I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley

DNF
I tried but i think this is a bit too YA for me. The writing is fine and the story looked promising but i can't relate to the characters at all and i don't think the plot is going to grip me

3.5 stars.

As an avid fan of The Craft and all forms of Sabrina, this was the YA book I didn't know I was waiting for. Sideways (first of all, that name) is a outcast, a werido, angsty, awkward and to top it all off a lesbian witch who's about as good with girls as a 12 year old boy. And when the 3 most popular girls at school hire her to do magic at their party well .. goodbye mean girl trope & hello badass girl gang who's not afraid to show they're friendship and loyalty and hex the boys who want to hurt girls.

The friendships are wholesome, the magic is cool and while the plot twist was seen almost from the beginning this book was a good time. I cannot wait to read more, make my friends read more & learn more about that sneaky little devil and this new coven.

I had a bit of trouble getting into this book, but I enjoyed it and appreciated the premise. It felt like a unique spin to have the tough outcast girl becoming friends with the popular girls. And of course I love books about witches!
Thanks to NetGalley for the book for my honest review.

Sideways is a witch, but she’s only ever been able to do small things. When the most popular trio at school invite her to do some magic at their Halloween party, she enlists the girls to help, and they do something collectively bigger than Sideways has ever been able to do alone. Post party, though, weird stuff happens and the girls find out someone or something with nefarious purposes is tracking them. They’ll form a coven and protect each other at all costs, and Sideways may just stop being a loner.

Think about a book that you’ve been meaning to read for a while but it has been pushed to the back burner. For me, it’s this one. I was super excited to read it when it came out, checked it out a couple of times but kept having to return it, unread for whatever reason. Pandemic anxiety life, ammirite? I love that the cover shimmers, it’s about witches, and it paints the popular girls in a dynamic light. I love it when authors turn stereotypes on their heads and create deep, rich characters.

Anyway, due to the backlist, this one’s out now for your enjoyment. For some, it’s an October book, but for me, witchy books belong in every month, so I had a good time.

Unfortunately this was a DNF.
I didn't DNF because I wasn't enjoying it, not by any means, but instead it just wasn't the right time for me to read it as I fell into a massive slump. However I'm definitely going to pick this back up again at some point in the future.

DNF
The premises for this book sounded interesting so I was pumped to start it. Unfortunately, it didn't meet my expectations and I didn't connect with the characters or the plot.

This felt very silly. I unfortunately could not connect to the characters or the plot. I was excited for queer witchy drama, but the premise just didn't feel substantiated in anything real or coherent.

I’m ashamed of how long it took me to finish this one. I read the first 50% in about 2 days, then I got overwhelmed by life and put it down for a few months, just to finally pick it up again and read the second half in less than 24 hours. I absolutely adored this book – it was the vicious and raw queer book of my dreams – and it’s about witches. So like, yes. It was ridiculous in all the best ways and it’s a new forever favourite that I can’t wait to reread.

The book follows Sideways, the town’s resident lesbian witch, and her adventure of finding a coven of fellow witches at a party. I loved how quickly the bond between Sideways and the other girls was solidified. They instantly welcomed her into their tightknit group of 3 and there was never any question that they would all do anything for each other. It was just an amazing group dynamic and I loved reading about a group of teenage girls that had each other’s back with no doubt about that for the reader.

I really enjoyed the plot of the book but it was really the characters and the writing that made me fall in love. It reminded me a little bit of Foul Is Fair by Hannah Capin in the way that both are about teenage girls reclaiming/discovering their power and not apologizing for being themselves and doing what makes them feel strong. I meant what I said earlier. the writing is absolutely vicious and raw in the way that teenage girls are rarely allowed to be in YA. Whether you like these characters or not you can’t deny that it’s a joy to read their story.

I can’t wait to get my hands on the sequel because I need to see where these badass witches go next. I think that the next part of the story is gonna be even more cutthroat and I can’t wait for it.

