Thank you Netgalley for providing me with this ARC of All the Bad Apples by Moira Fowley-Doyle.

When Deena attends the funeral of her older sister Mandy, the only thing going through her mind is that Mandy has to be out there somewhere. Not fully convinced that she is dead, Deena gathers her best friend, as well as a few other mysterious friends, and sets out to discover what happened to her wild older sister.

This story winds between present day Deena, and then goes back in time to family folklore and legend. Because of Deena's "otherness" as an LGBTQ teen, her family continues to refer to her as a "bad apple," attributing it to other ancestors who were cursed and shunned, like Mandy, for also being bad apples.

I'm not a huge fan of fantasy and folklore. For some reason, I just can't get magic to stick in my brain. But, this had enough human and relationship elements that it made it enjoyable. I thought the writing was colorfully descriptive and lovely.

Fowley-Doyle has a way with atmosphere, and this book is no exception: the story that unfolds in the past is tough to read, but worth it as the reader discovers along with Deena how far their family curse goes. Combined with a diverse cast of likable characters in the present and some eerie imagery, 'All The Bad Apples' is an ambitious story that will stick with the reader.

This book gutted me. The story, the characters, and the writing. It’s one of my favorite books I have read this year. But I sobbed in rage while reading the authors note at the end.

Oh my goodness, this book. I barely had an inkling of what All The Bad Apples had in store for me, and I’m actually glad for that. It made discovering this book all the more bittersweet. See, there is a deep message under all the beautiful, lyrical writing. By the time I reached the ending of this story, I was in tears. I’d honestly be surprised if you aren’t as well.

Deena lives in a world where being a “nice, normal girl” is what is expected. Raised by her older sister, judged from afar by her absent father, attending a strict Catholic school, Deena feels hemmed in. She notes the girls around her who are brave enough to stand tall, to show their true colors, but she doesn’t know how to be one of them. This is why I loved Deena, and why I’m so glad that she was our main character. She wasn’t immediately fierce, but instead her bravery grew as she went on the journey to find her missing sister. A hero’s journey, if you will. Each piece of the puzzle that fell into place, each lesson learned from her ancestors, brought her closer and closer to the person that she wanted to be. It was a beautiful, brutally honest journey, and it was just perfect.

I loved how Fowley-Doyle was able to bring in so much rich, albeit damning, history into this story. Deena’s journey is told in alternating chapters between current day Ireland, and historical Ireland. Within these chapters, the author starkly lays out the similarities between people who lived hundereds of years ago, and the girls who are involved in the modern day story. It’s terrifying how much similarity there is between the two of them. There’s a definite focus on the people considered to be on the fringes of society, or the bad apples if you will. People who dared to love outside of the “norm”. People who looked different, or acted different, or merely wanted something more than what society told them they should have. I can’t express enough how poignant all of that is. I don’t want to spoil anything, since this is something to discover, but reading the author’s note at the end broke my heart in two. I had no idea of this history before this book, and I’m so glad that it was all laid out for me in such a spectacular way.

Admittedly, you’ll need to suspend disbelief to really appreciate this story. It reads much like the fairy tales of old, where good things happen to good people and true villains are as human as the rest of us. It reads in an almost magical mannner, blurring that line between the real world and the fairy tale one that lurks underneath. I thought it was a perfect way to tell this sometimes tragic and sometimes hopeful tale. I ended with a full heart, and that’s pretty much the best explanation I can give you as to why you need to read this book.

If you’re looking for something historically based, that will enchant you and make you cry, this is your book.

When her sister disappears and is suspected dead, Deena knows Mandy alive. When the letters from her sister start arriving, Deena believes Mandy is sending her on a journey through their family’s sordid past that will ultimately lead to Mandy, alive and well. In her letters, Mandy tells Deena that the bad things that happen to the women in her family aren’t just coincidence, but that their family is cursed, at least the “bad apples” of the family are, and it goes back generations. With her best friend, new-found relative, and a cute girl from a neighboring town, Deena goes on the ultimate journey to find her sister, uncover her past, and prove her family wrong.

This book wasn’t at all what I expected, in a good way. I loved The Accident Season also by Fowley-Doyle, and like that one, magical realism and profound sadness are woven throughout Deena’s story. The “curse” is deeply rooted in women’s history in Ireland, and unsurprisingly, it’s devastating. Deena’s story, while bearing the weight of this heartbreaking history holds hope. Hope in finding her sister alive, hope that not everyone who doesn’t conform to society’s standards is cursed, hope that the cute girl she meets will like her back.

