I feel semi- surprised this got published. Yikes. There's not even much for the weird step-incest thing, just a weird amount of world building and intense confusion.

Thank you Netgalley for the chance to read and review this title. I will review this title at a different date.

I really enjoyed reading this, I gave this a four out of five stars. The world building was so done well and I felt very immersed in this fae world. I found the characters to be very interesting as I have a special love for morally grey characters.

This book was very intriguing and I found it to be an amazing debut! The world building was so well done and I felt very immersed in this fae world. I also found the characters to be very interesting as I have a special love for morally grey characters! Overall 3.5 stars, as it was a solid fantasy book.

Description

Bound by haunting tragedies, Ksenia Adderley and Joshua Korensky have shared a home as foster siblings since they were children. Despite their opposite personalities—Ksenia is prickly, mistrustful, Josh, flamboyant and outgoing—they are fiercely protective of one another. As teens, they’ve grown even closer. Some say unnaturally so.

With Ksenia's eighteenth birthday approaching, their guardians expect her to move out. They want to free Josh of his obsession with the foster-sister whom they regard as a strange, unhealthy influence. But they don’t understand the depths of Josh’s feelings for Ksenia and how desperate he is to ensure they stay together—forever.

The one called Prince understands all too well. Attracted by the intensity of Josh’s desires and Ksenia’s fears, he can grant them a home among his kind: beautiful creatures not of this earth. All they have to do is surrender their very humanity and succumb to the cruel whims of Prince and his fae courtiers…

My Review
Never-Contented Things is brilliantly suspenseful and twisted. A dark YA novel that has all of the elements necessary to make this a great read.

The characters are well written and the story-line is engrossing and captivating. A must read for YA.

Never-Contented Things by Sarah Porter is a contemporary YA fantasy novel that is both dark and complex, The writing pulls you in with its details and the characters are just as dynamic as the story. Would recommend for older teens.

DNF at 30%. I really wanted to love this book, but I couldn't get past the slower pacing and talk of incest. Maybe I'll try picking it up again sometime in the future, but for now, I won't be finishing this book. Disregarding the those aspects however, I did like what I read, and found the 'darkness' (again, ignoring the incest aspect) of the book to be refreshing, and something I'd like to see more of in the upper-YA market.

Never-Contented Things was the perfect spooky read for me! I loved the atmosphere that it had, constantly giving me creepy feelings and having me look over my shoulder while reading in the dark!

Title: Never -Contented Things

Author: Sarah Porter

Genre:Young Adult

Rating : 1





Seductive. Cruel. Bored.
Be wary of…

Prince and his fairy courtiers are staggeringly beautiful, unrelentingly cruel, and exhausted by the tedium of the centuries ― until they meet foster-siblings Josh and Ksenia. Drawn in by their vivid emotions, undying love for each other, and passion for life, Prince will stop at nothing to possess them.

First seduced and then entrapped by the fairies, Josh and Ksenia learn that the fairies' otherworldly gifts come at a terrible price ― and they must risk everything in order to reclaim their freedom



My thoughts:

Would I recommend it: No

Would I read anything else by this author? no

I really want to to like it , and I went in expect it to be dark and creepy as well as some what twisted ,but while it was a bit dark ,it wasn't what I was expecting at all, and the way the author wrote it kind of throw me .And it was a struggle to try and understand what in the world was going on, as well as try and get though it, but non the less I did finished and not once did I enjoy it at all because after I finish it I was like what did I just read, and other thing I kept asking myself why in the world did i pick it up in the first place and then it hit me the only reason was because of the cover ,will I guess the saying is true in this case : never judge a book by its cover. With that said I want to thank NetGalley for letting me read and review it.

Originally I was so excited for this book because I love fae. I love reading about them and when I requested this I was sooo in the mood for some good fae story. But then the very mixed reviews came in and I lost a bit of my interest.

Which was a good thing. I know this sounds weird, but hear me out. This story sounded like a book about fae. It isn't though. There are fae in here, but they don't really matter. Prince is barely in the book at all. They are but a clever way to have a closer look at humanity, emotions, trauma and friendship.

