Thank you, Julia Lynn Rubin for giving us THAT! WEIRD! SHIT! For some reason this book has sat on my TBR for ages, but soon as I cracked it open, I was hooked.

PRIMAL ANIMALS opens with Arlee Gold arriving at a prep summer camp; the same camp her glamorous-yet-overbearing mother attended as a teenager. Everything is bright and beautiful, from the students to the landscape, but there's also something ... rotten underneath the veneer. And why does everyone seem to hate/fear Arlee's mother, a whole generation later?

The answer may surprise you! Because if there's one thing Rubin isn't afraid of, it's THAT! WEIRD! SHIT!

This book is not for the squeamish. Without spoiling too much, we have copious heapings of flies and guts and yucky stuff, and you will never be able to look at horses in the same way again. Yet for all the grossness, Rubin's writing never lost its lyricism, and I absolutely *devoured* every chapter.

I can see why PRIMAL ANIMALS won't work for some readers. Arlee's emotions are all over the place (although I actually enjoyed the frantic, unbalanced aspect that brought to the voice); the overall "message" is also a little too ... I don't know, black-and-white, somehow? The ending is ambiguous and I couldn't decide whether I loved Rubin's restraint or hated her for cutting off when the tension felt highest. But whatever the case, IMHO, this was a reaaallly gooey, heady, delicious YA horror and I'd like more of wherever it came from.

As a fan of sapphic horror, I was really excited for PRIMAL ANIMALS. I’d read the author’s debut and wasn’t the biggest fan, but I really wanted to give het a second chance and see if she grew.

Unfortunately, PRIMAL ANIMALS was as much of a letdown as TROUBLE GIRLS was. In my opinion, everything about this book was weak. The writing felt like I was reading a summary of the plot with no emotions included, which made the characters fall flat, too. The premise we were promised from the blurb only started around 65% into the book, and even when that started, it just wasn’t special for me. Especially the ending was a big no for me.

There was just something off about the entirety of this book, and I think it’s safe to say this author isn’t for me.

I really wanted to enjoy this book more. It felt like it wanted to be a fever dream style of horror, hinting at the paranormal and our main character perhaps having a darker past. Yet, the few things that were explained or revealed felt like bigger plot holes than anything. I'm alright with a horror that feels like it doesn't make sense, but the vibes are right. However, this wavered back and forth too much between the logical and illogical, making it hard to know what the book was attempting to do. I enjoyed the plot, at it's core, but the execution missed the mark for me.

Primal Animals is twisty, dark, borderline horror and is a perfect summer read, especially if you read it while camping in the woods. What's not to love about secret societies and creepy camps? There were points when I was freaked out reading it on my couch in broad daylight.

Arlee Gold is an anxious 16-year old with a bug phobia and a host of other anxiety issues, who has high hopes and even bigger fears about spending her summer at a sleep away camp for privileged teens. Her apprehension about camp seems warranted as she encounters fellow campers who allude to her mother's time at camp many years ago and treat her with fear or, in some cases, open hostility. Arlee's mother takes on an almost ghostly presence at camp because even though she is not there, her legacy is paving a path for Arlee that we are not quite sure will turn out as well as she hopes.

I think there is a clear message underneath all the twists and turns that is spelled out for the reader, "Protect the Girls"...but that message gets muddled by the socioeconomic angle that is also seems to be a pretty big theme in the book. It left me feeling like the intention, girls taking a pre-emptive strike against the future misogynists of society, ended up being about the rich getting away with some really shady and illegal stuff that didn't always have to do with protecting ALL the girls.

The ending left me wanting WAY more and I do wish the book spanned a longer period. I think it would have ramped up the creepiness and made the reader feel more invested in the characters. All in all, I really liked it, with the exception mentioned above.

Many thanks to the author, Wednesday Books and NetGalley for a truly enjoyable ARC!

this review will contain spoilers. read at your own risk

tws: anxiety/panic attacks, fear of bugs (entomophobia), blood mention/self harm, hazing (licking blood), underage alcohol usage, mention of parental abuse, cheating (from a parental figure), murder off page (recounted), mention of dead animals, sexism, discussions of sexual assault/harassment, arson, emetophobia warning (a lot of discussion of wanting to throw up & on page throwing up), ????? horse fetus ?? in explicit detail (i have 0 clue how to trigger this one but uhhh yeah)

This book was... not for me... I found Arlee (the main character) so utterly insufferable that I could not root for her or anything she did. I'm not sure if we were supposed to come away hating her, but, man... she was rough. We spend 75% of the book where Arlee holds this secret above our heads (but also brings up this secret every, like, two pages) that when she finally reveals what happens I literally didn't care anymore.

