“𝑾𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒓𝒅-𝒄𝒍𝒂𝒔𝒔 𝒈𝒊𝒓𝒍𝒔, 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒔𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒅, 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒔𝒕. 𝑬𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝑴𝒂𝒓𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒊𝒏 𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒅, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝑴𝒂𝒓𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒍𝒍.”

Since I love a good summer camp setting, I knew reading the description of I Am Margaret Moore that I needed to check it out.

I really loved the four main characters: Margaret (also known as Mar), Flor, Nisreen, and Rose. Their friendship was strong, celebrating female friendship and the deep bonds that can be formed. The setting of Marshall is a huge highlight - it is atmospheric and tucked away from the rest of the world, which makes for a spooky mystery setting, and its influence acted almost as a fifth friend in their group. I really loved the links to Hamlet and the quotes from some of Emily Dickinson’s poetry. Although I guessed one of the twists early on, another reveal made my blood boil and my heart ache for the character that it affected. Hannah Caplin’s writing is beautiful; the story is told almost in poetic stream-of-consciousness verse. However because of this, I found it quite confusing to follow; even now, two days later, I’m still not fully sure I understand what was “true” or what was not. The story is not told in a linear style, which I think lessened the impact it was trying to have. It also became repetitive in places, and could’ve been tightened up a bit. The positive is once you get used to Caplin’s style, it is a quick read (I flew through it in one setting).

I Am Margaret Moore is a chilling ode to friendship, dreams, summer and the impact the choices we make (and others make for us) can have. Although the writing style wasn’t for me, I am still glad I read it (especially for the second half of the story). Thank you to Wednesday Books, St. Martin’s & NetGalley for the ARC!

I wanted to love this as much as I loved Foul is Fair but the writing made this so difficult for me to get through. It flowed beautiful in some areas and in others left me feeling so confused.

When I read the description for this book, it sounded so good. It turned out to be just okay for me. The writing is very lyrical which is not my preferred style. It has an interesting twist with a satisfying conclusion.

This book was so much more than I expected! The writing is lyrical and beautiful, not quite a novel in verse but almost. I thought I had the story figured out early on but there were some twists I didn’t see coming. I loved the themes in this book: loyalty (good and bad), sisterhood, love, fear, betrayal, revenge. It was a powerful story. The time jumping towards the end didn’t bother me as it seemed to other reviewers. I did think the beginning was a bit slower paced than I would’ve liked but I didn’t think the story was hard difficult to follow. I loved the characters, the story was intriguing, and the writing was lovely.

Thank you NetGalley, author and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

This book is a tough one for me. On one hand, I found it beautiful and lovely to read. On the other hand, I think the story suffered for the beauty of the writing. There were times when I would get carried away by the prose, and be so focused on the word choice and the flow of the way the words were delivered.....and I would have no idea what the plot was for that section in hindsight. I think this would have made a lovely novella. With a shorter format, I think I could have allowed myself to get lost in the prose but still been able to wrap my head around the paranormal story.

In the end, this wasn't a favorite, although I could easily pick a dozen sections that were so hauntingly beautiful. It's a tough review to write.

Thank you Netgalley for the advance reader copy of I Am Margaret Moore by Hannah Capin in exchange for an honest review. I love books like these and have been reading more of them lately. A beautiful supernatural mystery that pulls the reader in and keeps them interested until the last page. I might have to go looking for more books by Capin.

I struggled with this book. Some things I liked and some not so much. The strong friendships between Margaret, Rose, Flor, and Nisreen are a bright point. Although they’re only together during the summers at Marshall Naval School, they have much to bond over and will defend each other til the end. Everyone should have those kinds of friendships. Margaret is betrayed in the worst way and in a horrendous situation that made me want to reach into the pages and throttle some characters. You can’t help but feel for her.

My biggest struggle was with the writing style. While prose-like, it was confounding at times and the time jumps between summers only added to my confusion. One reviewer said she felt like she was following a stream of consciousness, and I can agree with that. At around the 60% mark, the clouds shift and it all makes sense. The twist is brilliant, nothing I suspected, and also makes the story easier to follow until the end – which I loved.

