This was a fantastic read! I loved her ability to see how long a person has left to live, and how that was affecting her life-that her best friend died, and because she knew the number, well, what she said had her looking like she knew who the killer was. Which was not a fun position to be in!

Ivy's life is pretty terrible. She has this ability to see a countdown of how many days a person has left to live, including herself. And all she wants to do in the time that she has left is figure out who killed her best fiend. Watching her do so was really entertaining.

I loved this mix of genres we had going on. Of course there was the paranormal aspect with her ability. There's the mystery with her best friend's death and the disappearances of these other girls. And there's a bit of romance, with her on and off again boyfriend Myers. It all worked really well together and I couldn't put it down!

Oh, but that ending, that reveal of the killer? That was just awful! I wasn't expecting all those pieces to come together that way, but the clues were there, and I really enjoyed how it all played out! It was an excellent end to this book and mystery!

This was a really great read, and I can't wait to read more by Kelsey Sutton!

What a rollercoaster! The writing was so beautiful I could feel everything the main character felt. Gardenia by Kelsey Sutton was truly a surprise in every sense. I did not guess the killer and I did not see that ending coming. Ivy has a supernatural power and knows when everyone will die, but that aspect is not overpowering and the book does not revolve around it, but mostly around time. Truly a great thriller! Thank you NetGalley for the free ebook copy in exchange of an honest review.

TW: Depression, self-harm (side character), death (main topic), poverty

I'd like to thank the publisher who sent me this book for review via Netgalley.
This book was an amazing surprise for me! I went in knowing nothing about the book except the brief synopsis: Seventeen-year-old Ivy Erickson has one month, twenty-seven days, four hours, fifty-nine minutes, and two seconds to live.
This book was quite short, which I loved, because when books have a mystery or something to be solved I get very impatient wanting to know the answer! I liked the way the story was solved, although I wish there was a little more detail regarding the mystery. I would have liked more explanation on the numbers she sees, but honestly if it was explained I probably wouldn't have liked the explanation! It's tricky with books that have this kind of concept to get the level of explanation right - I suppose it's better to have an element of mystery.
I really need to read more of this genre! I was hooked for the entire book. I loved to see Ivy's relationships with her family and people at school, how people react to her after Vanessa's murder and how it changed her. I cried, too, so this book had everything for me!
I would definitely recommend this book for a quick and immersing read! I gave this book 4/5 stars.

Diversion Books and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of Gardenia. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

Ivy Erickson has a secret, an ability that she considers to be a burden. Including herself, Ivy can see an expiration date for each person. As a result, Ivy has changed the way she sees the world. Wanting to change her fate and others as well, especially after her best friend is murdered, what will Ivy do before her time is up?

This YA suspense thriller had some good elements, but I just could not get past the fact that it reminds me of the book Numbers by Rachel Ward. The biggest difference in the main character of that novel is that she could see the death date of others, but not herself. The main part of the story, that of the mystery surrounding Vanessa's death, is lost in the daily shuffle of Ivy's life. Ivy's desire to find out what happened is lost among her insecurities, her anxieties, and her complete obsession with the date above her head and others. Gardenia was a quick read, so those who are looking to try a YA suspense might enjoy dipping their toe.

Time passes so quickly. i can't even begin to fathom what it would be like to be a young girl able to see everyone's, including her own, biological clock ticking and knowing exactly when everyone, including her own, will run out and and die.
And then, to top it, be a prime suspect of the murder of girls around her town. dark story. But it is a highly entertaining story that I think will will keep young adults interested. very thought provoking!

Thanks to netgalley for the arc.
This book is about a girl named Ivy Erickson who is a 17 year old high school student in Kennedy, Minnesota who has 1 month, 27 days, 9 minutes and 2 seconds to live.
She has a secret, she sees countdown clocks above everybody's heads.
This book was hard to put down, it kept me wanting to read more. It had a great amount of mystery.
Would definitely recommend this book.

I thought the concept of this story was fascinating and the synopsis pulled me right in.
Imagine seeing countdown clocks above peoples heads to when they will die so only you know, the sheer frustration & helplessness it would leave you in well that's what our protagonist faces but she also knows when she will die too!. Not only that though, Ivy has the murder of her best friend to deal with and knowing people suspect she had a part to play in it, the financial issues within her family and rocky relationship with her boyfriend.
This was a great read that I enjoyed, very descriptive and the author portrayed the dark moments brilliantly the underlying message about living your life to the max is thought provoking.
My thanks go to Netgalley, the publisher and author for this Arc.

Ivy knows exactly how long people have to live, she can't avoid seeing the glowing numbers above each person's head which show the time left before their deaths. She knew when her best friend, Vanessa was about to die and she even knows that she has less than 2 months left herself. With her time running out she wants to do what she can for her family before she goes, and even more urgently, she needs to solve the mystery of how Vanessa and the other missing girls died, before others can be hurt too.
You really feel for Ivy, the hard life she has had and the way she still wants more for her family and the people she cares about. Though she often feels like giving up, she keeps going to make her short life worthwhile.