The pacing of this book was also off - the first 40% of the book happens over the course of two days and then the next half takes place over another month and a half/two months. I was begging for the pace to pick up and then it went too fast very quick. Speaking of things going too fast - meeting the characters. I could not tell you a single character in this book's personality traits. We met them all like once and then they were just randomly thrown in throughout the book. (There's a scene where Arlee is getting glared at by this girl Melody and she's like just saying how that makes sense or whatever.. Girl, who is Melody?... Who is she?... I do not know her.)

The romance also utterly sucked? Winnie was annoying but very, very one-dimensional and it was like insta-love. Day 2 and Arlee was like waxing poetic about how she loved Winnie. Calm down ma'am. The following quote is from about 85-ish% of the way in:
“I shake her arm, desperate for an answer that fits correctly in my brain. One that explains. One that soothes this nagging terror inside of me, this voice that keeps repeating over and over, You thought you knew her." Like girlie... idk how to tell you this, but you've known her for, what, a month? You didn't know her... Why are you crying about this...

My next issue comes with this secret society. Why did everyone at this camp know what Arlee's mom did, if this is supposed to be a secret society for murder and protecting girls? Did we miss the definition of "secret"? Y'all are supposed to be smart this is a fancy-shmancy SAT-prep camp, y'all should know what a secret means... Shut up and stop telling people what you did? On the vein of secrets - Arlee's mom is equally fucked up for letting her go into that unprepared. IDK their family needs a really good fucking therapist if you ask me.

But my biggest issue with this book is that it was not this feminist masterclass in sisterhood and "girl power" and protecting each other, or whatever the fuck the idea of the secret society was supposed to be. The way Arlee was outraged at the idea of her mom skinning a rapist, and I think the audience was supposed to agree with Arlee? Like, sorry babe, I do in fact think rapists deserve bad things that happen to them. The law does not punish rapists. What the fuck happened to "protecting women"? But also... if we're so big on protecting women... what the fuck was that ending? You knew exactly what would happen to Winnie, who told you multiple times that she was a scholarship kid, after Caroline(? I don't remember the head woman's name and I don't care enough to go check) told you what she did to the other scholarship kid... So much for you really loving this girl (who you still literally just met)... IDK Arlee's just stupid as fuck.

Now, onto some smaller things that I just didn't like because I can be a picky bitch:
1. The way we didn't get any type of backstory/info about that camper who Arlee replaced, but she was mentioned repeatedly (I don't remember her name, let's be honest).
2. I was expecting there to be ~multiple~ secret societies because of the recurring imagery of owls, deers, and horses together. Like, if one secret society has a horse icon, I was expecting another with owls and a third with deers. I think we deserved more secret societies.
3. This quote from about 95% of the way through: "While Mom makes us both coffees with almond milk—our favorite”. That's just a red flag babe, who likes almond milk? Also, your almond milk does nothing after you eat a fucking deer carcass in the woods and like ~cover~ yourself in its blood and then also take the eyes out of a horse fetus????
4. The Coda...
5. The fact that Arlee was more comfortable gouging out a horse fetus' eyes than with the idea of skinning a rapist..... girl...
6. I literally ended my notes for this book with "she's just stupid" which kind of aptly sums up my thoughts.

So would I recommend this to a friend? Hard pass. Would I read any of the author's other work? Maybe. To be determined. We can find out together.

Overall, this book wasn't the horror it proclaimed to be, it was just boring and a waste of my time.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Tw: alcohol, animal death, body shaming, drug use, self harm, panic attacks, blood, sexua harassment

Arlee Gold hates bugs with every fiber of her being, but she wants to challenge herself so she signs up for Camp Rockaway, the same camp her mother attended years ago, which changed her life. This will be true for Arlee, but not in the way she expected to.

I don't want to say too much, because I believe you have to go in blind to fully experience it, but I will just say that I completely loved the creepy ambience (spooky summer camp is definitely one of my favorite settings!) and the characters were well-rounded and relatable. I was rooting for Arlee the whole time! Also spooky summer camp and queer rep? Sign me the eff up!!

I'm a huge fan of Julia Lynn Rubin, so if you haven't read Trouble Girls I highly recommend it!

Julia's writing is smooth, suspenseful and it definitely kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an early copy.

