Hannah Abigail Clarke peered into my past to write this book just for teenage Robyn.

Eloise “Sideways” Pike (but always Sideways, never Eloise) is in high school and unapologetically gay and unabashadly a witch. Always ready to make a scene, Sideways jumps at the chance to publicly perform magic at a party by invitation from the intimidatingly cool trio of girls, Jing, Daisy and Yates. Then things get wild.

Clarke does a great job of jumping right into the action and meat of the story. Their prose are sketchy-lyrical, reminiscent of the spells muttered and cast in the pages of the book. Scapegracers is weird but delightful. If you ever had a The Craft phase, then do yourself a favor and pick up this book. (It gives you the occult sharpness without all the girl on girl infighting.)

This is not a YA book without edges; it is full of cursing and grit and brief mentions of sex, which I am very aware of as an adult thinking about reader advisory. However, I am also aware that this is exactly the sort of story I would have eaten up as a teenager! Scapegracers is about carving out space for yourself, finding your people and being accepted by them, for all your faults and peculiarities, not despite them.

Overall, I loved it. Hannah Abigail Clarke and I share sun and rising signs, so is it really a surprise?

This is my honest review of The Scapegracers novel. I was able to be able to read an advanced copy of this novel from the publisher, Erewhon Books, via an ebook through NetGalley.

Magic, friendship, and betrayal.

This book follows a group of young girls Sideways, Jing, Yates, and Daisy on their adventure of becoming witches and friends. The story is told in first person and works to build the magic system as the main character, sideways, learns it. I think this helps to add mystery to how magic works in this world, where it comes from, and how it is used. There are some other interesting characters you come to learn about such as witch hunters, spell books, devils, and other covens. There is also a few small romances and betrayals throughout this book which play into the main plot.

I enjoyed reading this story and although I skimmed through some parts, I did enjoy it overall. I would have liked to see more with the witch hunters and other covens. However, I am hoping to see more of that in the second book. I am intrigued enough to find out is they get back what was stolen, how Mr. Scratches comes into play, and how the other coven will react to their new bond with the Scratches at the end. I think the second book already has great promise to be exiting and a worth wile read. I think this book would make a good CW show- as it is along that type of vibe.

Although, one of the very first things I noticed about this novel was the grammar and writing. Although, it appears it gets better in later chapters, the first few pages of chapter one needs work. I am hoping, as this is an ARC, the grammar and writing will be very polished upon release. I think the cover will make people pick it up but the grammar may have people putting it back if not polished.

I loved this! It was a fun, fast paced story about a group of witches. Our main character, Sideways, does magic for a clique of popular girls and they end up forming a coven. This then results in a crazy, action packed weekend. I have to say I really liked how even though this is a YA book there wasn’t too much romance just enough to keep you intrigued. Also, I thought all our characters were enjoyable to read about, they were flawed but relatable. I can’t wait to see where the series goes from here.

LOOK at that cover! It is seriously beautiful and what drew me to the book when I saw it on NetGalley, along with the promise of a teenage lesbian witch. That’s all it took to draw me in and put in a request.

This book was quite interesting in the way it handles witches, covens, and spellcraft but it was centered so much around Sideways (our main character) and her new friends/coven (Jing, Yates, and Daisy) that I don’t think it really got to dive deep into the magic aspect of it. I’m hoping with the way this book ended the next one in the series will give more of that.

The characters were a lot of fun and this group of popular girls could totally be a caricature of Mean Girls, but they’re actually not that bad when you get to know them. Daisy is insane, Yates is the sweet fluffy girl, and Jing is definitely the HBIC. Sideways isn’t super interesting without them and there’s just a hint of LBTQ+ going on that I was a little disappointed there wasn’t a great knife to cut through all the sexual tension that was going on.

There’s a subplot that is fairly predictable, but the main action wasn’t something I predicted. The prose is lovely but gets a little bogged down in that first novel kind of way, but luckily doesn’t cram too much in there that it could save for a second book. The ending was not something I expected and I think I want to check out the second book now so I can find out what this baby coven is going to do!

Scapegracers comes out on May 12th and you should definitely add it to your quarantine reading stack! 3.5/5 stars!

I recieved this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thoughts:
The first 20% of the novel was fast paced and very witchy. Then everything slowed way down and I was just bored. I felt like this was a cheaper version of The Craft and Mean Girls. Outcast invited to hang out with the cool girl group only to learn that her magic becomes more powerful.

