graces are a super beautiful, super mysterious, and super beloved family in a small town. Being the gorgeous, mystery-shrouded beings that they are, everyone in the town kind of thinks they're witches, and they don't really do much to dissuade people from thinking that because they are too gorgeous and mysterious to appease such peasant rumors. Basically, think of the Grace family kind of like how the Cullen family is introduced in Twilight (I never read the books but I've seen the movies, and that's going to have to be close enough for this comparison).

River is by no means an easy character to like - homegirl has A LOT of internalized Issues. But as soon as I realized that we never actually get to know River's real name (River is a name she decides to call herself early on in the book), I was immediately intrigued by the mysterious and unreliable nature of our narrator. It becomes very clear through the book that River will do Anything to become part of the Graces' inner circle, and she does some pretty terrible things along the way. I've seen a lot of reviews saying that River is not likable, and while she is definitely not a great person (read: she's definitely chaotic evil, which can come across as being a bad person), I kind of liked her ruthless passion - how much she was willing to do for what she wanted, what she thought she deserved. I think she's a bit of an antihero, but I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of her.

Then there's the Grace family. Fenrin, Thalia, and Summer are the siblings of the Grace family, the first two being twins and Summer being the younger sibling who is in River's grade. These characters had many layers to them - on the forefront, there was how much they loved being revered in their town, worshiped for being these awesome, supposedly-magical beings, but deeper, there was this yearning for connection that wasn't built from idolization. I thoroughly enjoyed as the layers were peeled back from these characters, showing a rawness in them that was so different from River.

Besides the magic of the characters themselves, there's such a magical feeling in the way the world is built in The Graces. The way that Laure Eve describes everything in the world was so enrapturing - I found myself feeling magnetized, drawn deeper and deeper into the world that she built, yearning for just a little bit more of that magic through every page. This book was chilling in a way that's similar to another book that I love: The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle.

Overall, The Graces is an absolutely captivating story of magic, mystery, and desire. There's friendship, family, romance, and so much more packed into this book, and I absolutely loved every second of it. I highly recommend this book to readers looking for something that feels eerily magical. I can't wait to see what Laure Eve has in store for The Curses!

Started and quickly abandoned. The protagonist was vapid and her obsession with the Graces was not one I shared.

I was all set to love this book till I got into it a little ways and realized that it was very "Twilight-ish". It was still a good read but I believe it could have been an extraordinary read if it had been handled just a little different. Something written more along the lines of The Craft, as the synopsis compares it to, would have been the way to my heart. Your teenage girls will still love to read this but it wasn't speaking to me.

I give the book two stars. It's way too much YA cliches in it. The big problem with the book there was absolutely no plot to this story so nothing really happen. If there was a plot to the story I think the story would of been better. The characters were "one note" and no real character development. I don't think I could recommend the book.

River is obsessed with the Graces. Rumored to be witches, they stand out in their town for their beauty, eccentricities and the wild birthday parties no one outside their families are invited to.

River finally snags an in with their group by befriending Summer, younger sister to twins Thalia and Fenrin, the boy River is obsessed with. As she falls deeper into their group, River tries to find out the truth about their witchcraft, especially since she is hiding some secrets of her own.

The Graces was a great story with an original plot and an amazing set of characters. Definitely a great read if you are looking for something to really stand out!