It is brilliantly dark and twisted. But not about the fae. I think this suffered a similar fate than Three Dark Crowns did. The way both books were marketed made everyone expect things the books weren't and never really attempted to be. In the case of Three Dark Crowns a fast-paced action-y book (like Hunger Games) and in the case of Never-Contented Things a story about humans going to live in a world of fae and revolving way more around the fae.

I think both books would have way better ratings when the readers knew better what to expect and the marketing was done in a way only people truly interesting in these kinds of books read them. Better for the readers and the books imo.

But since I waited a while and read a couple of reviews and knew this before going in I can honestly say that I loved this book. So much! My little black heart rejoiced while reading it.

It goes deep into the emotions people have, about how trauma shapes us and the way we interact. How we say certain things that can start a whole mess (unintentionally). How twisted love and friendship can get. What we would do for other people and for ourselves and so much more.

It's told in different parts and we get 3 (and 1/2) POVs. Ksenia and Josh, the adoptive siblings and their friends Lexi.

Ksenia is very closed off to everyone but Josh. Both have been through a lot and cling to each other. But while everyone adores the open, lovely and charming Josh, people think less favourably of Ksenia. Lexi is the exception. Although she, too, has trouble with the secretiveness and emotional distance of her.

This book is very character-focused and slow-paced. Which is exactly my kind of book. I loved the deep look into who they truly are. It took a while for us to see it though which made it even better.

Ksenia and Josh get sucked into the strange, dangerous and toxic world of the fae. Or rather Josh goes in and kind of tricks Ksenia into coming with him.

The fae are fascinated by the feelings they have for each other and how codependent they are.
We slowly get to see more and more how truly toxic their relationship is. And how it slowly spirals into really dangerous territory.

I immediately loved Lexi. She is a great friend who isn't afraid of voicing hard truths. She truly cares for Ksenia and even Josh.

I loved how we slowly unravelled who they are deep down. How they influence each other. The deeper I got into the story the more I loved Ksenia.

I never really trusted Josh, he was too charming and manipulative from the start. But I could definitely see why Ksenia loved him.

The way Sarah Porter used the importance of names and what we associate with them was brilliant. Ksenia has many different names, especially after she is in the other world. And they each name different parts of her. That was so clever and I loved the part with the stairs.

How Lexi talked to the different parts was heartwarming. How she gave them each the right name.

The ending was perfect. I can't tell you how much I loved it!! The character development both Josh and Ksenia (but mainly her) did was amazing. Lexi was so supportive and challenged Ksenia to fight not only for others but maybe work on doing it for herself, too.

Lexi's family is amazing, too. I also loved how her character stood for the fact that people can struggle under positive and negative expectations and that although those are two very different things ... it can still be difficult sometimes to deal with. Her family is very supportive and she had their love throughout her life.

The rep in this was also very well done. Josh is pan and Ksenia is (maybe) bi/pan. Also, Lexi is black and also not straight.

This is a story about emotional healing and about how you sometimes love people that aren't good for you. That sometimes love is not enough to overcome other struggles. And it showed the contrast between a toxic and a healthy relationship brilliantly without disregarding the characters feelings. I appreciated that a lot. It's not easy to stop loving someone you are so entangled with.

If you like character-focused stories that are dark and twisted, difficult and wonderful I highly recommend this!

This is my kind of read when it comes to fantasy. Dark, gritty and gripping. I absolutely loved the writing, the premise and the heroes. I highly recommend this. Read it!!

This was not the book for me. I didn't love the characters or the writing style. I just missed the mark.

Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for letting me read this book. Unfortunately I had to DNF this book, I wasn’t really getting into the story and I found that it was very slow going and I don’t get on well with slow books I tend not to like them or put them down, but there was something about this one that didn’t sit right with me, the writing was beautiful and the world was amazing,

Because I enjoyed a previous book by Sarah Porter, Vassa In The Night, I hoped that this book would be equally enjoyable.  I also received a copy of it from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

Never- Contented Things follows the story of two foster-siblings, Josh and Ksenia, who are in an unhealthy co-dependent, think they love each other relationship.  Let me be honest. This book is weird. The writing is weird, the story is weird, the dialogue made me cringe, the world unexplained,  and the main characters in an almost incestuous relationship.   I was equally uncomfortable with this book and bored by it. Which is a new combination for me. 