Reviews are all over the place with this novel, and I suppose it comes down to if you’re a fan of this writing style. It’s a relatively quick read, and if you can hang in there for the slow reveal and muddle your way through the time shifts, a shiny reward awaits.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I tried really hard to get into this book but I just couldn't. The synopsis was really intriguing but the writing style was throwing me off. Sometimes quotation marks were used for speaking parts and sometimes italics, as though it were inner monologue or mind speak but it wasn't. It made it so confusing and hard to follow. I didn't even make it through the entire book.

Marshall Summer Naval School is everything for the girls of Deck Five. Fiercely proud of their traditions, the teenage girls come from all around the world to spend three glorious months of the year striving for excellence, as they learn and practice the skills they’ll need to compete in (and win) the Victory Race that caps each summer session. Deck Five girls are the most dedicated, the most spirited and adept girls in the school, and Flor, Margaret, Nisreen and Rose are the best of them all.

Only something terrible happens one summer, the year before they finally graduate from the program. Margaret leaves their cabin in the middle of the night, fleeing into a storm that whips up the vast Lake Nanweshmot on which they sail. Defying orders, the girls of Deck Five run out after her, risking their lives for hers. In the aftermath, the Victory Race is canceled and all the girls sent home. The name “Margaret Moore” becomes a curse almost, whispered with disgust and fear by everyone except the loyal, steadfast girls of Deck Five.

But what really happened that August? And what would drive a kind-hearted, unselfish girl like Margaret to this seeming madness? She refuses to explain things to her best friends despite their pleas, even after they’ve regrouped to try to figure it all out the following year. Maddeningly for the other girls, no one at the school seems willing to help them either, wanting them all to move on and leave the past behind for the sake of the school’s reputation. Margaret even convinces herself that she can leave well enough alone, until Rose develops a crush on the one boy she shouldn’t, the boy who broke Margaret’s heart and called her out into the storm:

QUOTE
It is second-class summer again and he is a boy and a comet in the sky, passing by not once in a lifetime but once in a hundred of them. It is second-class summer again and I am a poet and a dreamer and a girl who sees the good in everyone, a girl who wants to live in color so bright it should never last but it will for us: we know it.
END QUOTE

Margaret is finally spurred into action by Rose’s innocent crush, even if she still finds herself unable to tell her friends the shameful truth of how she’d secretly betrayed them. But when she finds herself incapable of stopping that boy she once loved from doing more harm, will she be forced to endure her pain in silence? Or will the girls of Deck Five rally round her once more and help lay her demons to their final rest?

I love everything Hannah Capin has ever written, and found this to be her most poetic, mesmerizing work yet. I inhaled this novel in mere hours, and finished it wondering whether, like her previous books, it’s based on a prior tale or legend, brought to vivid, harrowing life by her keen eye for psychology and her talent for lyricism. It reads almost like a fever dream, as the girls of Deck Five contend not only with the secrets that threaten to tear them apart but also the ghosts and monsters that roam the school grounds, looking to prey on the defenseless and unaware.

I loved, too, the sheer scope of this paranormal thriller, how it isn’t just the tale of a girl and the boy who did her wrong. The relationship between Flor and Nisreen, both international students but from continents apart, was portrayed with sensitivity and an aching romance:

QUOTE
“What, do you think we’ll run away together? You want to come to Venezuela? You think my father–you think they want me to bring home some stranger-girl from the other side of the world?”

“No,” says Nisreen, and there is pain in her words.

“I’ll marry a boy whose father is friends with my father,” says Flor. It lines up as neat as every honor on her ribbon-rack. “He’ll wear a uniform, and I’ll wear a white veil, and we’ll have sons, and I’ll never see them because they’ll be in boarding school all year and at Marshall in the summer, and they’ll grow up and wear uniforms too. And I will never be in love and that’s the way it is.”

“What if–” says Nisreen, and the wherry creaks and lists. She is leaning closer to Flor now. “What if it didn’t have to be?”
END QUOTE

For all that I Am Margaret Moore is a book about girlhood and friendship and revenge, it’s also a story of bucking against adult expectations, no matter how belatedly. Margaret eventually finds her voice, and Flor and Nisreen eventually figure out that a love like theirs can never be extinguished. Spirited girls are right to refuse to be silenced. They become women who will change the world, as this book so lovingly, heartbreakingly celebrates.