An elite summer camp, a secret society, and a girl thrown into the legacy of her mother. This story follows Arlee Gold, all her life she has never been good enough for her mother, she’s failing school, she’s got an extreme phobia of insects, and she’s just not doing great after her dad left. So what does her mom do? Send her to the camp that changed her life, Camp Rockaway. A elite college prep summer camp deep in the North Carolina wilderness (yes send the girl with extreme phobia of insects into the freaking woods filled with insects, brilliant). Arlee suffers from insecurity, shyness, anxiety, and the moment she steps into camp and people discover whose daughter she is, she is instantly made a pariah and feared by everyone but no one will tell her what her mother did to garner this reputation. The only people who welcome her are her bunkmates, and after two days she falls for the girl who sleeps in the bunk above her, Winnie. Soon Arlee must navigate a camp where girls dislike her, where her mother’s legacy haunts her, and when she is invited to join a secret society in which girls must protect the other girls at all cost, she will soon find herself in over her head. Arlee is an unlikable narrator, and the story pacing was off for me. I did appreciate the unsettling camp atmosphere and the in depth descriptions of the insects to highlight how gross they were, but the entire storyline and murder mystery was just kind of meh for me. Arlee was a frustrating character to read from, and if I’m being real honest the ending of the book was just ugh. I honestly was rooting for the camp compared to Arlee. This was set up as a creepy mystery with a Lord of the Flies meets Wicker Man story but kind of missed the mark on both counts for me.

*Thanks Netgalley and St. Martin's Press, Wednesday Books for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

Such a good thriller with a really interesting setting. With its vivid and gorgeous writing, the book is so promising. However, just like the author's last novel the ending fell a bit short.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the digital ARC for 'Primal Animals' by Julia Lynn Rubin.

I will start by saying I'm not one that's afraid of insects/bugs, but this was written well enough that I'm beginning to have second thoughts...

The book description says it all. Without giving too much away... once I got to Chapter 7 with Arlee's initiation, and the subsequent events definitely reminded a lot of the movie 'Midsommar': the bond the women formed, and how the community as a whole handled people that were a "problem". By the end I was happy to see Arlee has found her own way to "protect the girls", even if it comes with heartbreaking consequences.

The only thing I'm sad about is this book isn't coming out until May 2022, and my current students begging me for more excellent horror novels will miss out this school year.

This book in 3 words: Unreliable. Comradery. Tactile.

Arlee Gold heads to Camp Rockaway, a place her mother spent time and built a significant reputation. On the quest to find friends and conquer debilitating fears, Arlee learns what Camp Rockaway is really all about...

Primal Animals is wonderfully sinister and twisty. The pace is fast, the questions start mounting right from the start, and our main character is rich with flaws and wishes. I don't want to give away too much but this isn't your typical summer camp thriller. 

The writing is spot-on in a way that you feel like you can taste the food, hear the bugs buzzing, and feel the energy from the characters. The book pulls you in and makes you feel throughout... an interesting experience but enjoyable. While I enjoyed this as an adult, I feel like the target audience 13-18 would find it even more intriguing. 
There are a few things I wish were different at the end but isn't that the case with most thrillers (LOL).

3 ⭐

I requested this one off Netgalley because I heard it was dark and LGBTQ+ and I did enjoy some aspects but the story unfortunately just fell flat for me.

I liked the characters and the writing style kept me interested

I was watching the show Yellowjackets at the time when I read this book. Definitely skip this book if you cannot handle dead animals at all. I feel like the dead animals didn't really contribute anything to the story besides shock value. This book is such a mystery, which is both good and bad. Bad in the sense that I found myself confused, at times, while reading.

this was a bit of a mixed bag honestly. the plot felt very fast paced and confusing. i wished we lingered a bit more on character development. that being said, the writing was super engaging and atmospheric. would not recommend, but would not actively deter people from reading.

I was initially intrigued by the idea of this book and the gorgeous cover, but I couldn’t get into as much as I thought I would. Even though, it does a great job creating an increasingly unsettling camp atmosphere, I found the pacing to be slow and not very attention grabbing. Too many characters are introduced too quickly which resulted in a confusing read. I love horror, but this one will unfortunately not stay with me. It was an original read.

Well this was disappointing.

Arlee is an unlikeable narrator and I got to the end and I still can't figure out what is actually up with her. There's no super natural component to this (which would have made much more sense oddly enough) but her guilt, phobias and overall behavior just didn't work together to be a compelling story.

This is an absolute must-read YA horror about Arlee Gold, a teen who’s initiated into a secret female society at her summer camp. Personally, I don’t read horror, but Primal Animals sparked my new interest in the genre.

From the very first page, this story was eerie—the fast-paced plot, the descriptive setting, and the suspicious characters… Wow!! Even the main character had me on the edge of my seat because she was unreliable, and I felt like she was always on the verge of unraveling.