The plot moves pretty quickly, and I loved the quest backdrop as well as elements of a somewhat unreliable narrator. Fowley-Doyle blends magic and reality into a beautiful tapestry. I love folklore, and I love when an author can give it a new spin and breathe new life into it. Fowley-Doyle’s take on the Banshees was intriguing and just the least bit creepy. There were a couple of truly haunting images in these pages, and it made me long for Fall, cozied up on the couch while it rains outside, reading things that creep me out. SOON. It’s coming.

This one is out tomorrow, and it comes just in time to be the perfect autumn read. Grab a cider (spiced, spiked, or both), and get ready to curl up with this wonderfully odd, little book.

Deena knows that the "bad apples" in her family, the ones that seem to always land themselves in trouble, the ones that don't tow the line, the ones that are always the subject of malicious and salacious gossip, always seem to come to a bad end - cast from the family tree like so much rotten fruit. You'll know if you're one of the bad ones when you hear the banshees screaming, see their hair on your threshold, find their scratch-marks on you when you wake. When the banshees come for you, it's only a matter of time before calamity and death follow.

Shortly after Deena accidentally outs herself to her uber-conservative and devoutly Catholic father, her older sister, Mandy, another bad apple, disappears. Mandy is missing, presumed dead, but Deena's not buying it, and she sets off on a cross-country tour to retrace her sisters last steps. But the banshees have come for Deena, and she's running out of time to find her sister.

All the Bad Apples is exactly what I've come to expect from Moira Fowley-Doyle. A deliciously engrossing tale packed with magical realism, angsty teens, and an ending that will rip your heart out of your chest and hand it back to you in the best possible way. All the Bad Apples is equal parts an examination of the darker side of Irish history and a soul-searching quest on what it means to live your truth while trying to maintain familial ties. This is a book that will stick with you long after you close the cover.

Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to Netgalley, Fantastic Flying Book Club, and Penguin for this free copy. All quotes in this review are taken from the Advanced Reader Copy and may change in final publication.

Content Warnings: Adultery, Implied & Confirmed Suicide, Teen Pregnancy, Bullying, Violence, Rape, Child Deaths, Depiction of Childbirth

Diversity Rep: Black Character, Queer Characters, Disabled Character

You’re in for a wild ride, okay? I really couldn’t get enough of reading this book when I started, and the concept of family curses seems to intrigue me the more I read about it. Although, can we please stop punishing the females in our family line because they aren’t goody two-shoes?

-The Characters-

Deena Rhys (pronounced like RICE and not REESE, mind you) is our main character. She’s gay, and she accidentally outed herself to her sister Rachel and her piece of crap father. She is the only one that believes that Mandy isn’t truly dead, and when she starts to receive letters from her sister out of nowhere, she’s even more determined to find her. She was bullied out of school for being gay (NOT COOL), and that day was the last day that she saw Mandy. It just so happened to be on her 17th birthday too. Those all-girl school bitches.

Mandy is Deena’s older sister, the wild twin compared to Rachel. She is the sister that is missing after a note was left in her apartment saying she was going to find out the truth for her daughter. Only problem is, Deena has never heard of Mandy having a daughter.

Ida is Mandy’s long lost daughter. Apparently, Mandy left Ida on the doorstep of the biological father with her birth certificate. It’s unfortunate that Mandy seemed to have abandoned her only daughter, but was it to protect her from the curse? Deena ends up finding Ida when one of the letters tells her to go to her school, and they set off on this journey together to find Mandy and find how to break this curse.

Rachel is Deena’s other older sister. The one that’s in control, the responsible one. She is the one that has been taking care of Deena since their mother died giving birth to her, while Mandy was living on her own to get away from their father. Rachel had a lot of growing up to do in order to take care of her baby sister, especially since their dad left to the other side of the country without them. Talk about abandonment issues.

Finn is Deena’s best friend and is also bisexual and surprisingly not white. I say that because this story takes place in Dublin and whenever I end up reading a novel, for some reason my brain defaults all characters to be white until they tell me otherwise. Is that bad? Yeah, probably. Also, the only reason I knew Finn wasn’t white was because Deena clearly says it. I wouldn’t have known otherwise. Shame, shame on me.

Cale (no relation to the vegetable) ends up joining the merry band of adventurers when Deena, Ida and Finn find out that her great-great-great grandmother was the same woman that took the Rhys matriarch in all those years ago. She also remembers seeing Mandy a week before the three meet her. She’s also a lesbian, and may or may not be attracted to Deena – and vice versa.

