Read this if you like: Past and present timelines, magic, The Craft vibes, creepy books

Right now in the suburbs seventeen-year-old Ivy’s summer break kicks off with an accident, a punishment, and a mystery. During the accident a naked stranger appears in the middle of the road. Weird things start to happen and Ivy starts to realize her mom, Dana, has secrets.

In the city back then Dana has always been perceptive. The summer she turns sixteen, with her best friend and an ambitious older girl her magical abilities start to grow. As the trio’s aspirations darken, they find themselves speeding toward a violent breaking point.

I love how the timeline goes back and forth. Slowly the two timelines start to merge. The feel of this book is very creepy. The author does a great job of developing the characters, showing their growth as the book goes on, and building a downright eerie world around them. It did drag in some areas but I get that feeling with many fantasy books, admittedly. I would consider this a slow burn, which I don't mind but thr ending was too fast. I get Craft vibes from this book and I loved it. There is dark magic, secrets, lies, and so much more. I highly recommend this book. Get it June 28th!

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and Flatiron Books for the gifted copy! ❤️

Our Crooked Hearts is a stand alone young adult fantasy novel by author Melissa Albert, who apparently is known for a trilogy that I haven't read. It's a story featuring a pair of generations - a teen girl in the present who runs into a strange girl out of nowhere and who keeps finding weird signs that her mother is hiding a magical secret; and her mother in the past as she grows up poor, finds magic along with a pair of friends and gets into terrible trouble. Multi-generational novels are a trope I've see a few times and they usually work pretty well - with the past is revealed to the reader and the protagonist along the way, leaving the present day character with a greater understanding of who their ancestors were, the protagonist growing closer and understanding more of who they themselves are.

Alas, Our Crooked Hearts doesn't quite manage to make the trope work as well as it could, thanks to what feel like some shortcuts in the final act of what really isn't that long of a book. Both main characters are very likable and their plots are easy to get caught up in, even if some background setting aspects are a bit cliched and shortchanged. And the book moves at a very good pace through its first two acts. But its third and final act is so short, and just doesn't really give the book time to really deal with its themes and impacts, which really makes this book feel kind of generic and disappointing in the end, even if it's never actually bad.


-----------------------------------------------Plot Summary---------------------------------------------
17 Year old Ivy has, as long as she's remembered, just sort of floated through her high school life - never having any dreams and always sort of just coasting without making much impact. But when her soon to be ex-boyfriend swerves in the middle of the road to get out of a car accident, she finds something strange: a mysterious naked girl in the middle of the road who knows her name. And that's not the only strange thing that she begins to notice happening: a bloody rabbit arrives outside her home, the neighbor boy she's never noticed before begins to take an interest, and strangest of all - her mom begins to act weirder and weirder....until she disappears. Searching for answers, Ivy soon finds that there is something magical about her mother, a magical secret that threatens a disaster unless she can figure it out.

Years ago, in the City, Dana grew up without a mother, with an absentee father, and really only her best friend Fee to rely upon. But she'd always had a seemingly supernatural ability to find or divine things, as if she had some sort of supernatural gift...and Fee seemed to have her own such feelings about the emotions others. Yet when the two of them meet a third girl, they discover that those feelings/powers are just an inkling of what they can do, and soon they begin to delve right into a book of the occult.

Yet both Ivy and Dana will both, generations apart, learn that magic can come at a price....and that sometimes that price is so dark that it may haunt one forever.....
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our Crooked Hearts for the most part - except for a bit in its second half - takes place in two first person narratives, one in the present with Ivy and one in the past with Dana (Ivy's Mom), that slowly explains things as Ivy tries to figure it all out in the present. It's notable here how much of these narratives is barebones and generic - the story's two settings are described as "the Suburbs" and "the City", without any attempt to explain what City or location these stories actually take place in, Ivy has a few friends who are occasionally referenced who make no actual appearances or have any personality, and a fourth witch in Dana's story seems like she should be a big deal when first introduced and then turns into absolutely someone pretty extraneous. But the two first person narratives still mostly make it work, because what matters the most are Ivy and Dana's feelings as they learn more about magic and strangeness and how it has affected them.

For Ivy, that magic and strangeness seems to indicate something of loss, something she clearly should have had but for some reason doesn't - reasons that are revealed as the book goes on. She sees her Mom holding secrets and acting weird, sees the weird bloody rabbit and the mysterious girl, and notices the boy across the street who she should seemingly no more, and finds herself desperate to figure out what's going on.....a desperation that is only enhanced when she finds more and more things that suggest that her lack of understanding is due to something her mom did to her, which affected her memories.

For Dana, that magic and strangeness at first seemed to be an escape from her poor isolated life, where the only person and support she had was Fee. Having a third witch teach them (a girl named Marion) gives them the ability to do more and be more and that is just intoxicating to them, even as both Dana and Fee know that Marion is from another world and grow to kind of want to leave her out....but the promise of more power is just too tempting to the two of them given what little they have. And so of course things go wrong, leading to Dana and Fee, especially Dana, scrambling to try and save themselves, and then to try and move past it all despite what they've done.

And of course this leads to Dana's problems with Ivy in the present, as the mother who is desperately afraid of what her mistakes will do to her daughter whom she loves. But secrets, like in many a story, have a way of coming out at the worst times, and the book does a pretty good job parceling them out to create a plot that really intrigues and keeps you involved.

