This book is about extremely flawed people who make bad choices for good reasons, and covers some dark topics (a relationship that verges on foster-sibling-incest that is not condoned by the narrative; mentions of past, off-page sexual assault; some images that might count as body horror? But I'm a scaredeycat about that stuff and wasn't bothered, so). It's desperate and poetic and sad and hopeful.

There are horrible cruel fairies and truly high stakes. There are teens who just love each other so much and don’t know how to show it right. There's the terror of being being known and understood by another person, and worse, being known and understood by yourself. And there's something so nice about reading a book in which the main characters care so hard. Everything in it, from the emotional arcs to the plot, are driven by how much they love and want to protect each other.

Of these three main characters, none of them are straight, which I love. You have people who already know and are comfortable with their identities, and others in various states of figuring themselves out. Ksenia has a less defined identity in that there's some discussion of how she's not really a girl or a boy, which is cool nonbinary representation, but I have some thoughts on it. A lot of how people see Ksenia's gender seems to rest on the ambiguity of her appearance. And don't get me wrong, I also love an androgynous aesthetic and people expressing gender identity through physical appearance. And this book in particular has wonderful descriptive writing. But sometimes the focus on what she looks like, how she can look like a guy or whatever, makes it feel like the book thinks Ksenia's appearance is why she's nonbinary. Maybe if we got more of Ksenia's thoughts on her gender identity, it wouldn't feel that way. But Ksenia never really thinks about it. Her nonbinariness is confirmed by other people (who have noticed things or are fairies who Know Things About You) who obviously are more limited in what they can tell us about her gender — which is perhaps why the focus seems to get stuck on what Ksenia looks like and what clothes she wears. I don't think that makes the representation bad, but I think it makes it feel less full than the incredibly-fleshed out emotions that crowd the book.

Anyway: emotional, flawed, queer teens trying really hard to save themselves but mostly each other. Dark content but fiercely hopeful. Beautiful writing and a weird, tingly-creepy fairy world. Appears to be a hit or miss kind of book, but I loved it.

If you like Holly Black's The Coldest Girl in Coldtown or The Darkest Part of the Forest, you should read this! If you read Sarah Porter's other book Vassa in the Night and liked the weirdness but could have used more sense-making weirdness, DEFINITELY read this.

I don't know what it was with this book, but had it not been for the somewhat better second half of it, it would've been even less than three stars. Thankfully I don't DNF books unless they're god-awful, but if I did, this would probably would've been one of them.

I did love the whole dark and creepy faerie world part of it and wish there had been more talk about it all. The creatures that the author has come up with are fascinating to read about, if only that would've been more developed.

Instead the focus was on the human characters and dear god, did some of them annoy me. I get that love makes you do stupid things, but sweet jaysus, that kid Josh was on a whole another level. And that's exactly what he is, a child. A special one, yes, but for me that didn't make up for all the crazy stuff he got up to. I've a feeling he was supposed to have some sort of a mental disorder, correct me if I'm wrong, but if that was indeed the case, I feel that it should've been explained, said out. Mental ilness isn't a taboo subject so I felt the need to see it spelled out for me. Unless I'm just seeing something that wasn't there and the character was simply just weird and eccentric!?

I've learned after reading quite a lot of books that there was something lacking for me if a character's death kind of shocks me, but at the same time doesn't make me feel any sympathy or sadness. With this it didn't.

All in all, it was well written, it just didn't float my boat. Disappointing, as this was one of the few books I've gotten approved for on NetGalley which I had seen talked about beforehand. Oh well.

After reading through just over a third of this book I made the difficult decision to put it down. There were some elements of this book that I enjoyed - the descriptive writing is phenomenal and the sense of uncomfortable atmosphere is created to utmost perfection. I think it's possibly *too* uncomfortable for me at this moment in time.
I know other reviewers have talked about the incest themes in this book and I don't need to add to that discussion beyond the fact that reading a relationship that is not only somewhat incestuous but also seems to be incredibly toxic outside of that idea made me incredibly uncomfortable. Of course, that was the point and since I assume that was the intention it is safe to say that it was met. However, I cannot bring myself to stay in the headspace this book puts me in. People who are used to more horror/unsettling reads will probably have a great time with this but it wasn't for me.