I did keep reading but by 75% I was finding myself wanting to pick up anything else but my kindle to finish. Normally I would have forced myself to push on but I couldn`t. I was not invested in Sideways or any other character.

Just because this novel wasn't for me doesn't mean you won`t enjoy it. It has representation that YA books need and if you haven't seen The Craft or even AHS Coven then maybe you won't notice the similarities.

TTFN,
Ashley

I really wanted to love this book. "Feral teenage coven" is something I have aspirations for every book I encounter in my life to be described as. Most of my problem with this book was the POV. First person, while leaving you directly with the character, instantly made the story harder to delve into and made the book suffer from a lot of cringe-y this isn't how teenagers speak or internalize moments. The friendships and representation in this book were INCREDIBLE. The premise and the plot, were also really great ideas. But the execution and the manner in which the story was presented lacked a lot for me.

*First of all i want to thank Netgalley and Erewhon books for this arc*

The cover of this book is adorable and that was my main reason to get this book.
The story line of this book goes about Sideways (a witch) who was invited by a group of popular girls to perform spells at a party. when the girls sat together to perform the magic, an unexpected thing happened, kind of an unique disaster. Daisy, Yates, jing and sideways soon become great friends with a strong bond, despite of their different characters. I like the attitude, anger and moody sides of the girls. Sideways is actually not the type of person who makes friends easy. she is a lesbian and often gets into fights. More complex things happens, the more they dive into their identities.

Overall it was a great book, but i expected a bit more. I wanted it to be a bit more darker.

I'm looking forward to the next book. And YOU, yes you if you like witchy, a bit dark magic and true friendship books the grab this one for sure.

#TheScapegracers #Netgalley

The Scapegracers is the story of Eloise 'Sideways' Pike, a lesbian witch who lives with her two adoptive dads in a small town full of magic and secrets. Sideways, an outcast both by virtue of her sexuality and her prickly attitude towards her classmates, is invited to a Halloween party by the three most popular girls in her year: Yates, the sweetheart; Daisy, the loose cannon; Jing, the protector. What begins as a party trick becomes a fierce friendship, and soon Sideways and her new friends find themselves in pursuit of magical objects, hotly pursued themselves by witch hunters, rival covens, and other manner of supernatural beasts.

I'm normally not a fan of first person POV, and the first few chapters were initially difficult to understand and read. However, once I grew used to the voice, and once I'd spent a little more time with Sideways, she started to grow on me. More importantly, I absolutely adored the relationships between Sideways and her friends: ride-or-die female friendships has always been one of my favorite tropes, and adding witchcraft into the mix just made the story more engaging. Clarke writes friendships so beautifully, and with so much tenderness and importance. Clarke grants friendships the importance they deserve, which is a sadly unique position in the world of young adult literature.

The selling point of this book is obviously the witchcraft element. I liked the take on magic in this book - namely, how normal the fantastic appears. Sideways and her friends react to witchcraft with the excitement of finding a copy of a rare book at a secondhand store. This is such a unique view on the role of magic in "non-magical" society, and I really loved reading about the interaction between witches and non-witches in such a relaxed environment. On the whole, this book is everything I would've loved to read as a teenager, and I'm so happy that today's queer girls have such a fantastic, effortlessly diverse, and engaging book to read.


the good: Characters are engaging and developed; the plot is interesting and greatly picks up as the story unfolds; the voice of the narrator (Sideways) is engaging.

the bad: The plot was initially slow, but picked up as the story went on; the writing style took some getting used to initially.

the ugly: I didn't love that the queer love interest was revealed to be using Sideways and we didn't get any healthy wlw rep in this book. Hopefully, some to come in book two!

(Link will go live on my blog on April 12th)

An e-ARC was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange of an honest review. This does not effect my opinion in any way.

The Scapegracers is a story about a lesbian witch bonding with the three most popular girls in her high school after she did some witch stuff during a Halloween party.

To be perfectly honest, I’m still not sure about my rating. I gave the book 3* but I may lower it to 2.5* because even though I like some part of the story, it was still really boring. Enjoyable because the author wrote an absolute amazing witchy atmosphere. I’m not really into witch stuff — and maybe that’s why the book wasn’t more enjoyable to me — so I don’t know for sure if it was well done but The Scapegracers has such an incredible vibe. Reading the book is like walking in the street in the dark and then you start hearing stuff, whispers. You start having goosebumps, you feel like someone or something is watching you.