CW: Sexual assault, magical consent violationsEloise "Sideways" Pike is an out lesbian, and a practising witch, in a high school where both of those things put her at the bottom of the social heap. That is, until Jing, Yates and Daisy - the coolest girls in school - invite her to perform a magic ritual at one of their parties. What starts out as a one-off party trick almost immediately gets transformed into a friendship, with Sideways and her new friends discovering they all have magical affinity - and that there are plenty of people out there who would happily take that from them, and mould it into a form that they can control. Balancing the sudden change in her social circle, the pressures of sudden covenhood and the challenges of trying to pick up the hot queer girl, Madeleine, who she also met at the party.The Scapegracers is an odd book in some ways: throwing its audience right into dead deer, kidnappings and magical book heists and only then deigning to sprinkle a bit of high school note-passing and generic teenage drama into the mix. Its external threats are present, and the first half of the book had me pretty concerned for Sideways' safety during one sequence in particular, but the second half of the book almost puts them on hold to instead escalate the tension on the teenage cliques side of things instead, before bringing back the supernatural threats at the very last moment. This feels particularly odd as a tension structure because of something I otherwise enjoyed very much: Sideways' relationship with Jing, Yates and Daisy, while full of quirks and development, is not really a source of conflict as much as it is a challenge of emotional growth for a girl who has been totally used to only looking out for herself. Sure, there's plenty to remind us that the trio aren't objectively wonderful people who deserve power and status more than other kids, but Clarke kicks any potential mean girls tropes to the curb and instead offers up a group of girls who are on top because they're willing to fight for each other, and the friendship they offer to Sideways is genuine. That's underpinned by several other positive relationships, and while there is one significant betrayal, there's a lot more characters with whom Sideways and her crew end on solid ground.Structural quirks aside (and perhaps for people closer to high school, there's far more tension in these scenes than I originally picked up!), if you're on board for a soap opera-esque ride with a messy but interesting and very backable group of young women, The Scapegracers is well worth sticking with. It does end with things up in the air for a sequel, and I'm very intrigued to see where the next one goes.

The Scapegracers is a story about Sideways Pike, a loner fledgling witch, and unapologetic lesbian as she not only comes into her power as a witch but also as she learns what it’s like to have friends. Right from the get-go, Scapegracers had a very strong voice and great prose that gripped me from the first page. I loved how Clarke would describe things in ways that felt both vivid and visceral. This I think is a skill that is all the more important when writing about magic or unnatural things like in this book. The descriptions really grounded the fantastical elements in ways that made it tangible and really wonderful to read.
More than anything though, I absolutely loved the girls in this, how they were all so wonderfully flawed and fierce yet still distinct from one another. Few things really touch my heart like stories about finding your tribe and this one really hit the sweet spot for me. I also loved how natural and important the queer aspect was in this book. There a lot of books out there that feel like they use a queer character for ~diversity~ or ~flavor~ but not this one! This one felt organic and I could feel the love behind it. But mostly I just loved the Scapegracers themselves. I loved the twisting of the mean girls trope, it is so common to see fiction where the popular girls invite in a loner just to be mean but I was so happy that that wasn’t what happened here. I really felt Sideways’s pain and loneliness and getting to see her find people who cared about her was just so wonderful and cathartic. No, that didn’t solve all of her problems, but it made them more manageable and that was so good to see.
I really enjoyed this book and I can’t wait to see what comes next for these weird witches that I love so much. In the end, this book was wonderfully bizarre with a ton of heart and love and chaos in the best of ways.

What a fun beginning to a new series! I admit, I didn't realize it wasn't a standalone but now that I've come to love these characters I am glad we will get more of them! This book is a mix of The Craft and Mean Girls, if Janice had joined the Plastics and they were all queer. Love it!

I had very high hopes for this one, but sadly could not connect to the characters or story. There wasn't anything objectively bad about it, it just wasn't for me - thus I won't be posting a review anywhere else and have decided to DNF The Scapegracers.

I just couldn't get into this one very much. It was an okay book, maybe my expectations were a bit high for it?

This book is truly a work of art. Sideways is a weird kid who does magic under the bleachers for a can of coke. When the coolest girls in school pay her $40 at a party to do some magic she does. Things get out of hand quickly and friendships are forged. I love how realistic these friendships are. They develop so organically with Sideways questioning why they want to be her friends after so long going without any. Do they like her or are they using her? This is such a teenage way of overthinking. I enjoyed everything about this book and can't wait to see where book 2 will take the coven next.

Witches? Check.
Found family/sisterhood? Check.
Gay/bisexual main protagonists WHO DON'T DIE?! CHECK CHECK CHECK
I need my own copy right now, I swear to Mr. Scratch.

4.5 stars. Everything about this book was so unique and refreshing to read. The main character is a tough, leather wearing, queer girl and she ends up befriending the most popular girls in school. Something that would normally end in disaster, but here ends in simply friendship. Add magic into the equation and you have a recipe for a book I'm certainly going to love and love it I did..

