Like some other readers, I had high hopes for this book.
The cover is absolutely beautiful, the story intriguing.

However, Lumani’s storytelling failed to meet the mark for me. It felt like all of the interesting parts of the story were sidelined for the romance plot line that showed little uniqueness to that already flooding the market.

*I’d like to thank NetGalley and Uproar for providing me with an eARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review

5 stars
★★★★★

TW: mental illness, death

Foretold is the first book of The Scryers trilogy by Violet Lumani


Synopsis ✿
Cassandra is diagnosed with OCD, anxiety and catastrophic thinking. She imagines the worst situations every day to herself and those she loves. Crossing the road one day she sees her new next door neighbour die, but this time it was a vision. In order to change the future Cass joins a secret organisation to save her cute boy wonder neighbour. Defying death is not easy and cost Cass everything.

Review ✿
This book blew me away. 
The secret organisation that was also somehow school was a unique premise with the Coil being a cool living organism that is not benign, but hostile and dangerous and that we later find out unwilling host. 

Griffin surprised me the most out all the characters. His character arc really made the book that much better and his friendships with Cass and Regan felt real and authentic.
Noah can eat shit.

Cass was really having a hard time and after she went to the secret organisation camp school she really blossomed and came into her own. I felt so happy she had friends and her mentor helping her with her OCD and catastrophic thoughts. Nua felt like Professor Trelawney from Harry Potter and the stunt Marko pulled made me die from happiness. Cass has such good intentions and a forgiving spirit but the forces conspiring against her ultimately cost her, her family and her friends a lot. Perhaps too much. 
The plot twist with the evil eye was shocking. 

Times I cried:
- I cried about Theodore 
- Sebastian talking about the cupcakes. 
- cried when she had a fight with her dad, talking about how she felt stuck and everyone was moving on and her OCD compelled her mid convo to start straightening the carpet
- cried at the end. 
- cried about the painting at the end.

I truly don't know where Cassandra's story arc will go from here. How her actions and the consequences will shape her and how she will make choices in the future. I hope she learns and grows and has some form of peace but I assume she will spiral negatively and make some more bad choices before settling into a happier place. Given her name is Cassandra, which I assume harkens to the Ancient Greek Oracle Cassandra and how tragic that story went makes me not have any hope for this Cassandra. Not one ounce. Not one trickle of hope. 

I was very emotionally drained by the end. I cannot believe I have to wait so long for the next book.
This will be me for the next couple days. No I won't be thinking any other thoughts other than this book at this time. Please respect my lack of productivity. Thank you.

I really enjoyed this book! I liked Cassie a lot as a main character, but there were parts that I felt frustrated with her characterization. Reagan and Colin were also an amazing secondary character cast. Reagan was an awesome friend and super, super supportive (we love to see it). And, while I'm not necessarily a fan of the insta-love trope, I found myself pleasantly okay with this one because Colin was just great.

The mental health rep in this was also awesome, but I don't experience OCD myself, so I cannot speak to the accuracy of it. I do love to see author's take the time and make an effort to include non-neurotypical rep, though.

I think the plot of this novel was a little predictable, but it was a fun, gripping ride! I won't go too into detail as I don't want to spoil anyone, but I will also say that around the middle the pacing does slow down a lot and it feels a little chaotic/untethered. But, around the 3/4 mark it picks back up and settles back into its rhythm. I would really recommend this novel, I had a great time reading it!

Thank you NetGalley and Uproar Books for the ARC; All thoughts and opinions are my own!

*Thank you to NetGalley and Uproar Books for a digital ARC in exchange for a honest review*

First off, how beautiful is this cover? I can not wait to get my hands on a physical copy of this book purely for the cover alone!

This book is the first in a soon to be trilogy about Cassandra Morai who suffers from OCD and also has visions.. or are they just catastrophic thoughts caused by her illness? Without spoiling the book I can't give too much away about the plot.

