This book was okay. I kept reading through because I wanted to know the ending, but parts of the plot felt disjointed. Where did the doctor and nurse originate?

The gender stereotypes and expectations of 1950s America is an interesting angle for a horror novel to take, and I would have been interested in reading that novel. This book, however, doesn't commit to that angle. I was more interested in the politics of June's home life in the "Days Past" sections than I was in what ended up being sci-fi sections of June in the institution. Seeing how independent, free-thinking women were treated by families, suitors, and institutions (like schools, communities, hospitals, etc) is important in the Me Too era. Nightingale, though, becomes more about the shock and awe of its sci-fi and mystery elements as it progresses, and the resolution isn't satisfying.

Nightingale

by Amy Lukavics

Harlequin TEEN (US & Canada)

Harlequin Teen

Teens & YA

Pub Date 25 Sep 2018

I am reviewing a copy of Nightingale through Harlequin Teen and Netgalley:

June Hardie is a seventeen year old girl whose far ahead of her time. It’s 1951 and she’s everything a young woman of that time isn’t supposed to be she’s Independent, rebellious as well as a dreams. June longs to travel go away to college and write Science Fiction stories. Her parents though are determined to make her a better woman, her Mother tries to groom her to be the perfect wife and Mother. Her Father wants her to marry his buissnesd partners son whose domineering. When she resists her parents commit her, and she discovers there are different types of prison.

Her parents commit her to a horrible institution called Butrow Place Asylum an institution with appalling conditions, terrifying staff and horrendous medical treatments. The so called institution preys on June’s darkest fears, as well as those of her fragile roommate Eleanor. The women locked away in that place with its crumbling walls and cruel staff, the ones who dare to speak out disappear. Trapped somewhere between reality and hallucinations June isn’t sure where reality ends and the nightmares began. She does know that she needs to destroy the institution before it destroys all of them.

I give Nightingale five out of five stars!

Happy Reading

This was a book that I raced through, but looking back I am still not too sure what I thought about it. It is definitely creepy, and I spent a lot of time wondering what exactly was going on, but I never really stopped wondering. I loved the concept of the book and of a girl fighting against everything that she was raised to be, but as the book got weirder and weirder I started to lose my way with it. I really loved how creepy it was, but I was hoping for a little more from the ending.

What did I just read? It's eerie and the author certainly sets a mood but I am not sure if the execution lived up to the book description.

I don't really know what this book was. Unfortunately, I don't think the author did, either. Was it romance? Science fiction? Horror? Historical fiction? This book did about ten different things, and I feel it did not do any of the things particularly well.

The book is set in the early 1950s, and June Hardie just graduated from high school and was not ready to travel down the path her parents had set for her. When she refuses to go along with their plans at a party, something happens that causes June to get locked up in a mental institution. Can the "nurses" there be trusted, or is there more going on than anyone knows?

There were parts of this story that were interesting to read. Similar to movies along the likes of SAW, there were plenty of scenes that were grisly and hard to stomach. Overall, the entertaining parts at the end of the book did not make up for the dragging that went on throughout the book.

Eerie. Atmospheric. Deeply confusing. See review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2391330424

I was enjoying this book about a girl locked into a mental institution but was not able to complete before it was unable for me to access. I am waiting for the book (due out in September) to finish. Cannot wait!

I think I would give this a 2.5/5 rating if it was possible. Honestly this book was just bizarre and moved so fast, I could barely keep up. In the end I wasn't sure how I felt towards it.

Our story starts in 1951 with our main character June Hardie, a fresh-out-of-high-school girl that is ahead of time and is constantly bucking against her families expectations of her. Her parents are also basically forcing her to date her father's business partner's son, Robert, who is boring and the typical male of the 1950s. June is also writing a science-fiction novel about aliens who kidnap a young girl and experiment on her, towards the beginning the story is a way to possibly get into a writing retreat in New York. As the story progresses, June's novel becomes to take a life of its own and June has to work on it, almost as possessed. But June's life becomes much more complicated when her parents admit her to a mental institution after waking up one morning and June believes her parents have been replaced by look-alikes. Once at the institution she realizes that something is not quite right about the place. In what feels like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest with cruel nurses and doctors, with the other girls appearing mostly normal and disappearing with alarming frequency June realizes she must try and get out of there. As her time there continues on June grows closer to her roommate, Eleanor, to the point where they enter a relationship. Eventually everything comes to head with a show down between June and the medical staff, that leads to June discovering something about herself that she had forgotten.