Interesting concept, just wasn't very emotionally invested in the characters. Ran out of time to get this on the usual site for review.

I got this book through NetGalley to review. This was a well done book about a girl, Ivy, who sees numbers over everyone's head that tell her how long that person has before they die. Ivy also sees when her own death is going to occur and it is soon.

Ivy becomes determined to solve the mystery behind the murder of her best friend before she dies. This gives her a purpose to help her fight the looming depression of her own imminent death.

I enjoyed this story; it was a creative premise and the characters were interesting. Towards the end things get very predictable, but I liked mystery leading up to most of that. The writing flows well and this is an easy read.

Overall I enjoyed it and would recommend to those who enjoy murder mysteries with a paranormal bent to them.

This was an interesting and entertaining read. It reminded me of the movie In Time, starring Justin Timberlake. I couldn't imagine the burden of knowing when someone's life will end like Ivy did.

What would you do if you knew when everyone around you would die, including yourself? Would you try to help save them or pretend you didn’t know and try to act normal? But what if you had one chance to right a wrong and stop a killer? These are the questions Ivy has to face.

​This is actually the second book I have read​ where the main character has a psychic skill where she can see they days people have left until they die. I love this concept and I like seeing how the character deals with the "gift" as well as how they came to understand what they were seeing. That being said, this was not my favorite one. Don't get me wrong, the book was not bad, I have just read others more recently that I found to be more engaging. This was an ok story, the mystery was fairly solid, I just did not connect 100% to Ivy and I did not understand how or why she sees the numbers very well.

Ivy has had a rough life, and that is putting it mildly. She is pretty much poor living with her overworked waitress mom and her sister who does online strip shows for money. She has no friends because her best friend was murdered the year before and everyone thinks she had something to do with it. And lets not even get into the complicated mess that is the ex-boyfriend she pines over...and the fact she knows when everyone will die, even herself. Every time she tries to help a person, she ends up being treated like she is crazy and the person dies regardless. I just wanted to wrap her in a blanket and tell her everything would be ok because that girl needed some love.

I thought the book was interesting, leaning more towards the depressing, but I loved the psychic element and would have liked more on that part. I think others will really love this standalone teen mystery and I look forward to more from this author.

I received this title from the publisher but it had no impact on my review.
Visit my blog at http://smadasbooksmack.blogspot.com/ for more reviews

Ivy has become accustomed to seeing the numbers above people's heads. Their individual countdowns mean Ivy knows the precise moment at which someone is going to die.
In some ways this reminded me of Numbers by Rachel Ward, but in Gardenia we have a little more going on. Ivy's best friend was murdered and people in her town are convinced she knows something. When more girls disappear, Ivy realises she has to do something. Only, time is running out and every moment counts.
The character of Ivy was quite sane for someone living with such a terrible burden. I liked how part of this focused on her coming to terms with things and how she interacts with people.
I was gripped by this, but I confess to only giving 4 stars as the ending was rather rushed. I also don't feel we got any attempt to satisfy our curiosity about exactly what was going on with the numbers.

Excellent. Dark, intense, and entertaining. Interesting characters. Hard to put down. Good story flow.

DNF at 22%

The idea of a countdown of numbers showing above people's heads to their death date and time is not new. It was done in the show Medium one episode, a Nickleback music video and of course in another book called Numbers. Now just because it's been done doesn't mean it can't work again. Gardenia looks to be an intriguing take on this concept at first when you find out that our lead teen can't stop the numbers, or presumably she would have saved her best friend from death; and that her own numbers are going to run out prematurely by societies standard of length of life.

Unfortunately the first 22% of this book is very dull. There is maybe ten sentences worth of plot that show up and the rest is just a boring narrative about the internal battle the lead gal has over the lose of her friend and her family situation. Maybe I'm a cold hearted bitch but I just didn't feel any emotion for anyone involved, nor did I feel like they could've been real people.

There's just nothing here to attract my attention or keep it. In no way did I feel for any character in this book. You'd hope that by the 40 page point you at least can remember a couple characters names and start to see plot unfolding that you want to know the answers to. I just couldn't and didn't care to try any longer. And so that is why I DNF this book.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Kelsey Sutton's writing never ceases to amaze me. I don't know whether it's the melancholy way that she writes, or the vividly imperfect characters that she creates, but her writing just gets me every single time. There's a reason why she's an auto-read author for me, and so you'll have to pardon my excitement over Gardenia. While it wasn't exactly what I was hoping for, it was still pretty spot on.

Ivy is one of those characters that you have to take with a grain of salt. I say this only because I can see people becoming frustrated with her at the beginning of this story. Trust me when I say that her morose demeanor, and her deeply ingrained inability to let people get close to her, is all for a reason. Imagine that you knew how long you had left. Imagine that you also knew how hard it was on the people you leave behind, when there are loose ends. That should easily give you a glimpse at the person that is Ivy Erickson. Someone who wants but, with good reason, is afraid to want. I honestly felt so much for her, and that's half the reason why I adored this story so much.