-The Plot-

There seems to be some sort of family curse that surrounds the “bad apples” of the Rhys family. When Mandy is considered dead due to suicide – her body was never found, but her car was – Deena is sure that her big sister isn’t dead. There’s just no way. So when Deena starts to see the three banshees that Mandy warned her about, and starts to receive letters about the origin of the Rhys family curse, the one that only affects the bad apples in the family (the bad girls in the family), she is off to find her sister and figure out a way to break the curse.

If the banshees don’t get her first.

Be prepared to travel through the Irish countryside as well. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

-My Likes-

Deena is not ashamed for being gay, and she does not want to be changed or fixed by anyone.

"Ida was clearly somebody whose father had taught her from the moment she showed up on his doorstep that she deserved respect. Someone who could speak out, speak her truth without repercussions." ~ Deena about Ida

Despite being left on her father’s doorstep, she grew up in a family that truly cared for her and taught her that being a woman does not mean that she is less than a man. I loved this so much. Just that one paragraph included in this book really made me happy that Ida grew up with her father and that he loved and cared for her in the best way possible.

-My Dislikes-

The Rhys dad is a dick.

But also, I don’t like that these families will just completely shut out their kin because of a mistake. Like, aren’t families supposed to love you and support you no matter what? I know that’s the premise of the book, and this does not take away from my thoughts on the quality of the book at all. It just hurt to know that this happens, you know?

"Mary Ellen stayed behind. She was seventeen, unmarried, pregnant; this was clearly all her fault. Her family did not expect her to join them. She was no longer one of them." ~ Mandy’s second letter to Deena, explaining the origins of the curse

I’m also tired of men not being punished for their part in a pregnancy. Like… he was the one that cheated on his wife with Mary Ellen, and then he condemns her and her family to suffer. Not cool, dude.

Clearly being a “witch” is a scapegoat for saying your daughter is a lesbian and apparently that’s a sin.

“They didn’t burn them for being witches,” I said, watching Cale standing, like me, in the place her ancestor died. An ancestor with more in common than just a name. “They burned them because they were lovers.” “I guess back then it amounted to the same thing,” said Finn.

-Final Thoughts-

Didn’t I tell you it was a wild ride? Definitely a four flower read for me! Also I changed my rating graphics so it’s a little bigger and custom. Thank you so much to Lena for making these and my mermaid icons for me! Seriously amazing.

This was such a powerful, beautiful, dark and haunting read. I just wanted to tell you this is book does talk about hard to read topics. The writing is beautiful. I liked the magical aspects of this book as well. I think this is a  book that everyone needs to read!

All the Bad Apples checks all my boxes: a road trip to uncover family secrets, a spotlight on women, ancient magic bleeding into the modern, and the use of past tense in a contemporary(ish) YA. It's also the closest thing to Kali Wallace's The Memory Trees I've read in the past two years, and I can't tell you how giddy that makes me.

Let's get this out of the way first: the prose alone makes me want to read everything Fowley-Doyle has written and will ever write in the future (and I'm kicking myself that she hasn't been on my radar until now). It's quiet, addicting, and sensual, and it winds through you like a drug. Add to that the atmosphere of it all--curses and storms and the scent of apples moving through the air--and you have a recipe for pure decadence.

The story is contemporary interspersed with magical realism, and the latter are appropriately magical and chilling, but what amazes me is that even the contemporary bits feel textured and rich. So very old and loaded with everything--magic, history, the lives of their ancestors reaching forward to touch them. The book understands that there are places in this world that share a space with the past. Places where the past is so looming and loud that you almost feel it as a physical presence. You move from one rundown location to the next throughout the story, all of them spilling with history, and the author makes sure that you feel the weight of each one. It's beautifully done.

At the core of it, though, is a poignant story of a teenage girl's attempt to break a cycle of bigotry and secrets and abuse that left me touched and seething in each equal measure.

"You tell your story and the story of your family. You speak your truth. You shatter the stigma. You hold your head up to the world and speak so that everyone else who was ever like you can recognize themselves. Can see that they aren't alone. Can see how the past will only keep repeating itself as long as we're kept powerless by our silence."

I do wish the second half of the book had been a bit longer, though, and that the events leading up to the end were more drawn out. The follow through on the side characters (minus Deena's sisters) was also kind of disappointing. Don't get me wrong, they're all very interesting and had the foundation to be complex characters, and the romance between Deena and Cale ("short-haired punky witch girl," in Deena's words) was developing nicely, but their stories get neglected in the last 1/3 of the book, which is a massive shame because I feel like they had so much more to offer.