Where to start? There’s something magical about Sarah Porter’s books, her writing. I was swept off my feet reading Never-Contented Things. It’s a refreshing and unique take on fairies. The writing breathes life into the setting and the characters so vividly. It cleverly and beautifully explores/captures self-discovery, self-healing, trauma, anger, desperation, and unhealthy relationships so well. I like that the book doesn’t shy away from all the dark stuff teens can go through.

Ksenia resonated with me - reminding me of a younger me. I love Lexi, so badass. I find her and Ksenia’s relationship so sweet. I understand Josh’s motive, but he’s still awful and I know they’re not related but him loving Ksenia romantically and vice versa is gross.

As creepy and grotesque as they are, I wish there was more of Prince and the fairies.

There are some ableist parts, particularly on mental illness, that bothered me.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. What a journey it was.

*potential spoilers*
This book.. It STRESSED ME OUT... but in the best of ways. I felt like I was along for the ride as Josh lost more and more of his humanity. I felt the anxiety build as Ksenia tried to come to grips with the upside-down situation she had been thrust into. I was an active participant in the battle Lexi fought to save her friends and herself. The writing in this book is addicting, tumultuous, and everything you're looking for if you love dark fantasy. This book was a true roller coaster and my only wish was that the ride was longer.

I was really excited to get to this book. The cover is absolutely gorgeous and has honestly become my favorite cover of the year!

But sadly, the story did not live up to the hype.

We follow a main character who has struggled all her life in the foster system with her brother. But when a bunch of abnormal looking kids drug and leave her without her brother, she can't help but do everything she can to find him. 

And when he finally does, their whole world changes. 

The dialogue and writing style were just got sitting with me throughout the book. There would be times when I would shortly become engrossed in the story, but then I felt like I jumbled over the words constantly. 

The idea behind the story was intriguing as a seductive fae prince becomes obsessed with the siblings. And this is a DARK story. There are haunting moments and traumatic instances that all create a more 'messed-up' tone to the book. I personally liked reading the diversity as we don't get to see this content in most YA stories. 

You could argue that some of the elements could be on the unhealthy side in terms of the relationship between the main characters. 

Overall, I wasn't a huge fan of the book. While I do think the story brings a diverse tone to YA that isn't seen too much, I just wasn't into the pressures between the siblings. There are trigger warnings for sexual assault, incest, and abuse, so please be careful when picking this book up. 

I ended up giving this one 2 out of 5 stars.

Let's start with the good stuff!

I loved how everyone who met Josh loved him, I actually liked how unique this story was, I liked the fact it had non traditional characters and I loved Lexi, in fact she saved this book for me!

But.

The writing made me confused in places, how can I describe this? It was flowery and too over the top for my tastes. It also didnt contain the fae impact I thought it would have, and I wanted that. Plus I didn't really gel with Ksenia, I don't know why, I just didn't like her!

More like 3.5 stars
TW this book highlights rape/incest/parental neglect/suicide/emotional abuse
This book will not be for everyone. The synopsis also doesn't help I found it could come across as misleading . Yes there are Fae in this book but they are not the center as the synopsis suggests. Ms. Porter is known for writing dark horror themed reads and this I believe might be one of her most dark themed ones. I would totally recommend this for older teens.

With all that being said I did enjoy this book. The book follows Josh and Ksenia foster siblings who have a very volatile relationship. And Alexandra Josh and Ksenia friend. Ksenia has been in some horrifying situations and because of that she is very personal person. Josh although a victim himself I still didn't like him the way he manipulated Ksenia was blegh. I really did enjoy Alexandra she is an amazing friend. And I loved her and Ksenia's relationship at the end Ksenia so needed a happy ending. Now the Fae do play a role in this but they are more like accessories to the actual heart of the story and honestly I wish they played a bigger role and yet not They were so interesting but I find if we focused on them too much they would have taken away the weight the story was trying to highlight and that was about self hate and denial and overcoming self loathing to like and appreciate yourself and seek happiness and be happy. Maybe we just need a book centered on them. like an anthology.

Overall this was a good often times disturbing read that had a great a story in its center. And remember this will not be for everyone.

I'm a little conflicted, the premise sounded so up my alley and yet some things fell flat, like the writing and the characters. They felt juvenile and I couldn't really connect or like them. I did like the exploration of toxic relationships and getting out of those situations, but it wasn't enough to make this story wow me.

