All the Lonely People is more than just a love letter to the Beatles - it's at once a mystery, a romance, and a story of supernatural connection threaded through with explorations of grief, hope, and the forces that connect us to even the most unlikely of people. Hawkins's sophomore novel is just as heartfelt, emotional, and memorable as her debut and with the added mystery and the increased magical elements, this book is perfect for readers of Welch's Love & Gelato and Stiefvater's The Raven Cycle who are looking for something with similar vibes to lose themselves in..

Thank you so much for allowing me to read this ARC. The following is my unbiased review of the book.

All the Lonely People wasn't exactly what I expected from the synopsis. I instantly connected to the song lyric titles and found Jojo to be instantly relatable as our main character. At it's heart, this book is about coming of age while dealing with grief. Jojo is barely hanging on...the meds dull her, her own particular talents for lucid dreaming and reading auras only intensify her displacement in a world without her father, famous Beatles coverband, Walrus Gumboot, member, Nate.

She came to London to find her dad; both physically, rooted in her denial of his death, and metaphysically, through her dream premonitions. With each visit to a special location, she feels like she is farther away from finding him, but, to me as the reader, I felt she was actually discovering truths about him she'd never recognized.

The interspersed text message conversations with her friends at home in Asheville, NC added a real personal element to her growth during her time in London. I'm from NC and found the links to my state and descriptions of Asheville interesting and accurate, too. You can see through the progression of the text messages that Jojo has just been coasting through her life since her father died; she has a boyfriend that she really doesn't like much & two best friends that constantly stick her in the middle and that she just drifts along with. She's clearly waiting...putting her life on hold.

The romance with Henry in London, while not surprising, helped to show that they were both dealing with grief and the weight of secrets they couldn't share, ultimately bringing us to the HUGE secret of Nate's life in London.

If I have a criticism at all, it's that the drama of the secret is wrapped up pretty neatly and quickly, though I wasn't dissatified with the resolution. I do remember at times being frustrated by how the people who claimed to know Jojo best & care for her the most seemed to never support her in the way that she needed them to. I think some of that is clarified as the story progresses, but Jojo will need to learn to speak up and be honest with the people she cares about to really get past that. It's the only place where the character development felt a little flat to me.

Overall, I really enjoyed the book and found it a quick read. I'd recommend it to others without reservation.

#AlltheLonelyPeople

First off if you’re a Beatles fan then just go ahead and read this. Each chapter title is a Beatles song, so cool. I hope it introduces The Beatles to a whole new generation!

I think one of the reasons why I love this story so much besides the plot line, which I can’t say much about without entering spoiler area, is because of the MC Josie aka Jo. She is written so dang well...I felt like she was a real, messy teen with her life barely being held together. I was her. Jo deals with BIG ISSUES and processes them like a teenager would. Not an adult. It bothers me when a YA character acts like a grown up. Hawkins definitely didn’t “adult” Jo’s character. And boy do you root for her through this book...this girl needs happiness.

I also enjoyed how a supernatural element was added in such a believable way. It was cool to learn about ley lines and dreaming premonitions.

Henry is my new book love as well. Can I go back to being a teen and find myself a Henry?! He has so much going on in his heart and it was so emotional seeing him work through it with Jo.

I could go on and on about this book obviously but I won’t. The only thing I hated was that it was too short! I NEED MORE!!! Especially after that ending! FYI buckle up for the last 50 pages or so!

Wow. This one made me well up.

I believe this is the author's second novel. I was impressed with this book and now want to check out her first novel, The Language of Cherries.

Jo's father passed away; she can see peoples aura's and has been having dreams about her father. There is a connection to a family in London and the two teenagers switch families for a month or so. This gives Jo the ability to pursue finding out more about her father who had "supposedly" passed away in London; her dreams are so compelling and keep seeming to come true. She desperately wants to reconnect with her father.

I'm not a Beatles groupie, but enjoyed all the Beatles references and details that were added to this book. Each chapter title is Beatles song title. ​

Thank you to NetGalley, the author /Jen Marie Hawkins and publisher Owl Hollow Press for the opportunity to review All The Lonely People in exchange for an honest review

I really, surprisingly, enjoyed this story. I’d been in a reading slump and took most of the month of June off. So this was a great, fun and wonderful way to jump into my middle of the year reading.

Jo is a great character to be stuck with. She has faults. She worries about weird things. But at the end of the day I felt like I knew her and wanted to get to know her even more outside of the story.

I did have a few (very small) complaints, but I’ll get to those at the end.

First, I loved all the small little nods to the Beatles (which is easy since it’s a fictional word). I enjoyed Jo’s exploration of London and her day trip to Liverpool. My only complaint while in Liverpool was how fast it was and the lack of immersive description. As a boring American who has never crossed the pond I would have liked more description of the spots that meant so much to her and her Pops.