DNF. The premise is great, but the writing style was too off putting and the timeline a bit too repetitive/confusing for my taste.

Unfortunately, this novel just wasn’t for me. I was very interested by the blurb; a group of girls reunite at a naval school during the summer after a traumatic event the prior summer. However, the mystery of what happened then and what is going on now wasn’t enough to make this an enjoyable read for me. The writing style was too hard for me to follow. Very poetic, stream-of-consciousness, I like things a little more straightforward.

3.5 stars. I enjoyed this book but it took me a bit to get into the style of it. It's written almost poetically w/ a tempo that seems to build and build until there's that "aha" moment of understanding exactly what is going on. The story takes place at a naval summer camp. a friends until the end sort of story. Until Margaret starts keeping secrets during that one fateful summer...

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for an e-arc of this novel.*

DNF

I'm not sure how I feel. I really like the idea of the book but I think it's either a hit or miss. And in this case, it was a miss for me. The format of the book was interesting but I thought it was a little confusing to understand. However, there are people who like it and that is totally fine too.

Thank you Netgalley for this Arc!

Wow! I am speechless. I read this in one sitting simply because the author drew me in so completely with this hypnotic writing that did more than just tell a story. I Am Margaret Moore is full to brimming with emotion and I can see so many people relating to this tale on multiple levels.

Four girls with an incredible friendship developed at a camp over many summers of attendance are always there for each other. Even when it's difficult, confusing and life-changing. This story speaks on deep friendships and love, heartbreak and betrayal. I was entranced to the last page and I believe this book will always be on my mind.

I highly recommend this read. I feel like I was there. That Margaret Moore's emotions were mine and this story is now a part of me, too. There are some trigger warnings for death, loss, grief and unsettling scenes.

Look for this on March 15th!

My heart is singing and broken all at the same time.

"We are all mad, we girls."

When I started I Am Margaret Moore I thought I was getting a ghost story, a thriller, a tale of things that go bump in the night. Instead I got something much better. I got a story about a girl, who is powerless and powerful, who falls in love with a boy who changes her life, who spends summers in a magical place that is more home than where she lives, who meets three other girls who become her family. I Am Margaret Moore made me cry and made me mad and hypnotized me from start to finish. There are some thriller-like twists to keep you wondering and while I did guess some of the big ones, I had no idea the story would end as it did. At its heart this is a beautifully written story about a girl and a summer and I already can't wait to read it again.

"This day is endless, too."

DNF @ 39%

This had such an interesting premise but I think what really made me struggle was the writing. I understand that Capin has a different style that I am not used to, but this was my first attempt at her writing and I just don't think it's for me. Additionally, the writing was very repetitive and it switched between different timelines without warning. I was almost 40% in and I feel like nothing really happened, and what did happen was really confusing. There was a part of me that was curious about the actual mystery (which didn't really feel like a mystery or a thriller) but I looked at spoilers on other reviews and it didn't really seem too shocking to me, so this seemed better for me to just stop, rather than try to get through it.

If you've enjoyed other books by this author, or want to give a different writing style a try, then I recommend trying it, but it wasn't for me.

Okay...this was a wild ride. I'm talking about twist and turns, ups and downs, now and then, before and after's; I was blindsided, I was confused, and I was downright dizzy. I have never read a paranormal thriller before, and it was 'a lot.' Did I love it? Not so much. Do I respect the writing? Hell, YES! I couldn't imagine writing something as intricate as this story, the thought process and the planning that goes into something of this magnitude? DUMBFOUNDED! Seriously brilliant, so kudos to the author and her team. It was definitely something.

Everyone knows that Deck Five is the best deck at Marshall Naval school, and Flor, Nisreen, Rose, and Margaret are a part of it. The four have been friends since they first started spending their summers at Marshall as Butterflies, and now it is their First Class summer, their last summer at Marshall. But something happened at the end of last summer, there was a storm, and Margaret ran into it, and now Marshall is not the same and neither is their group of friends.