This book didn't quite live up to my expectations, the premise is amazing and this could have been something really great! I, like others, had problems with info dumping and pacing. This book took too long to get into and then suddenly it was over, the last 100 pages or so go too fast compared to the beginning and middle of the book which dragged and dragged. I don't want to say this is by any means a badly written book, just as with many fantasy novels involving magic there's a lot of information to get across to the reader which has to be done carefully without it becoming boring. I think that's where this book was let down a little. I'm definitely up for reading the next book, I was on the edge of my seat towards the end and can't wait to see what happens next. I'm hoping that given the world building is out of the way the plot will now take centre stage and I can focus on enjoying the story! Mrs O is an amazing character and I was so happy with the ending, it came out of left field for me but in such a good way that made complete sense. I loved Griffin's character development, he was never a baddie but it was nice to see him recognise his own faults and change accordingly. The romance was a little ... Young? Naïve? It seemed unrealistic and that Cassie just fell for Colin because he was there rather than any redeeming qualities on his part, though of course this can just be true of first loves.

All in all I did enjoy this book and will definitely be reading the next installment! 3.5 stars if we could give half stars 🥰

This book is incredibly magical, I loved everything about it. The story was told in such a realistic way it made me feel like I was actually there! The characters are well thought out and are so real and vivid l, the story had me gripped throughout and I can’t wait for the next book!

So I have to say I adore this book! I loved the story line and the characters. It was great to read about a main character who has a struggle like OCD and is trying to navigate life with that and having so much thrown in the way. I feel like they attempted to set up a love triangle but it wasn’t super intense. I like the way it was set up. Really I can’t wait enough how much I enjoyed this book. I can’t wait for the next one!

I felt as if I had a ton of information dumped on me while reading this and at completely random times. The main character has OCD but it is misrepresented and poorly executed. The characters were not likeable, in my opinion, and they were rather 2D. I would maybe recommend this book.

Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

It was really nice to see a book with mental health representation, as most people struggle with some form of mental health issue at some point in their lives. I do not have OCD, so I can't talk about how accurate the portrayal is but I know that other reviewers that have OCD have said that it was depicted well.

The world-building was great but the plot was sometimes slow, and I did sometimes struggle with that.

Overall though it was a read that I enjoyed.

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

Foretold was such a fun book to dive into. Even some of the characters either rubbed me the wrong way in the beginning or for the entire book. In it, you will meet Cassie. She was completely interesting to me because she had these visions of the future but she was also dealing with her OCD. Since I know absolutely know one with this, I was very invested in getting to know her a bit more. Especially when it came to what triggered her and how she coped with it.

Besides her, there's Reagan and Griffin - who I loved. Absolutely adored the shit out of them. I'll admit that I wasn't a fan of Griffin in the beginning but he definitely wormed his way into my heart. These two always had her back and tried to help her with the coping mechanism's.

Now I'm sure you are wondering who I don't like - Noah. I hated this guy because he blamed every little damn thing on Cassie. It's raining - Cassie's fault. He tripped over a rock? Clearly Cassie's fault. So the little tantrums he had were just unamusing and I wanted to punch him a whole lot.

In the end, I flew through this and enjoyed the crap out of it. Mostly because I completely ignored Noah.

Foretold is a new YA Fantasy series centered around main character Cassandra, who discovers she is part of a secret organization or people that is about to see the future. When she begins her training, she works learn how she can change some of the visions she is seeing. The main character also lives with OCD and the author did a great job making this a realistic representation of the disease. I would highly recommend checking out this first novel in the Scryer Trilogy.

Overall, I had mixed feelings about this book.

Pros:

very realistic depiction of ocd. As someone who struggles with some ocd tendencies (mainly severe catastrophizing and intrusive obsessive thoughts) I found the main characters struggles realistic. I think the story could have benefited from a better discussion of how the coping skills work for that (or more insight into when her ocd started and how it manifests)

I also appreciated how the main character comes from a family that has lost one parent- the author definitely navigated the “dad starting to find companionship after losing his wife” realistically, complete with some growing pains shown in the novel.

I really enjoyed the premise of this story as well, with its fantasy elements that are first misconstrued as errant thoughts, before being revealed as real. The plot was DEFINITELY interesting, enough so that I will probably pick up the sequel to try.