The romance wasn’t too heavy handed and while it was a bit insta-lovey it didn’t hit you over the head. There was caution and small steps. My only complaint about the romance was <spoiler> Jo had a boyfriend at home. And while he was obviously not great, she did cheat. And knowing and willingly. Which made the romance have a bit of a sour note for me.</spoiler>

The few things I wasn’t a huge fan of were:

The inserted text message conversations. I’m not really much of a fan of inserted pictures. I’d rather see something like the standard back and forth for texts:
Me: hey, blah, blah, blah
Lexie: OMG!!!
Me: I know!!!!
Etc.

I read an eARC and at one point the inserted ‘screenshots’ were out of order and I think a few times they had been inserted in the wrong place within the text.

I also didn’t like how everyone was keeping the big secret from Jo. I’m going to stay away from spoilers, but I felt like I was anticipating the big reveal from early on. When it finally happened it all happened so fast and Jo seemed to accept it all so easily (relatively speaking). If something like had happened to me I’d need a LOT of time to process how everyone I knew had been lying to me and was apparently okay with it.

I also think the attitude of mental health was treated a bit too airily. I’m not sure whether to put this as a spoiler or not, so I’m just going to jump in. Jo stops taking her medication with no regard to speaking to a doctor or her therapist. This is treated like it’s not a big deal. Later she more or less brushes it off as saying it wasn’t right for her. This is SUCH A DANGEROUS MESSAGE to send to younger readers. The stigma of mental health is fading, but to so flippantly have Jo stop taking her medication and for her to have no negative side-effects was irresponsible. In fact <spoiler> she blamed not being able to see auras because the medication dulled those senses. Which only reinforces that MeDiCiNe iS BaD. </spoiler>

I’m an overly critical reader so it might sound like I’m being super picky, but it’s honestly how I read. It’s why I have so few 4 stars and rarely any 5 star reads. 5 stars are reserved for book si 100% recommend with no hesitation. I can’t quite give this book 5 stars because of the few things above that I felt just weren’t handled well. And I didn’t even touch on <spoiler> the pseudo-incest like relationship - its waaaayyy more nuanced than that but yeah </spoiler>.

My final complaint, before I get back to things I enjoyed, was the big of a mis-leading summary. There is a lot more ‘woo-woo’ pseudo-paranormal stuff going on in the story. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love Ghost Adventures. It’s my guilty pleasure TV show. I 100% believe there are things going on that we don’t see, hear or know about. But this was weird and all over the place and I didn’t like it. The idea of throwing in ley lines and lucid dreaming was all interesting, but never really explained or discussed. Throw in Jo being able to see auras (but never really explaining how they work for her) was even more in the realm of weirdness. And the fact that some of her dreams were ‘real’ and others never came of anything was strange. I liked the idea of using the ley lines and whatnot, but they were never explained well or properly enough for me to jump on board and fully accept.

More things I liked. Felix. He needed a bigger role in the story. The record store atmosphere. Jo’s freedom to explore and do her own thing (for the most part). The writing flowed so well. There were parts where I laughed out loud. The writing didn’t try too hard to be anything. I also liked some of the slang.

Unfortunately the phrase ‘bread dough’ has been ruined for me forever. If you know. You know.

Also, strong language content. The f word is dropped at ~77% I believe this is the only time. Most of the ‘language’ is British English ‘swear’ words. I don’t feel qualified to talk about whether those count as ‘strong language’ or not. There may have been a few sh*t, h*ll and d*mns thrown around, but they were VERY few and far between.

I would recommend this book to teens (or teens at heart) who are looking for a fun read with a driving plot. I would warn that the ending might not leave them fully happy or feeling like things were resolved in a healthy way.

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy of ALL THE LONELY PEOPLE by Jen Marie Hawkins. I loved Hawkins's debut THE LANGUAGE OF CHERRIES, and at first I was sad that ATLP wasn't written partially verse like TLOC was. But, it didn't take long for this book to suck me in with all its Beatles lore, Britishisms, hints of magic, and most of all its heart wrenching romance. Through all the plot twists and all of the main character Jo's grief over her deceased father, the budding romance between her and Henry was what had me turning pages and wanting more. In fact, I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish this the day after I started it. Jo's psychic abilities—her aura reading and her dreams that kept coming true—honestly just upped the tension. I kept reading, needing to find out how the scenes she'd seen in her dreams came about. I was even left hanging a little bit at the end, but sometimes the best books leave you wanting more. I highly recommend this sweet, fun, heartfelt book.

This was a one-sitting read for me. I loved it! The characters are well-developed and the themes were heart wrenching and complex. I laughed and cried.