What did I just read?

This book is like a nightmare. I’m being literal. It’s like a weird, disturbing, nonsensical nightmare, with aimless running around the woods, dead kids, legs growing out of walls and people speaking things that make no sense.

I’ve been avoiding the fairy stories recently, due to an oversaturation, but this looked cool and dark, so I thought “Why not request it on NetGalley?”. Well, joke’s on me. This book is not even exactly about fairies, but about disturbed, self-loathing teenagers.

The main character is an androgynous girl who has a lot of issues, one of which is that her younger foster brother is seriously in love with her. The book is full of rape-y brother/sister moments and of this almost 18-year-old girl and her 16(I think)-year-old brother who’s trying to have sex with her. It’s honestly repulsive. And that’s not even the problem of the characters. It’s something that just happens while other things are also happening. I couldn’t really take the rest of the story seriously, because while the characters didn’t want the world to know about their “love”, they didn’t exactly think it was wrong… just wrong by the standards of others. She kept calling him “baby”, which I found equally disturbing, as they were making out and getting naked and stuff.

If you’re still curious about the story, beyond that, well… it’s a mess. The faeries are never really called such, although we all know it, mainly from the description of the book, but they remain kind of a background noise. You know how in a lot of movies there’s always that one villain that’s just outside of the immediate area of interest for the main characters until the showdown at the end of the movie? That’s them. Sure, they appear every once in a while, but aside from convoluted, meaningless talk, there’s not really much personality to any of the faeries.

The main thing in the book is, ya know, facing your fears and issues, and believing in yourself and the power of love, yadda-yadda, but I didn’t care about any of these weird, disturbed kids. They were not strange in a “likable outcast” kind of way. Just strange. Ksenia (shudder) is the cliche emo-“stay away from me, I bite, but I’m actually a really cool and loving person on the inside, but I’ve been wounded so many times” type of heroine. Lexi is the know-it-all, the voice of reason, who’s there to balance emotionally the rest of the freaks, and Josh is just preposterous. Throughout the book he was supposed to have been enchanted and that somehow seemed to kind of justify his actions, but to be honest, I felt I haven’t read about such a disgusting person in a while. He was creepy, needy, clingy and a borderline psychotic stalker.

…Aaand I’m avoiding faeries again for the next five years, after this bitter experience.

This book was definitely not what I had been led to expect by the blurb, and it actually left me feeling lied to. Ksenia is a tall and thin androgynous girl who everyone mistakes for a boy. Her foster brother Josh is pudgy with long hair and wears make up. The two of them, from page one, are in an incestuous relationship. A lot of the book was over the top "I love yous" between the siblings with very little time for the Fae. This needed to have a different blurb so that people KNOW what they are getting into.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of Never-Contented Things in exchange for an honest review.

DNF at 20%

This book is a strange one. I really felt like I would enjoy it based off the synopsis. I have an open mind and actually love a good twisted or dark story, but for me this just missed the mark. I read the first 20% of the book and just couldn't get into it. The world building is nonexistent and the pacing was slow. I honestly did not care about the characters even though it was clear I should. Overall, wish I loved it but I really did not. Maybe this will be someone else's cup of tea.

I wanted to finish this book, but I wasn’t enjoying it, so I decided to stop reading around 25%. I just. I tried, I really did. Usually I enjoy books that are different and have complex characters. But NEVER CONTENTED-THINGS just wasn’t my cup of tea.

Here are some of my thoughts and observations on the first 25% of the novel:

- The MC, Ksenia, kept on mentioning how everyone liked Josh and being around him. I don’t know if the reader should like him or not, but I didn’t.
- The fairies made one appearance in 25%. Although it was clear that their magic was present, it wasn’t enough to keep me hooked.
- Incest. Even though Ksenia and Josh are foster siblings, their love for each other made me uncomfortable.
- Josh states his love for Ksenia so much that it comes across as false and more like infatuation, or an unhealthy obsession.
- These two teenagers declared their love for each other more times than I tell my dog I love him in a week. Their love for each other was emphasized so much that it came across as tacky and unbelievable.
- “I only really want you. I was killing time screwing random people, until we could be together.” Words from Josh who is sixteen years old. Is this even normal for a sixteen-year-old? Is it really THAT hard to just wait until they can be together. I feel like this is another example that proves Josh is obsessed with Ksenia rather than in love with her.
- Exclamations. The amount of exclamation marks in Josh’s speech declared his ongoing enthusiasm and made me exhausted.
- The writing. Some paragraphs could be summarized in one sentence. I know it was to build the tension and the world, but it slowed the pace. Phrases like “that was when” could have been removed. I did however like the descriptions and most of the writing when it got to the point.