Margaret is excited to be back at Marshall Naval school for her first class summer, even if she was forced to leave early last summer, and then ran into that storm, getting Deck Five kicked out early as well and the Victory Race cancelled. She is so excited to see her friends, Nisreen from Jordan, Flor from Venezuela, and Rose who is basically Marshall royalty, but when they arrive everything is different. The whole of Deck Five is different too; a lot of girls didn’t come back this summer and the whole school is whispering about them. Worse still, the girls want to know the truth about what happened when Margaret ran into the storm that night, but Margaret isn’t sure she remembers, and seeking out the truth will come with severe consequences, ones that Rose’s Winston name may not even get them out of.

The story is told from Margaret’s perspective and it is immediately clear that there is something not right. She is with her friends, but they don’t really talk to her; she is running drills with Deck Five but not doing any of the critical parts. I don’t want to spoil it for those who may not pick up on the twist as quickly, but I new what was going on with Margaret within the first chapter. I also already new exactly what happened to her before she even got close to revealing it to us (or remembering it herself). But the thing is, I didn’t mind this. I was still completely enthralled by her story and the way she tells it. In this book, it was definitely a case of appreciating the journey over the destination (not that the destination was bad, just that it was extremely predictable). I also think this may have been intentional on Capin’s part, because the clues were really hard to miss.

The writing is stunning, but I love Hannah Capin’s style. I think it speaks to the poet in me. The best description here would be stream of consciousness. We are reading Margaret’s thoughts; they are not necessarily in chronological order, they sometimes get cut off or begin abruptly, things get repeated a lot, and they are heavy with emotion. This type of novel is hard to write, and even harder to enjoy reading. For me, Capin pulled it off and then some!

I Am Margaret Moore is a beautifully written novel about friendship, loyalty, and love. The naval school provides a unique setting for Margaret’s story to play out, and allows the themes of the novel to really shine. I can’t say that this is the right book to recommend to just anyone, but it will be a big hit for those that appreciate this style of writing.

I loved Foul is Fair by Hannah Capin. So I was very excited when I was gifted this from the publisher in exchange of an honest review.

Capin has such an interesting and different way of writing. She is not afraid to cross boundaries or lines when it comes to creating an engaging storyline. This book is told in a sort of short and vague type of style. It is also told from a first person point of view from Margaret Moore, the main character. At times the writing can be confusing and elusive. It is almost a prose style of writing. Definitely unique, quick paced and if you are not paying attention to every word, you will get lost or miss something vital.

Margaret Moore is a girl at a summer camp. She belongs to a special Deck Five group of girls. However this summer feels different because of what happened last summer at the camp and them taking Margaret away. But isn't Margaret at camp this summer with them? Built around a traumatic event, these friends vow to get the answers for their group that were never given to them fully. Definitely a few trigger warnings with death and murder the main components.

It is a unique sense of writing style and definitely will work for some. I had a bit more difficulty following along with it. Some moments were very unexpected and some were very captivating, but I felt like I was on a bumpy rollercoaster in the fog, not always clear on where we were going or how we were getting there.

I’m kicking myself for waiting so long to read this one, I mean yes I was in a pretty bad reading slump, but that’s not the point. This book was incredible. I figured that I would love it since I absolutely adored Foul is Fair but I was still blown away by how well thought out and how stunning this entire book was.

The thing about Capins’ writing is the atmosphere that they create is so beyond vivid, you can just picture everything so well and the vibe that is created is so strong that you can just feel the energy that is described. I was sucked into the story right away because of this, I knew that I needed to find out what’s going on before I really knew who the characters even were. There’s just something so compelling about how they write and how they build a scene.

The other thing about their writing is how they write female friendships – it’s something that I haven’t come across a bunch – at least not to the extent that they write them, the bond that this group of this girls has is so strong and powerful and it’s beautiful to read. They would all do anything for each other and that’s amazing to read. Each duo within the group and the group itself is a different relationship and it adds so much to the story.

The story itself was just as heartbreaking and wonderful as I thought it would be. Unfortunately I read a review that gave away a spoiler – it’s something that I was already kind of thinking so it’s not a big deal – but it still ruined the reveal a bit. But overall it was just a powerful and emotional book and I can’t wait to read more by the author because they’re officially one of my absolute favourites.