If you love Netflix Sabrina you will love this book. I love the magical aspects of this book and the discovery of the magical world. I love how strong these characters appear too be. I think this is beautifully written book. Great for those that love dark fantasy and magical worlds

Review: 5 Stars

When I first read the blurb for The Scapegracers I thought it sounded right up my alley, so I picked up a review copy. But I wasn’t very excited for it until I was looking through reviews for a good YA paranormal book to read and I came across an incredible review for The Scapegracers. Once my excitement for this book was reignited I started it right away and I quickly found myself hooked. The Scapegracers is the perfect fall read, it’s dark, witchy and written incredibly well. Lately I’ve had difficulty getting into books, but The Scapegracers grabbed me right away and I wound up devouring it over a weekend.

“… I’ve had my eye on you for a while, Sideways. I mean, we’d always noticed you. You were the skulky gap-toothed weirdo who was into occultism and knocked people’s lights out if they looked at you funny. …”

I absolutely loved all of the characters in this book. Sideways is a gritty main character who I instantly connected to. She is an angsty outcast who is incredibly badass. When she made friends with the popular girls, Jiang, Yates and Daisy, I expected them to be bitchy mean girls, I didn’t expect to love them all so fiercely. The friendships forged between these girls as they formed a coven was one of my favorite parts of this novel. These girls took care of each other fiercely. Each character was three dimensional and filled with personality. They felt alive and filled with energy. I couldn’t help but love them.

“.. We’re friends now. Blood is truly thicker than water, is it not? We spilled some blood between us with that glass. If Yates is your sister, I’m your sister, too. And now I have to fucking kill those assholes. Boys don’t touch my girls, I swear to God. I can be a fucking monster when I wanna be. I’m not good at a whole lot, but I’m spectacular at terrorizing people until they’ve lost it. I can ruin people like you wouldn’t believe. And I wanna wreck their sorry lives.”

The writing is what makes this book so incredible. Sideways voice just bleeds off the pages. It’s dark, gritty and beautifully descriptive. The writing has a bite to it that really drew me in. The pacing was also done really well. The book took off right away and the pacing stayed consistent throughout the entire book. I had a hard time walking away from reading for pretty much anything. I loved the gothic witchy vibes and couldn’t get enough of the writing.

“I guess my point is that teenage girls aren’t supposed to be powerful, you know? Everybody hates teenage girls. They hate our bodies and hate us if we want to change them. They hate the things we’re supposed to like but hate it when we like other things even more because that means we’re ruining their things. We’re somehow this great corrupting influence, even though we’ve barely got legal agency of our own. But the three of us the four of us, counting you were powerful. Maybe not in the ways that people are supposed to be, maybe in ways that people think are scary or hard to understand, but we are. Magic is ambiguous. It’s scary and flashy and everybody wants it and it really freaks people out. I guess it fits with the rest.”

The plot was pretty cool too. It’s definitely more of a character driven novel that focused on the friendships between Sideways and the other girls, but it still had a compelling plot. I also think that the magic system was really cool. The way sigils combined with the spells that they created just felt so possible. Magic felt believable and every scene where magic was used was just so thrilling and exciting that it felt magical just reading about it.

“I don’t regret anything. Tonight was awesome. I’m fucking pleased. We need to do more shit like this. The four of us are special. We make things happen. Even if you didn’t find your books, we proved we can make magic on our own. The party wasn’t some fluke. You know what? I say we find some place, hold another party Friday night. We can pull out all the big guns. Scare the fuck out of the whole student body. We’re gonna be legends. They’ll talk about us forever.”

The Scapegracers was a hidden gem that deserves all the witchy hype. It ended on a bit of a cliffhanger that left me hungry for the sequel. This was an absolutely incredible debut and probably one of the best YA paranormal books that I’ve ever read. If you love dark witchy books with fierce characters and incredible prose I highly recommend you check out The Scapegracers.

I cleared my throat, tossed back my head, and threw both my hands toward the vault of heaven. “Who wants to see some fucking magic?”

I'm going to skip on reading The Scapegracers. The synopsis sounds so exciting and promising, however I've had friends and some of the reviews have confirmed that this is a book that takes forever to get into and uses a lot of purple prose versus actual storytelling/plot. That there's too much going on for a debut of a series. I love worldbuilding but if that's all that's there, I lose interest fast.

This was a stunning book-it was not at all what I expected, and it was freaking fabulous. It introduces an amazing magical world, and I can't wait to read as many sequels as Hannah Abigail Clarke is willing and able to write!! The young women in this are so badass, unapologetically angry and prickly, strange, and glamorous as fuck (excepting main character Sideways, who slowly comes to embrace her own glamour throughout the novel). This was a galvanizing book, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who loves 'The Craft' (though this is soooo much better--explicitly queer, actually feminist, and anti-patriarchy) or similar narratives.