This book has a shocking (worth-the-wait) twist. There were several moments (even the last sentence) that made me gasp! The author’s prose is so descriptive that I felt like I was in the heat of a North Carolina summer camp, stuck with creepy bugs and even creepier characters.

Have I already read the ARC on my Kindle? Yes! Will I still buy a physical copy when it’s released on May 24, 2022? Absolutely, yes!!!

Thank you NetGalley, St Martin’s Press, and Wednesday Books for a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. I am so glad I found this story because now I can’t wait to pick up Julia Lynn Rubin’s previously published and future books!!

I stopped reading this at 43%. It started off interesting, but I made it almost halfway with very little happening and the writing honestly seemed to be getting more basic as time went on. Hopefully these things will get tightened up for the final product, because the premise was definitely interesting.

This is Arlee Gold's first camp at the illustrious summer camp her mother attended. Overshadowed by her mother's dubious reputation and issues of social anxiety, Arlee has some trouble fitting in. The only ones who seem to overlook these problems are her bunkmates and a mysterious secret society. At first excited to belong to this secret society, the more Arlee learns about it, the more she feels that she made a terrible mistake. This book is an interesting look into the dark side of human nature, and all the ways that protection of vulnerable groups can go wrong.

I think one of my favorite things about horror novels are unreliable narrators. The author really nailed their ability to create a tense environment for the reader. I easily finished this book within a day, and found myself questioning the ending and all of the little loose ends that never got tidied up. The loose ends didn’t bother me however, because a little mystery at the end of a book makes you think about it longer.

I read this book to satisfy my constant need for sapphic horror, and "Primal Animals" did not disappoint on that front! This book follows high school student Arlee as she attends a summer camp prep school with more than its fair share of secrets, number one being its all-girl cult.

What I loved most about this book is that it is genuinely creepy. The bugs, the horse masks, and the dead animals are seriously freaky, and a setting like this no-tech summer camp where it’s impossible to access the outside world is the perfect breeding ground for creepiness. The imagery used, both scary and beautiful, made this a really atmospheric read. I also liked the cult aspect, especially with it being all girls; this book certainly helped fill the "Yellowjackets"-sized hole in my heart in that regard.

Next, this book nails the summer camp environment. It’s a VERY different summer camp than what I went to, but some parts of it perfectly encapsulated my feelings and experience at camp. That was a fun little bonus!

Finally, I really liked the bit of romance in the book. It was imperfect and a little messy, sure, but I found it a more believable romance that a lot of others I’ve read. I am rather picky about romance. It helped that this was a camp setting, where people really do bond that fast. I just thought they were really cute!

However, I did have some critiques for this book.

I was really unsure what the message of this book was. It was definitely trying to say something, I’m just not sure what. It could’ve been something pro-feminism, a critique of feminism, anti-misandry, or even commentary on income inequality, but I could not say for sure what it was with any degree of confidence. There was a lot of material to work with in terms of gender and social class issues, which was very interesting, but it wasn’t clear to me what the message really was.

To improve pacing, this book probably needed to be longer. Arlee very quickly joins and becomes loyal to the cult, happily calling the members her sisters. However, she only knows the names of a few other members; she only actively likes one of them; and after the induction meeting she barely talks to them again. I would’ve liked to see Arlee get to know more of her “sisters,” have more ordinary cult meetings, and actually see an instance where the cult does something she approves of to explain why she’s so into it. What’s already there is great but I wished the book was expanded and Arlee spent more time with the cult before things went downhill.

Additionally, the ending was a bit rushed. If there was just one last chapter showing what happens that would’ve been more satisfying than being told in one paragraph what happened. I was pretty content with the ending, I just would’ve liked it to get a chapter of its own.

I do have a few other minor complaints. Like I mentioned before, there was an issue with telling rather than showing. Arlee constantly tells the reader how she feels and how she’s all these different versions of herself, but I would’ve rather her actions speak for themselves with less internal explanation. A lot of Arlee’s thoughts could get repetitive, too.

There were also just too many characters. A number of the characters, especially the counselors, could’ve been combined into fewer people, and I would’ve rather seen Arlee spend more time bonding with her “sisters” than all of her cabinmates or the guys at her lunch table. Unfortunately, I struggled to remember most of the names, personalities, or physical descriptions of the numerous side characters.

Lastly, there were a handful of typos and little mistakes, but I’m sure these will be resolved before publication.

Overall I liked reading "Primal Animals" and thought it had a lot of fantastic elements, like its imagery, creep-factor, the summer camp setting, and the sapphic relationship. Honestly my criticisms were mainly due to how high my expectations were set from the parts I really liked. This book would be a good choice for anyone else who loves reading about cults and sapphic horror stories!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.