For the most part I enjoyed June fighting against the roles everyone in her family had set for her, like being the "perfect" housewife with cooking and looking pretty at all times and being coerced into dating the son of her father's business partner who is ignores her dreams and ambitions for his own. But the whole Eleanor thing came out of nowhere, and suddenly June is in love with her? I just felt like it was out of nowhere with not a lot of build up towards it, but kudos for a LGBT pairing back in the 1950s. (view spoiler) When June starts to remember forgotten things about herself I enjoyed seeing how it all started (view spoiler) I guess my main complaint with this story was that it turned into horror when I was expecting a thriller or suspense novel regarding a young girl in the 1950s that was simply too forward thinking for the time period.

If you enjoy horror, science-fiction, and feminist characters, then check this out. I received this from the Net Gallery as an Advanced Reader's Copy for my honest opinion and review.

I need to start off by saying that I love all of Amy's other books. Her writing is so good, and they always have a twist that throws me. This book is just different. I honestly don't know how I would even booktalk it. While reading it, I thought it would make a good, fun sci-fi movie. As a book, I really struggled with it, and in the end I was just left confused. As an adult, I questioned some of the historical stuff and the language she used. (What was on TV in that time period, reusing a needle, etc...) I could be wrong, but using the f-word that much doesn't seem right for the time period. I feel like if it had gone a few other ways, I would have really enjoyed it. Her writing is great! I wanted to finish the book and read it very fast, but I wanted more...more of the old Amy. I'm curious to see what the teen have to say when they read it.

*Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.*

3.5 stars. It would have been a definite 5, if not for the subplot of lesbian romance. That was a let-down for me.

Similar in feel to the old show The Twilight Zone, this book is WEIRD. I'm going to need time to mull over it. It's told in a confusing, eerie way: June, in the institution; June, before the institution. We're given enough loose threads to really wonder, but not enough to piece together what's really going on. For an alien-themed sci-fi/horror, I really liked it. I don't often read books like this.

The writing is cold and detached. I feel that it suits the narrative well. There is a variety of the 1950s' social issues addressed quietly in the background of the story - gender-norms, mental health treatments, abuse. It's a lot to digest, but all the same, I devoured this book.

Get ready for gory aliens, creepy nurses, and angry teenagers. Nightingale will be released October 2018.

Lukavics, consistently excels at creepy mood. Her books are complex and a lot unpack in the best way.

This was an unsettling read, which I suppose is the point. I sped through it, but with a knot in my stomach. Lukavics created the tension and unease very well. I did find the ending... a bit too much, which is the only reason I rated it 4 stars instead of 5.

So.. I had to sit over this book for a day... because I was THAT confused. I'm not exactly sure what I just read?

I've heard fantastic things about Amy Lukavics and her horror novels. BUT, wow... this was NOT horror at all. I don't even know what I would categorize this as?..... Sci-fi ish/Science fictionish?

This book had SUCH potential to be an epic read... but damn was I completely lost on all accounts.

June Hardie is struggling to make something of herself in a typical suburban town. Yikes.. typical gender roles/norms here... with women cooking/cleaning and men being the primary breadwinners. However, June has found her love of writing and becomes obsessed with her story. Her family of course doesn't support her writing and thinks she's ridiculous. A mysterious event happens and June lands herself in an asylum.

June beings to realize that there is something very creepy going on in the asylum. Girls start disappearing and June has her work cut out to figure out what the hell is going on.

The story alternates between June being in the asylum and the event leading up to the asylum with her family and how awful she is treated by them.

I don't even know where the author was trying to go with this one. I was completely lost at the end of this one and was thinking wtf?

The only thing that I really liked about this book was the cover. Ugh.. major disappointment. I don't think I will be trying another book by this author.

2 stars for this one.

Thank you so much to Harlequin Teen and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Expected publication date: 10/1/18
Published to GR: 7/22/18.

This is a tough one for me to review because although I found it compelling to read and finished it within a day, there were some things about it that I did not enjoy but will probably suit other readers perfectly. It starts out as a confusing and creepy horror story set in a 1950s mental institution with flashbacks to June's life just as she was graduating from high school before being admitted to the institution. In those flashbacks, she felt forced into becoming a perfect homemaker by her parents while at the same time dreaming of escaping that life to become a writer. Often it is hard to know what is real and what is not as her experiences muddled by drugs/medication in the institution blend together with a science fiction story she was writing in the flashbacks. Then in addition to the creepiness and confusion, things get a bit gory. In the end, it all comes together a little too quickly and in a way that just didn't quite work with my initial expectations.