The Scapegracers is the perfect formula for someone like me who didn’t know much about witch craft. Sideways is a witch and knows a lot of stuff about it but Jing, Yates and Daisy were pretty much new to all of this so them discovering witch craft felt like I was also the one discovering it too, you know?

"Magic doesn’t do well with being cut off early."

The idea of coven — e.g when several witches form a group — was also one of my favorite parts. I liked the idea of witches joining each other to do magic together. I always had this one presumption: the fact that being a witch is a lonely occupation. I don’t know why but this is how I’ve always pictured them.

The Scapegracers is definitely a character driven story. I liked all the girls: Sideways the witch who likes nothing more than witch stuff and girls. Jing, the strong asian-american bisexual girl the coven could rely on. Daisy who would fight anybody who dare to bother one of her girls and Yates, the softest but fiercest of them all.

I liked how they were all supportive and protective of each other. The story was set up to have those three popular girls hating on the weird girl doing witch craft — as we all saw in other books — but instead, what I got was girls loving and supporting each other and I loved that. I loved how the three popular girls didn’t care about all those weird rumors about Sideways and instead, just went for it. I liked how into magic they were.

" Blood is truly thicker than water, is it not? We spilled some blood between us with that glass."

Honestly the best parts of the book were when they did magic together. Those scenes had something special to them — gayness, i guess — and I absolutely loved them. Four girls cursing and hating on disgusting boys? Sign me up, I want to join the coven too. Reading the book, you can feel how much these girls love each other. Sideways joined them much later but immediately, the three other girls would have done anything for her.

"Don’t do that. Never do that. Don’t ever say you’re not beautiful, not ever, okay? Girls are just beautiful. That’s the way they are."

Here we go. As much as I liked the main characters and the side characters (gosh I loved Sideways’ dads), the plot and pacing almost ruined it for me. The book started strongly : girls doing magic at a party and the next morning they found dead deer in a pool and then they put a curse on a boy. I couldn’t have ask for better. But then, the author lost me in their book. I didn’t understand what they were going for, I didn’t understand what was the point of most of the stuff which had happened. As much as I liked Sideways, I’m sad to say I didn’t care that much about her internal monologue. More precisely, I guess I’d have cared more if they weren’t that long. You just read line after line about her feelings and if I liked it at first, it just got tiring and boring.

I feel like the author wanted to put too much stuff in the first book. You pretty much jump from one plot point to another and sometimes it didn’t make sense for me. I didn’t understand how something was linked to the other thing. Also, I believe the book didn’t need to be that long. 400 pages isn’t that big when it comes to fantasy book but when the fantasy book is set in our world I guess it starts to become long. I also read that there will be a second and a third book so I guess the author could have split some of the stuff which happened in the first book to put it in the other ones.

I don’t know if I’ll read the second book. I liked the characters and the last part of the book was quite great too so I’m curious about what will happen next. I just hope the two next books will not be that long.

A really fun mean girls with witches story. I really liked the main characters and the plot was well done. I'm really glad I got to read this book!

This book is... visceral, in terms of language and story. I admit it seemed a bit much at first, the description of organs and feeling things in a strange way in strange parts of the human body, but as the book progressed it began to make sense. The magic in this book is visceral and requires the use of descriptive and at times uncomfortable language to describe how it affects the characters and the world they inhabit. For the first few chapters the book reminded me a quite a bit of Foul is Fair by Hannah Capin, in the sense that it was a group of teenage girls coming into magic and using it to exact revenge on a boy that had done them wrong. However, the further in you go the more the author continues to build up and expand her world until the story of these particular girls takes on a life of its own. I was about 80% in when it hit me that this is definitely the first book in a series, because there was way too much still to be explained and sorted out in only 20% of a book. It leaves on a definite cliffhanger of sorts that compels you to wait around for the next one to find out how these strange, feral, powerful girls will come into their own and eventually fix all their problems. This was a very interesting read and I recommend it for anyone looking for an interesting world full of very unique characters and a yet to be fully explored magic system.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange of an honest review and all the opinions are my own.

I was attracted by the cover of this book, because it's really cool and the plot sounded interesting! I wasn't disappointed!

Sideways is a witch, a lesbian and an outsider, having hard times to make friends, but when three popular girls pay her to cast a spell, she becomes part of their group. Together they are a powerful coven, bent to cast curses on boys, having fun, plannning parties and so on.