I wish I had something nice to say about this book, but I only made it to about 20% into the story before I couldn't stand to read anymore.   I am disappointed that I didn't like this book, but I would be willing to read more by this author because of how much I liked Vassa In The Night. In the end I gave Never-Contented Things 1 star on Goodreads.

I honestly had a very hard time getting into this book, and ended up DNFing it early on. The characters didn't jive with me, the relationships between the characters seemed confusing at times, and forced other times. The language the author used to tell the story didn't sit well with me and I had a very hard time following along. Way too many questions weren't getting answered.

This was my first book by this author, It was pretty enjoyable. I would give this book a 3.5 star rating! It was a pretty Quick and easy read!

I received a copy of this book for a fair and honest review. The thought of Fairies in a small town kind of made me giggle. I understand why Josh did what he did, but I also agree with Ksenia about the betrayal. There is a lot that goes on this book. I like their friend Lexi. I would not want to be separated from those that I care about that is what is kind of happening here. I love the writing style and would like to read more by this author.

'Never-Contented Things' is a very unique dark fantasy novel that will appeal to a certain audience. I want to state two things before jumping into my review. First, I try to never read reviews of the book before I read it myself. I don't want anyone else's opinion skewering mine. Second, I never believe any hype that compares a novel to any other book out there. Saying it'll be good for fans of whoever or comparable to whatever title. For instance, after I finished this one, I read a lot of reviews that said readers were expecting a story like The Cruel Prince and were horribly disappointed when it didn't end up that way. I like to go into a book with an open mind with no expectations and that's exactly what I did with this one. And I'm also a sucker for a gorgeous cover - and this definitely ticked that box!

I will say that the description doesn't tell us much about the story at all and it can be quite a shock to people who are expecting something completely different. That being said, I thought every single aspect of the book stood out in some way. The writing itself was both beautiful and strange. It had detailed descriptions and lots of vivid imagery, but the plot was very odd and hard to keep up with sometimes. The characters are incredibly complex, especially Ksenia and Josh. It's mentioned in the description that they are foster siblings, but that doesn't begin to cover their codependent and taboo relationship that unfolds throughout the story. I know a lot of people were turned off by the whole foster siblings loving each other in more than a "family" way. Although this definitely wasn't a huge plus for me, I thought it was an intriguing aspect to the characters and the plot and it definitely made this novel stand out from basically every other one out there.

The story is hard to follow at times and I did get a little confused at times, but I personally like books that are outside the box and strange. Which this definitely was, without doubt. It covers some incredibly disturbing topics like the codependent relationship between Ksenia and Josh, their personal histories before and during their time in foster care, sexual assault, gender fluid characters, and some others. To me though, these were tough but interesting. The most important thing to me was how incredibly real it made these two characters. Some people might not like to read about these types of things, and that's fine, but sadly they are a part of life that many people have to endure. Because of the first person point of views that the book is written in, we get a deep look into each of the character's inner thoughts, memories, dreams, fears, emotions, and so much more. They were raw, gritty, and totally realistic. And I loved that the author put these damaged and broken people at the center of the story. I could keep going on about how I liked the characters because of (or in spite of) their attributes, but I'd just keep going in circles. Basically, this book isn't going to be for everyone. It's a dark YA fantasy with disturbing contemporary topics and a tiny bit of fairy lore thrown in. I highly recommend it for fans that like books that are controversial, a bit outside the norm, and are dark and realistic.

I ended up DNFing this book early on. And did not make it very far. To me the descriptions of it felt incomplete, or as though the book is a first draft. Very beginning of the book felt more like Rave kids, rather than fairies. I don't know if that was intended or not. But it felt disconnected from the actual plot.

While the blurb for this book sounded intriguing, I didn’t enjoy “Never-Contented Things”. The storyline might’ve captured my attention if it wasn’t for the writing style. While I couldn’t pinpoint my exact issue with it, it seemed really off and - to be frank - just weird to me.