Also, I would consider this a mature YA with a couple sexual scenes (one in the first few pages) that will keep it off of my middle school shelf.

While horror is not normally a genre I seek out or even enjoy, I was pulled in by the strange and gruesome world of Amy Lucavics' heroine June Hardie. June, an unhappy 17-year-old, wakes up one morning to discover her parents have seemingly been replaced with duplicates, and only she sees it. She winds up involuntarily committed to a mental institution, where it becomes increasingly clear that something sinister is going on.

I enjoyed most of the book, but to be honest, would have preferred that the epilogue be omitted. I felt its sudden change in mood was jarring and undermined the climactic final chapters, which were otherwise breathtaking.

Okay, so uh. Wow. There's a lot to unpack in this dear book.
This book is really mysterious and eerie to begin with, but as the story progresses and more information is revealed as to how June ended up in the institution, it gets even more confusing from there. I actually liked this, normally I wouldn't be so happy about being confused for most of an entire book, but with this one, I think that it worked really well. As I've finished the book, I can now look back at what I read and recall all of the little clues that were present throughout hinting at the events toward the ending, but I think that these were concealed nicely and fairly difficult to figure out because of the way of the storytelling and gradual reveal of past details, yet the reader can clue in enough to know these things are somehow odd, but just not quite sure how they fit into the story. I spent this entire book in suspense and I really enjoyed it.
I normally have a difficult time with horror novels, because I find I have a hard time being scared or at the very least unsettled like I can be with horror movies, I find the visuals are missing, and most horror novels that I've encountered don't make me feel suspenseful and at the edge of my seat with the writing. But this book I found very unsettling, and I'm glad that this book wasn't a let-down for me, I'm pretty grateful for that, in fact.
One thing I really enjoyed was the relationship between June and Eleanor. I was picking up some more-than-friends vibes very early on, but usually this is just a false hope that is not developed in the writing, however, I was more than pleased to read on that this vibe I was getting was indeed leading to a relationship more than platonic between the two. The presence of a queer relationship of course always impacts my over-all enjoyment of a book, and this was no exception, I felt a mix of joy and unease while reading, but I really liked the mix of the two.
This book really reminded me of American Horror Story season two. It takes place in an institution, a mental-hospital of sorts, taking place in the 1950s (a mental institution in the 1950s is always a great setting for horror media), this seems like a horror-tastic tale until you get to the end and realize that the entire story was centred around aliens all along. I was super let down by this, just as I was watching AHS. I automatically like a story less when the entire plot is revealed to have been the result of aliens. When horror is involved, I feel like a plot centred around aliens is a cop-out, aliens just don't do the trick for me as far as horror goes. Basically, I felt supremely underwhelmed by the time the end of the story rolled around. Not only this, but I found the end to be a little confusing, however, I did like the violence and gore that came with the climactic end, I think that it made the experience just a bit better for me in the midsts of my disappointment.

This is a YA horror novel that takes many twists and turns. The heroine is not crazy-or is she?? Her family only has her best interests at heart. Or do they? Read and find out. This book does take a turn I definitely did NOT see coming!

June is admitted to a psychiatric hospital after she wakes up and finds that her parents have been "replaced." Told from differing timelines, the before-the-institution and in-the-institution, June tries to figure out what kind of a hospital has these kinds of nurses and doctors... and all other strange things. June must figure out if her mind is playing tricks on her, if her family is playing tricks on her, if the nurses are playing tricks on her...

Once I started this book, I couldn't put it down. I was creeped out (I get scared VERY easily), and I just wanted to know what was going on! Then.. I found out.. and it was a bit of a let down. I agree with other reviewers; the end was rushed and confusing and not well thought out. The first 3/4 get 4 stars.. then the end brought it down to 3. 3.5 stars total!

I finished this book just before bed and afterwards I lay awake because I could not stop thinking about it! It's a very involved story, but it sucks the reader in. The narrator is not reliable, but there is definitely a sense of injustice at the norms and expectations of the 1950's. The medical profession at the time was also a little creepy, with lobotomies being an acceptable and almost casual practice.
I had a little issue with the narrator's current jargon, for instance referring to a boy that she should have "kicked to the curb" and other seemingly out-of-era-language, but overall I really enjoyed the book. It was a good reminder that when you write your own stories, anything can happen.