The story was written well, and I really enjoyed the imagery and descriptions used.

Cons:

The major issue I had with this story was the world building. I know “show not tell” is a major premise of writing, but I feel this novel could have benefitted from more...well..telling. The main character is kept in the dark for a significant portion of this novel, and even once she starts to learn what is going on I, as a reader, still felt lost.

The other characters were somewhat shallow, and I often struggled to figure out why they mattered to the main character. I feel like they had few personality traits, other than being teens and companions to the main character. I struggled a little with this with the father as well- his major personality traits appeared to be “single dad” and “history professor” and that’s about all we got out of him.

The romance in this story (notably just the first installment) is very superficial- I almost feel like it was added as an afterthought. It could have worked just the same if the main character was just good friends with the romantic interest. There’s also slight hints of a love triangle, but once again, not a lot of romantic scenes so it’s hard to tell what was going on there.

Overall, I liked this book enough that I might read the sequel, if it was a kindle unlimited for sure I would pick it up, if I had to pay I would think about it based on the price.

I received this novel as an ebook ARC from NetGalley

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Cassandra sees death and devastation all around her. In vivid detail. It’s the price of living with her OCD and extreme anxiety. In every situation, Cass imagines the worst possible fate for everyone in her life. Her dad in a pool of blood after a break-in. Her beloved older neighbor, homeless. A splinter in her finger turned to gangrene. But this time, it’s not her imagination. The boy next door, Colin, is destined to die. Cass has foretold a real death before; she knows this is a true vision. Desperate to save Colin's life, Cass immerses herself in a secret organization of soothsayers that promises to teach her how to change the future she foresees. But as she descends into their hidden world of divinatory magic and predictive technology, she discovers there's always a price to pay for unraveling fate's strands. And cheating death will cost her everything.

Sadly I had to DNF at 30%. The OCD and anxiety representation in this story was brilliant. It is so important for mental health issues to be included in YA books nowadays as many teenagers struggle with a mental illness of some form. But the pacing and overall story just felt off for me. At many times it was slow and the world-building felt a bit like an information overload which had me confused about what was what, and who was who. I found myself easily distracted by other things quite a few times - and I really hate when that happens! The concept for this books is very interesting - Cass has a vision of a boy dying and wants to stop it. However that isn’t a good enough reason to have the usually shy and reserved main character have was seemed like instant feelings for the boy she’s seen die before it happens.

Overall, Foretold is a story with great representation but sadly missed the mark for me.

*** Rating reflects how I really like the concept and hope that others truly enjoy the story as I was sadly unable to! I didn’t want to be unfair and rate only one star.***

Thank you again to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book.

I like the premise of Foretold. And I'm always rooting for books that include Mental Health and Mental Illness. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get into this book. So, for now, I'm DNFing. I will try to pick it up again, eventually. I have seen lots of reviews saying to stick with it as the story picks up later. I'm just a terrible mood reader. I definitely recommend trying it for yourself. 👍

Okay, so I’ve found a new favorite series!! Foretold by Violet Lumani felt a little like a mix of Percy Jackson and Harry Potter with a dash of Hunger Games, but I LOVED the main character, Cassandra. She is beautifully flawed by grief and learning to cope with a new reality after loss. I greatly appreciated how the author dealt with her mental illness in a way that made her absolutely relatable, but also gave Cass room to learn and grow. And we get to watch her heal only to see her fall apart all over again. Holy, cliffhanger, Batman. I cannot wait for book two next year!! Thank you to the publisher and author for the opportunity to read this advanced copy!!

I liked the characters in Foretold. I thought they were well written. I loved Reagan and Griffin, they were great supporting characters. The atmosphere of the book was also great. I felt like I was there and I could vividly imagine where Cassie was. I was able to imagine Cassie's classes, the Coil, her home basically I thought there was enough attention to details, so the reader can image the places and events that occurred in the book.