The other half of the reason was that Sutton quickly wove together a mystery that even I, the master of figuring out things much too quickly, couldn't decode. As Ivy inched ever closer to what she believed was the truth, I kept second guessing whether we were headed the right way. As it turns out, everything I thought I knew was completely wrong. In the best way possible, the ending of this book completely threw me for a loop. I was both amused, and totally impressed.

If you're looking for a happy and lighthearted story, I'd recommend that you look elsewhere. If, instead, you're looking for a story that stares death straight in the face, and manages to wrap a pretty stellar mystery up in that, you've found your book. True to Kelsey Sutton's form, this isn't quite what you'd consider a feel good story. This book will make you take another look at your own life, and what you plan to do with the time you have left. I can tell you, it's well worth the journey.

The concept of this book was so interesting, I knew when I saw it that I had to read it. Ivy Erickson, the novel's main protagonist, has been able to see countdown clocks over everyone's heads, indicating how long they have until they die. She is powerless to help, so when her own clock says she has one month, twenty-seven days, four hours, fifty-nine minutes, and two seconds to live, she does her best to make sense of it all. 

The murder of Ivy's best friend Vanessa, is the main plot within the novel. She was killed in the woods and everyone around Ivy thinks she has something to do with it. Once more girls start disappearing, Ivy tries to put the pieces together, to discover the truth. I personally quite liked Ivy, I could only imagine how hard it must have been for her to have this ability. We get Ivy and her actions as well as her thoughts and feelings, which are completely understandable given her circumstances. I felt that this novel didn't really follow the usual YA tropes, although Ivy had this weird ability, she wasn't presented as the 'chosen one', which was refreshing. 

Gardenia, was well-written with a unique and thoughtful plot idea. The characters, I felt were developed thoroughly. This hasn't been one of my favourite books I've ever read, but I liked the ending and how everything worked out, it was all bundled well together and finished strong. I do think the 'thriller' aspect could have been played up even just a little bit more. Overall, I did enjoy this novel and it was a quick read for me, that I thought was a new concept and it was well-written.

Originally posted on Forever Young Adult on 2017 March 20.

I'm sure you can guess that my favorite aspect of this book was the fact that Ivy can see countdown clocks over peoples heads, ticking down the seconds until their deaths. Ivy has always been able to see these clocks but didn't fully understand her condition until as a young child she saw her grandmother have a heart attack and die in front of her. This was Ivy's first experience with the clocks, and with death.

Ivy as a character really irked me sometimes. She volunteers at a nursing home, presumably so she can spend time with people who are almost at their last moments of life. She obviously wants to give them a good send off and a better death. Yet, she's seen her best friend Vanessa's clock counting down their entire lives and doesn't try to intervene. She knows exactly when Vanessa will die, only a few short months before Ivy's own death, and yet doesn't even attempt to change fate. I find this particularly unbelievable but I understand it was necessary to the story line. If any of you out there has lost a best friend or family member, you know you'd do absolutely anything to prevent their deaths. As far as I'm concerned Ivy never truly knew if someones destiny was set in stone. I'd give my own life for the people I love and this part of the story really drove me nuts. You can't be thoughtful and caring as a character and stand back while your best friend is obviously going to die.

I noticed about halfway through the story I was extremely confused about which character was which. I think all the characters or suspects should have been fleshed out more in the beginning of the novel rather than later. It makes it a lot more entertaining while reading a mystery to really get to know the people and their motives early on in the book. With that being said, the ending and ultimately when we find out who the killer is fell flat. Through the process of elimination there was really only one person it could be. I would have been okay with that if the killer had an actual motive. For me the story really centered around the clocks and Ivy closing her chapters with everyone she loves before she dies. I think the theme of this part of the book was beautiful and the way Ivy talks about time you really have to think to yourself how much time you are wasting. You never know what could happen and I'd never want to pass away without the people I loved knowing I cared for them and I was happy. The part of the book I didn't like was the mystery. It really was very bland and not thought out.

Did I like this book? Absolutely. This was a quick one day read for me and pulled me out of a massive reading slump. I stayed up until 3 A.M reading because I had to know if my predictions about who the killer was correct. While there is definite problems with the story, I do recommend it to anyone who seems remotely interested. I did enjoy reading this I just wish it had been a little bit more developed in the mystery area. I give this book huge credit for getting me out of that dreadful reading slump. I really needed something fast paced and intriguing. This did the trick for me.

One last honorable mention to the character Miranda Raspberry for being a complete doll.

P.S - trigger warning for anyone who deals with or has dealt with self harm or suicidal thoughts. While I appreciate this book not shying away from mental illness, I just want to warn other readers before they dive in.