Whoa, what a read. Sarah Harian has given me a few nightmares with her descriptions and details in this dark and twisted tale. Eight Will Fall is full of suspense and will keep you on the edge of your seat, or couch, or bed, or wherever you decide to read this book. I do recommend that you do not read it in public as you might be prone to gasps and making cringe faces in polite society where they might think you off your rocker. Magic, creepy crawly, and many foes are in this book and it was perfect for me to ready leading up to Halloween. Have fun future Eight Will Fall readers but I’m now doing to go find me a sugar sweet romance to offset this darkness of athisbook. 4 stars!

I was provided with an electronic ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Having these books fall into my hands was a godsend given that we are looking to add more female leads to our library—tough ones at that. It is so hard to find books that are written well in character development, plot, and female “tough” situations, but I think we’ve found a great one. The character design in this book quite nice but not written the best way. I enjoyed reading all the descriptions, development, and love put into the characters from the very beginning. Many of the characters have found their way in the world that is so important to that character that I can’t help but love them. Although the way they were written into the story it confused me quite a bit and I couldn’t quite keep it together when I was reading about them.

I really loved delving into the world that the author created as it is such a magnificent creature in and of itself. The many traditions and customs that she created was great and I really enjoyed seeing that in a book—we don’t see that written so great often. This can be utilized for many grades and many different groups of people—it would be a great book club book.

I enjoyed the fighting, exploring, and action that this book provides in a multi-dimensional way (nothing is just black & white here), There is a lot of backstory that can help you understand what is happening cover to cover. I would suggest this book for a book club or even independent reading as it is not a difficult read and definitely has the high interest aspect to it that all students can get with. The characters that rush into danger is immediately something that my students would gravitate to and love to read—because who doesn’t love action in every form?

Eight teens are forcibly sent on a doomed mission to save the world...

I absolutely loved this book. I was also spooked throughout most of the book! This book is horror meets fantasy is the most delightful way. The action started right from the very first page, and it kept me hooked throughout the entire book.

I found the magic system to be very interesting, as well. People who are empaths can use others' feelings to either create things or destroy things with their magic. Positive emotions allow empaths to create, whereas negative emotions allow empaths to destroy. I thought this was very original.

Overall, I loved this book and highly recommend it to anyone who loves horror and fantasy! We don't get too many dark fantasy novels like this, and I can only hope for more.

I thought it was fine - certainly delivers on the action, and did some interestingly gray things between the two sides - but it felt like it was meant to be a movie, and not necessarily in a good way. World-building, characters, the magic system, all of that description is skipped in favor of the graphic death scenes. The final battle seemed especially cinematic without allowing things to settle very much emotionally. I couldn't even tell if I liked Larkin that much: it seemed as if even she was mostly a tool for the action to move along.

It's not horrible, and maybe you'd like it better if you enjoy horror/action more than I do, but I didn't particularly enjoy it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I keep my reviews spoiler-free and they are unaffected by the free copy.

For some reason, I had it in my head that this was a superhero type book. That was a very wrong assumption. This is more in the realm of magic. Which is still pretty interesting and I liked the different manifestations of it, but because I had that other assumption I was really lost for a while. I almost feel like I should re-read this eventually because I still don't think I entirely absorbed the backstories and world-building.

The thing that bogged me down, especially in the first half of the book, was that they were referred to as Empaths. And of course my understanding of Empath abilities comes from Heroes and Charmed. Yes, they're powerful beings in those worlds, but it took me a while to get past those examples to what this book was portraying. Because the way they use emotions to conjure things in this book was a little strange. I also got bogged down trying to figure out why Empaths were so suppressed that one character commented on how they didn't know Empaths could even read. This again may be something I missed, but that line in particular stuck with me and I'm not sure if it was ever focused on in more detail.

I do wish the other characters were fleshed out a lot more. It wouldn't have hurt to have the book in a multi-POV rather than focusing on one character. The others were plenty interesting and some of the moments would've been a lot stronger if the reader got to see things from their perspective. If anything, that could've heightened the horror elements. The romance element is there. You get the obligatory steamy kissing and handwaved sex scene. It's not as annoying as some other YA romances but it's still something I could've done without and the story would've been about the same if it was gone.

It doesn't help that the formatting of my free copy was a little off sometimes. Like a paragraph would be a singe word and then the rest of the sentence would be the next paragraph. That's another reason why I'm thinking of re-reading this book later, so I can see how the paragraphs are supposed to look.

The ending felt a little too easy. It's possible I missed something, but it seemed like things were wrapped up too neatly and happily. Especially considering everything that happened in the middle of the book, that's really disappointing if that's the case.

Once the horror elements started kicking in, that's when I finally started liking what was going on. I don't want to say too much because of spoilers, but the atmosphere and the fear was done nicely. How the characters changed in their journey was cool and there were some downright creepy moments. I'd say those were the best parts of the book.

It was an interesting book. I hope we get more horror like what was done here in the future.

#EightWillFall brings magic and bandits to a new genre blend. Sarah Harian creates a foreboding feel of overwhelmingly intense darkness. You know something bad is going to happen which keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire novel.