The only reason I would pick up this book again, is to see what happens to Ksenia. I liked her character, she was realistic and complex. I hope to pick this book up again in the future when I’m committed to finish it.
I would recommend this book to readers who are mature and like darker themes.

* Thank you NetGalley for providing me with this arc in exchange for an honest review.

Never-Contented Things is a dark YA fantasy novel by Sarah Porter. And, when I say "dark" I do not mean that there is an evil faerie prince in the story who falls in love with a human heroine. Porter's faeries are creatures of nightmares and pure evil. They are utterly devoid of feeling, and are more akin to the folk stories about them, heartless beings who steal human children in the night and replace them with counterfeit changelings.

Our main characters are Ksenia and Joshua, two foster kids growing up in a small American town, who very soon will be separated because Ksenia is about to turn 18. That is until Joshua makes a deal with faeries and gets both of them spirited away into Nowhere.

I have seen quite a few negative reviews by readers who received advanced copies of the book from the publisher. I honestly do not understand that. I loved this book. The plot was unexpected, dark, interesting and wholly unlike the cookie-cutter YA fantasy that is being churned out by the publishing industry nowadays.

The story felt like an allegory for being stuck in a dark abusive relationship, or a situation you cannot get out of. Ksenia, for all intents and purposes, is dead to her friends and foster parents. But she is very much alive and suspended in a parallel world of faerie where she is kept by Josh and his twisted obsession for her. She feels powerless in this situation because she is vulnerable. She was hurt and abused as a young girl, and is starved for love and affection. She also has an appallingly low self-esteem and feels utterly undeserving of love. Josh, under the guise of saving both them, robs her of her ability to make choices for herself. This is a startlingly accurate description of how a dominating abuser might be justifying the way he treats his partner.

Ksenia starts finding her way to who she is only when Lexi appears. Lexi is the one who truly loves her in a completely unselfish and genuine way. She does not see Ksenia as someone broken and requiring constant care. Lexi's ability to precisely voice her feelings, set boundaries and allow others and herself to make choices, fascinates me. There is a lot I can learn from her.

Overall, I rated this book 5 out of 5 stars. I took my time reading it and I enjoyed every minute. An e-ARC was provided to me by NetGalley.

DNF at 46%

I feel like I’ve been scammed. The synopsis of Never-Contented Things sells something that it’s not true: a fantasy story. So imagine my surprise when I started it and I found myself reading a contemporary book with magical realism elements. I don’t know who wrote the synopsis of this book, but they are misleading the readers. Because if I had known what I was really getting into, I wouldn’t have even requested the ARC.

I don’t like magical realism at all, so I think my experience with this book was doomed to failure from the beginning. Nonetheless, I tried to finish it. I really did. But then I decided to stop forcing myself to read it and decided to DNF it, because I wasn’t enjoying this bizarre story at all.

This is a dark book about two fosters siblings, Ksenia and Josh, that have an unhealthy, questionable and problematic relationship. Josh doesn’t see Ksenia as a sister and she, afraid of losing the person she loves the most in the world, tries to give him what he wants. I want to point out that the author condemns this toxic relationship from the beginning, but having to read how Josh tries to pressure Ksenia into having sex with him just made me sick. I know that was probably the author’s intention, but I still had a hard time reading that. Also, trigger warnings for sexual assault, parental neglect and emotional abuse (and probably more, but these are the ones I found before DNFing this book).

I was curious about other relationship, as I decided to read other reviews at some point—I needed to know if this book improved at any point. But even the possibility of a f/f relationship wasn’t enough to force me to finish this book.

