1.5/5
This a contemporary with few fantasy elements. What worked in this book was the magical, unsettling lake scenes with the mystery around Link's death. This book is character-driven and has slow points when it hyper focused on the relationships. Also, the step siblings relationship left me weirded out.

This book had an interesting premise, and I was excited to read it. Sadly, the story did not live up to the expectations, and that might not be on me. I found myself struggling to connect and get into the book.

A very cool ghost story! The romantic relationship between the two teens is unconventional in at least a couple ways, which they explore through extended conversation. A neat YA pick. I would recommend this to middle/high school students.

This was one of those books that attempted to be beautiful both in writing and in meaning but it mostl came off as awkward and full of tropes that I didn't enjoy.

I gave this a one star, I didn’t like the amount I read. I lost interest while reading this. It just wasn’t for me I guess.

The synopsis sounded so intriguing but for some reason the book didn't deliver. I'm not really a fan of fantasy, and I feel like if you are, maybe you'll enjoy this more than me.

We Were Restless Things is a great debut. Fantasy meets mystery in this multi pov narrative. It is super atmospheric bringing you deep into the setting of the story and these characters, I loved the asexual rep in this book too. It definitely was my favorite and I loved Noemi. It is a bit slow going and takes a second but I think that only pushed the character driven atmosphere.

I liked this book okay but it was really long and slow-paced. It was a bit hard to keep my attention so I wasn't able to get fully sucked into it.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me a free copy of this advanced copy of the book to read and review.

WE WERE RESTLESS THINGS is a slow-slither, quietly haunting, and beautifully disturbing tale that goes straight for the emotional jugular. If you like a bit of mystery wrapped in magic and murder, with a touch of supernatural and a glimpse into an Ace perspective, then this read might be for you.

This is a book that begs to have you take your time with it. It's quiet, and slow, but has moments where it cuts emotionally deep.

However, with a plot that started out as a murder/mystery with a supernatural twist, all of it quickly took a back seat to the fact that nearly every male character we meet is chasing and forcing their feelings onto the Ace-centric female lead. It's a fact that still boggles me after reading it, since I felt like the representation of her feelings, of her words and actions, and that she very clearly expressed her thoughts on it to her romantic partner were such good moments...and yet...there was still this 'well, good sex can fix her' mindset that could have been better balanced by other minor characters.

So, I am disappointed in that. But also in the lack luster actual mystery in this book. The ending feels very out of pocket, the direction it took and the ending it had could have benefitted from some more clues within the earlier chapters. Especially, since it was just another courting male being. Spoiler not spoiler.

Anyways, it's an odd book but not a "bad" book. I think it's certainly recommendable to the right readers.

When I read the synopsis for We Were Restless Things, I was intrigued. The plot sounded different and I wanted to read it. I have tried to get through this book two or three times but the writing wasn't for me. I think it could have been a good read but I was confused and things just didn't make sense. Since I don't like giving up on a book until I read the entire book, I did finish it. I hope something would click for me but it never did.

Originally didn’t give feedback because I DNF, but it’s hurting my feedback ratio, so I will say this wasn’t what I was expecting and it was very slow so I stopped reading. I also never rate books I DNF but this makes me.

We Were Restless Things by Cole Nagamatsu drew me in not only with its beautiful and haunting cover but also with the promising synopsis. It follows the story of Noemi, whose close friend Link was drowned on dry land. Noemi believes that Link actually drowned in a magical lake that only she can see and someone, pretending to be Link, is trying to warn her to stay out of the forest.

I especially liked the magical element to the story which allowed the author the space to make it even eerier and haunting which is something I like in these kinds of stories. While I like the beginning of the story, seeing Noemi coping with her family and the death of her best friend, the story got progressively more and more boring. While I was excited about the magic element and I was prepared for it to get weird and haunting, there were moments when it got out of hand. The writing style, in certain scenes very pretty and beautiful, was strange and weird in others.

Unfortunately, the characters weren't doing it for me either. I didn't have problems with Noemi, although she wasn't my favorite character, I didn't mind her, it was everyone else and their flatness that made me not want to read the book. I just felt like they didn't contribute to the storyline in any shape or form.

This title was not for me. Although the writing and story are great, I just couldn't seem to stay interested in it. It was easy for me to put down and forget about.

We Were Restless Things is a story mostly about individual characters and their interpersonal relationships. Which, I admit, is not what I was expecting going into this based on the synopsis. Lucky for me, I do enjoy character based books so I wasn't completely put off.

This book is somewhat difficult to describe, but it has a lot to do with Noemi and her friend Link who died prior to the book's beginning. Link was found dead last year by drowning. The thing is, he wasn't in, around, or anywhere near water. It also has a lot to do with the greater cast and all of their personal lives.

The synopsis makes it sound like this book was going to mostly be about figuring out this mystery, which presumably will involve a lot of fantasy. And while there is definitely fantasy and mystery solving to be seen, there was not nearly as much of it as there were character focused scenes and side plots. I spent a lot of time wondering where the story was going, why we had little overarching story and so many pages of bunny trails, and disappointed that the conclusion of the mystery ended up feeling extremely rushed for what all it involved and how many pages the book had to get there.

I will say I enjoyed some of the character focused content; the way a certain two characters bonded by the end was nice, and we did get some asexual rep (which as someone who is not asexual but has done a fair bit of research seems like it's probably a good portrayal). The magical elements of the forest were also dreamy.

Overall, if this wasn't a Netgalley title I most likely would've DNF'd it, or put it down to take a long break before finishing. The story did have pros, but along with the cons I do think this could've benefitted from being as series. Even just a duology, so the conclusion of the mystery could've been explored more since it was such a big sort of fantasy element (and the character storylines could've been spread out more evenly with the bigger plot). If you go into this with the heads up that it's more character driven than plot heavy I think you'll have a better time than most readers seem to have had.

*I was given a copy of this title from Netgalley in return for an honest review.

Didn't capture my attention and engagement. Interested in trying it again though and hopefully it will take.

This was confusing, there were many characters and many settings, so many in fact it was hard to keep track of them all. This made for a hard to follow plot.

Thank you so much to net galley for sending me a copy of this book! I loved this book it was so interesting and heart breaking I would like to read more from these characters

Rep: LGBTQIA+

This book has such a gorgeous cover, and interesting premise… I thought I would definitely love it. Howevere, ti had an extremely slow start – things only picked up around the 50-50% point of the story. I wouldn’t have minded this if I had actually liked the characters. But I struggled to connect with any of them. I also was not a fan of the romance; I did not like the step-sibling romance trope because it just made me feel very uncomfortable. Although this novel had a lot of potential, it was just too frustrating of a read for me so I’m giving this a 1/5 stars. Sorry.