I really liked this book and I loved the characters! I like the way Sideways become part of the group and starts a friendship with Jing, Daisy and Yates. They are well written and, above all, Sideways is great! The magic is really captivating and the plot is thrilling, dealing with magic, friendship, love, with LGBT rep, characters that are brimming with life and rage.
The scapegracers is the first of a trilogy and I can't wait to know more about this world!

The Scapegracers was another book that attracted me because of it’s cover. It’s simple but yet complex at the same time and I loved that about it. The story it self though left me disappointed. I loved the idea behind the witches and revenge but other then that I found the story to be weirdly paced and the relationship dynamic of the characters to be weird as well. Honestly, the characters behaved as if they were twelve rather than sixteen/seventeen year olds that they are suppose to be.


The Scapegracers is the first book in a series, so there is room for the author to have these characters grow and for the writing story to develop. Which I hope it does. But I don’t plan on continuing with this series

I’m not actually sure how I feel about this book. There were some parts that I liked and there were some parts that I didn’t like. I found myself enjoying myself and then I found myself skimming through parts because I was a bit bored. But that seemed to leave me as we headed towards the end of the book. I really did love the interactions between the MC and her newly built coven, so every part they were not together I wasn’t interested in. Those I think were the strongest moments in this book.

Overall not a bad book, will definitely look out for book 2.

I really love the premise of this book. Witches, high-school drama, friendships, queer and poc rep? Sign me up! If this type of book sounds appealing to you-- it's worth the read. However, the major issue I had with it was pacing. I wanted to enjoy this book so much, but often found myself frustrated or confused because there were whole sections where nothing was happening or developing. I also think there might have been more depth to the book if the side characters had been explored a little more as well. Overall, I think I would have enjoyed this more if it was a single book with a resolved story arc, rather than a first book in a series, but as is-- I am happy I picked up the book and gave it a read.

Teenage girl gang, witches, lesbians and queer girls, what more can you ask for?

It took me some time to get used to the first person POV and the writing, but once I got to know Sideways a little better I fell in love with her and her crowd. I loved reading about the girls growing friendship, how they were all ride or die, how they all had one another's back no matter what. Friends groups in books are one of my favourite thing, romantic relationships are nice of course, but friendships are what really make my heart melts. And Clarke writes friendships so beautifully.

All these girls feel like such clichés and I love them for it. They're so unapologetic, ruthless, and merciless, and I've adopted all of them as my daughters.
I also loved how Clarke talked about finding out your sexuality, about finding out who you are, and coming to terms with it.

At some points I had some trouble keeping up with the plot or where it was going, which is why I didn't rate the book 5 stars. It's quite a fast paced book, all the action happens over just a week, and a Lot happens, which can make you feel a bit lost sometimes. But overall the whole witchcraft plot is really interesting and makes you want to know more about witches and covens and magic.

I'm really excited for the next book, I can't wait to see my babies Scapegracers growing and becoming amazing and powerful witches.

First and foremost, can we talk about how gorgeous this cover is? The colors? The design? Incredible.

Besides that, this book didn't really hit the mark for me. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I didn't like it, I just felt kind of meh about it. I liked the mix of teens and occult-y stuff, but at times I felt lost. The writing was good and the story was fine, but I can't say this story is one of my favorites.

I had such high hopes for this book. I really liked the synopsis and the cover. I was rooting for it, and still am, I think there are many people who will find this book enjoyable.
The first few chapters were ok, I was never really drawn in but I was finding it enjoyable enough. I managed to get to the halfway point and I had just really lost interest. The story didn’t grip me enough, I felt as though there wasn’t any character development going on. The plot at this point felt a bit stagnant and I found that I wasn’t too bothered about finding out how the story ended.
I really wanted to enjoy it and I’m so sad that I didn’t!

Overall, I enjoyed The Scapegracers, but it was as a struggle in the beginning. I wasn't fond of th characters, and in the end, I still didn't love them, but the story held me in there. I will definitely continue the series though, just because I think it has the potential to grow into something great.

DNF

Whilst the file was easily downloadable, I transferred it to a few devices to see how it would affect formatting and it wasn't very good.
I would not have minded this, however in the actual file (and I tried it in many applications to check), there are lots of random words missing with blank spaces. These aren't swear words or something that could be part of the text, but either single words or chunks of text are blank and it is not always possible to discern the context of what is missing. Was getting increasingly more frustrating over time as it really disconnects you from the story. Unfortunately I've decided to stop reading this book as it became too difficult to read.