As I mentioned before, my main problem was the magical realism. It’s just not my cup of tea and the setting and plot of this story was just too wacky and bizarre for me. Also, the fairies are mentioned in the synopsis as if they had a leading role, when the reality is that they hardly appear, at least in the 46% of this book I read.

There is one positive thing I have to say about this book and it’s that all the three main characters are queer. Ksenia and Josh are both pansexual and gender non-conforming, and I’m pretty sure Lexi is bisexual.

In conclusion, Never-Contented Things wasn’t my cup of tea.

This book just wasn't meant for me. I think a lot of people will enjoy this but I was just uncomfortable and didn't like anything going on this book. The characters were written well but the world and the plot were too drawn out for my liking.

Told through a variety of point of views, Never Contented Things shows us the dark side of fairies. So far we’ve been lulled into believing that fairies are these wonderful beings (looking at you Rhysand & Rowan) that we’ve sort of forgotten that fairies were once above and beyond feared. How people once upon a time were deathly afraid of changelings and of their babies being taken by the fairies in the middle of the night, replaced by sickly lookalikes. Never Contented takes us back to these times and Sarah Porter weaved a story where you’re not exactly sure who to trust and are left gripping the edge of your seat right up until the very end.

I knew from almost the second I started Never-Contented Things that the book wasn’t going to be for me. I ended up DNF-ing (not finishing) it because life is far too short to read books you’re not enjoying. So, after a torturous 24% I called it quits. And here are the reasons why:

1) The writing
The writing was overly flowery, and to be honest I think the word flowery is far too kind a word for what I read. I read passages that made absolutely no sense because the metaphors were so ridiculous. I read sentences about the sky apparently trying to swallow people in blue. I read things that I didn’t like and to be honest another 75% of this writing was not possible for me.

2) The “romance”
The romance was between someone on the cusp of 18 and someone on the cusp of 16. The almost 18 year old actually referred to herself as 18 so it felt like a huge age difference, and definitely implied a big power imbalance. Moreover, the love interests were foster siblings, and the 18 year old referenced, one multiple occasions, to her love interest as her brother. It was all just very strange and uncomfortable to read.

3) The promiscuous pansexual
If you care to look there are lots of people talking about why the promiscuous bisexual trope is incredibly harmful, and for the most part I think that can be applied to a promiscuous pansexual as well. In this book, the 15 year old boy character – Joshua – is pansexual. Points for using the word on page, but minus points for making him promiscuous just to “bide the time” until his foster sister would allow herself to be with him. Hard pass.

4) Literally everything I read
Honestly, there was nothing redeemable in the 24% of this book that I read. I disliked every second I spent reading this book and I wished I had DNFd it in the very beginning like I wanted to. But I also wanted to give the book a chance so here we are. There are just so many things I disliked about what I read that I could have a huge, long list of them but instead I wanted to keep it readable and focus on the things that really stood out to me. But this last point is a blanket one to cover all the other things I didn’t like about this book. For example, the scene where the main girl character is bleeding and a “faerie” girl laps it up with her breasts, all the while moaning and apparently having some sort of pleasurable experience from it. And how a “faerie” boy created multiple copies of a naked seventeen year old. I’m all for not shying away from sex and whatnot in YA but this truly felt like the author just made the ages YA appropriate but not the content, which is something that is happening far too often in YA nowadays. Authors, remember who the heck you’re actually writing for, please and thanks.

DNF at 30%

I really tried to read this book and I just couldn't. This book is more of a dark magical realism book than fantasy/fae. I really did appreciate that our main characters were queer and nonbinary. However, the sibling relationship between Ksenia and Josh was something I had a lot of trouble reading. I felt very uncomfortable reading about Josh's infatuation with his elder foster sister and the "almost sex scene" that occurred between them in the beginning. I also struggled with following the plot and the "not-world" that Josh and Ksenia were in. Overall, I was not enjoying the book and had to put it down.


ARC provided by Macmillan-Tor/Forge via Netgalley in exchange for my honest thoughts and review.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39863312

First I want to thank NetGalley for this free eARC for my free and honest review.

This book was so hard to get through. In the beginning I was really worried about Josh but the way that the book is told through Kesina’s perspective didn’t work for me I had no interest in her as a character.

I thought that the fantastical elements to the story were fun but I didn’t find the amazing.

I think that there is definitely an audience for this book I just don’t think I am that audience.