But those are small complaints.

Ultimately, All the Bad Apples is a book that deserve a place on your shelf. It's got the atmosphere of a fable and the anger of the best feminist stories that exist in the world, and it'll leave you with the lingering taste of apples in your mouth.

Once again. Moïra Fowley-Doyle has created an atmospheric story filled with magic, mystery, and familial curses. All the Bad Apples includes twists and turns that are traced through letters, which provide details of the main character’s family history. A history sprinkled with cursed family members, also known as the bad apples. The letters include clues on how to break the curse placed on the family’s bad apples, but more importantly, the letters bring Deena one step closer to finding her missing, or thought-to-be dead sister, Mandy.

As an own voices novel, Moïra Fowley-Doyle fills the pages of All the Bad Apples with fictional but realistic accounts of unwed mothers, rape survivors, incest, abortions, racism, and the stigma encompassed in Ireland’s history and present day state. Deena’s story and the narratives of her ancestors are a bitter bite into reality; their stories and hardships reflect the oppression of women, orphaned children, and queer men that does not seem to go away over time.

As a contemporary novel embraced in history and elements of magical realism, Moïra Fowley-Doyle provides a jolting story—multiple accounts at that—filled with queer diversity, heartache, rage, feminism, and in the end, hope. Hope for change and a hope for equality across spectrums of sexuality, gender, and racism. All the Bad Apples will make your teeth clinch, your heart ache, and your eyes tear up—but overall it will leave you a lasting impression that history is complicated. History is always changing but unfortunately forever repeating itself—a habit rooted in silencing those who do not conform or fit “traditional” standards.

There are stories that just grip you and crush you into tiny little pieces. All the Bad Apples was one of those stories for me.

All the Bad Apples is a force of its own. Combining contemporary and magical realism, its story weaves together intergenerational stories of the women of the Rys family - a long history deeply rooted and intertwined with Ireland's own unspoken history of Catholic fundamentalism, discrimination, and institutional abuse.

Queer representation

Though there wasn't much racial diversity in this story (Finn is the only black character in the book. The rest were white,) queer representation is not a problem for this standalone. The main character, Deena, and her possible love interest Cale are both lesbians. Finn, Deena's best friend. Mary Ellen, Deena's great-great-grandmother, and Ann, Cale's great-great-great-great-aunt, were in a relationship. Before that, Mary Ellen was with Deena's philandering great-great-grandfather.

Nitty and gritty

All the Bad Apples tackles some of the toughest issues there is - homophobia, sexual abuse, and abortion to name a few - but it doesn't pussyfoot. Fowley-Doyle addresses these issues in a very straightforward manner, her words sharply honed to get to the very core of things. This fitted the story and helped propel her narrative on the right ground.

Rage, rage, rage

"This novel was, in part, fueled by rage," Moïra Fowley-Doyle wrote in her author's note, and, indeed, rage was a palpable and dominant emotion throughout the whole story. It was hard not to feel fist-clenchingly angry with what all the women - not just the Rys' - went through in this story.

It was not just anger that I felt though.

This book dragged me through a whole range of emotions, back and forth several times over. I felt disgusted at the way men objectified and used women, treating them like objects that can be discarded at any time they pleased; felt sadness and betrayal when families turned their backs on daughters because they don't conform to their notion of right and normal; shame at the righteousness of the people who deemed themselves the interpreters of God's word and will - more so because, like them, I'm also Catholic.

But at the end of it all, hope.

The ending definitely was a satisfying one, having gone through a rollercoaster of emotions to get to it. Fowley-Doyle definitely succeeded in making readers feel what her characters feel, using Deena as a touchpoint through which her audience experienced her fictional piece of the world.

All the Bad Apples is a powerful story. Though the characters and places are fictional, the history peppered throughout the pages of this novel has happened to real people. This is one book that should be read by everyone.

I stayed up until 3am reading. I lost track of time from the minute I started. All the Bad Apples is a magical book full of family, feminism, and history. I learned so much as I fell in love with Deena and her family. Fowley-Doyle has, once again, healed my heart. If you asked me to pick a favorite thing about this book, I wouldn’t be able to choose. I loved everything. All the Bad Apples is all I expected and more.