Even though I did enjoy the book, I thought it was slow paced especially the first half the book. There were a couple of occasions where I just didn't want to pick up the book, but I'm glad I pushed through it because it does pick up in the latter half. Overall, I did like this book and I plan on adding this book to my classroom library in the fall .

First things first, the cover is just beautiful - look at it!! I got attracted by it and made me read the synopsis - which then drew me to read the book.

I really enjoyed the concept of this book. The trilogy has great potential and it looks like in this first book, we only discovered a small part of what can be a wonderful new world.
Some elements were based on mythology - which is always a plus for me; some parts made me chuckle and others made me gasp.
I liked how the characters were built, except for Noah, which I am still struggling with and hope to have some sort of closure in the next book.

Said so, I gave this 4 stars just because there were only a couple of things I struggled with. It has a bit of a messy plot at the beginning, it was slow to start with but I wanted to see where it was going and towards 60% of the book, it became better and better. So now I am looking forward to reading the second one, specially after the ending! OMG that ending. I did not see it coming at all, had to re-read that part a couple of times to make sure I read it correctly the first time.

Thank so much to NetGalley and Uproar Books for the ARC of this book.
Foretold is the first book of 'The Scryers' trilogy by Violet Lumani and will be published on 20/07/21 - will definitely get the physical copy of this.

Thank you to Net Galley and Uproar Books for the advance reading copy! Foretold releases July 20th!⁣
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As soon as I heard about Foretold by Violet Lumani, a YA OwnVoices contemporary fantasy with a main character who has OCD, I was intrigued. And I was not disappointed by the mental health rep in this book! At times, the pacing felt a bit off but I enjoyed being in Cassandra’s head so much that I didn’t mind. I really feel like I could have followed her point of view forever and been content. ⁣
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Cassandra’s journey as she deals with OCD and discovers she’s part of a long line of scryers - people with the magical ability to see the future - was riveting. I feel like the author depicted OCD really well and the intersection with a magical world was just awesome to read about.⁣
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I feel like we just touched the surface with the world-building but I think it’s a great setup for the rest of the series. I’m still not sure what I think of the ending because Cassandra made some really big mistakes that I feel were too predictable. Nevertheless, this was an excellent debut and I cannot wait to see what happens in the next book!⁣ Fantasy fans, don’t miss out on this one!

Trigger/content warnings: panic attacks, anxiety, self-harm, intrusive thoughts and negative ideation, death of a loved one, occasional strong language, depression, gun violence, threat of cannibalism, horror-esque supernatural violence.

It felt like a teen book to me and I think teens would really benefit from this kind of mental health rep. However it would probably be rated R especially for the language.

I received an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book has everything I love: magic, mysticism, mystery, and high stakes. I adored this book so much and I cannot wait for the next one to see where the story goes.

Sadly I did not finish this book. It just wasn’t for me. The book just didn’t bring me in like I had hoped. I enjoyed the concept and maybe if I were a little younger it would’ve grasped my attention a little better. I just really like when books pull me in from the beginning and this just didn’t do it for me. I do think it would be great for a lot of younger people.

Special thanks to NetGalley for providing a digital copy in exchange for an honest review

OH. MY. GOD.

This was such a great read. In the beginning, it comes off as a contemporary story about a girl dealing with OCD. But it quickly turns into this fantasy about seeing into the future, and it was an exciting journey to be on.

I loved Cassie. She was such a great character. I really loved seeing her back and forth battle with her OCD. Sometimes, she was able to overcome her impulses and other times she wasn't, and I think that's something that comes off as very realistic (but I don't have OCD, so who am I to say so?)

I loved Reagan. She was such a great friend to Cassie. She helped Cassie with her problems, and never let Cassie do the hard stuff on her own.

I loved Griffin. Which I didn't think I would say. He's the kind of character that you hate in the beginning, but then he grows on you to a tolerable level, then character development happens, and now he's somehow your favorite character even though you wished him to be dead at the start.

What a wild ride.

THEN THAT ENDING. It broke my heart into a thousand little pieces. It left me with so many questions that I desperately need the answer to. I can't believe I have to wait until sometime in 2022 to get the answers. I want it now!!!!