It only took a couple of pages for me to understand Deena’s relationship to her family. Fowley-Doyle’s writing is crisp, every sentence has meaning, and there is no purple prose. Deena is a great narrator, and I enjoyed reading from her perspective because of the emotion she brings to the story. Her passion—and her love for Mandy—are infectious. I couldn’t help but lose myself in Deena’s world, and with every page that passed I became all the more invested in her journey. Usually when a character goes on a quest without telling anyone, I want to scream, but in All the Bad Apples, that feeling disappeared. Deena’s motivations are perfectly laid out, so I could understand her choices. In fact, given the situation, I might have done the same!

Deena is an amazing character, but that’s not to say the others aren’t as well! I’d like to give a shoutout to Finn, for being a good and supportive best friend, but honestly, all of Deena’s friends deserve a medal. I’m particularly in awe of how they just sort of accept the adventure she embarks on, and understand that Deena needs to grieve for Mandy by following the letters she’s left. I also love Cale and Deena! I appreciate the inclusion of a light romance, but I like that it didn’t upstage the story of Deena’s quest.

My favorite dynamic, however, is between Deena, Rachel, and Mandy. The sister love is strong in this book, and I love how Rachel and Mandy counterbalance each other’s influences on Deena. They genuinely care about one another, and wish for each others’ well-beings, even through family turmoil. I will never tire of the “sibling raising sibling” story, and this book warmed my heart from that aspect alone.

On the subject of family: one of the most intriguing aspects of All the Bad Apples was the Rys family curse. I was immediately attracted to the flashbacks in the story, and found them to be extremely well-written and developed. The characterization of Deena’s ancestors is so clear, and I admire that this secondary plot line is given equal weight in the narrative to Deena’s own journey. In a way, the novel walks a line between contemporary and magical realism that I love, tiptoeing into the most interesting parts of both genres.

All the Bad Apples documents the history of women in Ireland in such a compelling way. The book is filled with raw honesty about the abuse of women, persecution of queer people, and other horrors that young women went through from the late 1800’s to modern day. I was shocked by some of what I learned, but I think that’s the point. All the Bad Apples is about speaking out, solidarity, and shedding silence. For this reason, I found the conclusion very fitting. 5/5 stars for this stunner of a novel. All the Bad Apples needs to be your next read.

Another wonderful book by Moira Fowley-Doyle! I have been anticipating this book since I caught wind that it was being written and it certainly did not disappoint. This story chronicles the lives of the bad apples in Deena's family after her sister disappears and is presumed dead. It is beautiful and powerful--an important book on several levels.

Three sisters raising themselves with an absent judgmental father in an extremely uptight religious town still try to be true while finding themselves, and not invoking the family curse becoming known as bad apples. Beautifully written I savored the words and sentences, and story. Not just for YA and teens, All the Bad Apples, could sell as adult fiction.

Deena is frustrated. She's been raised by her sisters since she was a baby, their mother is dead, their father can't stand to live in the house anymore and moved out, but he still comes home every now and then to yell at them for not upholding the family name and causing embarrassment. Deena is turning seventeen, and she's also accidentally been forced out of the closet to the disgrace of her father. A bunch of girls at her private Catholic school are mocking and bullying her, but it doesn't matter because she's the one that's sinning. The main sister that's raised her, Rachel, just tells her to keep quiet and just never bring it up again. Her other sister, Mandy, the wild one of the family who's been kicked out of the family, tells her that this is all because of the family curse, and that she's going to go and break the curse so no one is hurt ever again. Instead she disappears and everyone believes that she's dead. Everyone but Deena accepts that Mandy has committed suicide, but Deena is going to go and find her and prove everyone wrong. This leads her on an adventure into her family's tragic past, and the harrowing past of Ireland's treatment of "unfortunate mothers".

Having heard the stories from the news back in 2016, I'm really glad that Fowley-Doyle decided to write this book. The treatment of these women and their babies was absolutely atrocious, the treatment of women today was atrocious, because Ireland was a "good Catholic country" and you were going to "suffer" your sins regardless of what medical intervention could do for you. I'm grateful that she does include a brief history at the end to show where she got her ideas from and where women have shared their stories. Having read some of the true life accounts, it is shocking and horrifying what women have gone through in Ireland's history.

My only issues with the book are that the ARC copy has some formatting issues, and that Fowley-Doyle doesn't really describe her characters very well. I know they're red heads with gray eyes, but that's about it. I can only tell you that I know Finn is black and lanky, and don't remember what Cale looks like. Their looks aren't really that important, but it was a disconnect from me being able to fully perceive their characters. Otherwise this was a book that needed to be written.

ARC provided by NetGalley and publisher.