The problem however is that while the book does a good job doling out secrets and keeping things intriguing, it doesn't really know how to slow down and show those reveals' impacts. So the book gets to a point at the end of act two, which really should be the 2/3 point in the book, where everything is revealed and the main character Ivy has to figure out how to handle the reveal of what her mother Dana seemed to truly do....except that point comes 85% of the way through the book so there's no time to actually deal with that, and instead the book rushes through to the climax and finale instead. And so Ivy goes from learning something that should cause her to fully turn against one character and possibly make a wrong decision....to instead making the right decision even though she has nothing but a lucky coincidence to drive her in that direction and has spent no time thinking over what she has just learned that should instead turn her wrong.* It's like the book had a whole third act in which Ivy goes reeling from the revelations, starts taking a wrong turn, only to put together pieces that redirect her in the right place.....except that act was excised from the book entirely for no reason whatsoever. And it just makes so much of the setup seem utterly pointless.

Spoilery Specifics of what I'm talking about in rot13: Vil qvfpbiref gung ure zbz fgbyr ure zrzbevrf bs jura fur jnf n puvyq hc guebhtu jura fur jnf 12, orpnhfr Vil jnf yrneavat zntvp sebz ure zbgure naq gura unq qvfpbirerq ure zbz'f frperg frrzvatyl ol svaqvat Znevba - gur guveq jvgpu jub ure zbz unq onavfurq vagb nabgure qvzrafvba va na nggrzcg gb fnir urefrys - va n zveebe....rkprcg Znevba gbyq gur gnyr va n gjvfgrq jnl gung znqr Qnan/ure-zbz ybbx yvxr na hadhrfgvbanoyr onq thl. Naq Vil ertnvaf gurfr zrzbevrf, juvpu fubhyq znxr ure ghea ntnvafg ure zbz sbe n ovg, naq creuncf fgneg yrneavat sebz Znevba zber nobhg zntvp...orsber ernyvmvat gung Znevba vf va snpg va gur jebat, vs abg rivy, naq gung ure zbz jnf gelvat gb qb jung fur gubhtug jnf orfg naq jnf whfg onqyl zvfgnxra. Gung jnf bs pbhefr Znevba'f cyna nf fur abgrf, gb gel gb trg eriratr ol znxvat Vil ure chcvy.

Rkprcg vafgrnq, gur zbzrag Vil ertnvaf ure zrzbevrf, Vil fcbgf ure nhag'f pryy cubar va Znevba'f cbpxrg naq vzzrqvngryl xabjf Znevba qvq fbzrguvat rivy, naq whfg vzzrqvngryl znxrf nyy gur evtug pubvprf, rira vs fur pbhyqa'g cbffvoyl xabj gur gehgu ng gung cbvag. Vg whfg znxrf ab frafr naq chgf nyy gung frghc gb nofbyhgr jnfgr.

The result is a book that has a solid structure and decent elements, but just doesn't do enough with those elements, and also is so generic outside of the key points, with characters dropping in and out of the narrative the moment they're no longer needed. It's not a bad book in any way, but it's just very frustrating in how it plays out despite some prose that very much drew me in, which makes it hard to recommend.

This book was darkly magnetic and beautifully written! The relationships between the friends and family members were well-rendered and full of depth.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book is a trip!

I normally don't enjoy scary reads, but this was the right amount of magic, mystery, and unsettling creepiness for me.

This is a fascinating book about Ivy and her mother Dana. The book is divided by the present and past with details throughout the book letting us know that not everything is as it seems. Full of witchcraft, dark humor, and just enough information in every chapter to keep me turning pages it's a good read. I also appreciate that the language in the book isn't overly complicated, it felt like an accessible and captivating read.

I absolutely loved this book. I chuckled at the mention about 1/3 of the way through of the movie “The Craft,” because I had already been feeling a serious sense of nostalgia for that movie. This is so reminiscent of it, but also its own unique thing. I loved the dual timeline (and, no spoilers, the additional perspective that came in) but it managed not to be confusing at all. The characters were flawed but relatable, the magic was accessible, and it was dark but not too scary. It was the perfect combination for me! I would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes witchy YA reads.

4.5, rounded up. There are a couple of loose threads, but overall Melissa Albert does a masterful job of worldbuilding and characterization. The explorations of magic, mother-daughter relationships, the bonds of friendship, and powerful women all come together nicely in one dark web. Her elegant, flowy writing style suits the gothic tone of the book and makes some of the transitions between periods and locations less jarring. As someone who lived in Chicago for years, the descriptions of the city are delightful tidbits in the midst of the thrills and emotional complexity.

Grab this for something mysterious and spooky with a bit of depth.

Thank you to NetGalley and Flatiron Books for providing me with an advance copy in exchange for my honest review!

Rating: 4.5/5

Our Crooked Hearts was an excellent and enthralling read after a series of unimpressive books for me. I loved the writing style—Melissa Albert’s prose is beautiful and flowing, and I can’t wait to read her other books because of it. The complexity of the characters was a particular strong point in the book; I really liked how there were no clear villains or heroes (besides Ivy maybe). Dana’s chapters in particular added such a depth to the story, and the progression of how she grew into the distant and often manipulative mother that Ivy knew was fascinating.

There were some parts that dragged and other parts where I just found it difficult to focus on the story, but overall there isn’t really anything I can pinpoint as disliking. The horror element was unexpected but excellently carried out—unfortunately, though, I am an absolute weenie and this narrowed my reading time to daylight hours only for a big chunk of the book.

For the life of.me I just could not enjoy this story it was creepy I will give it that but it felt so disorganized. I really struggled to pay attention and keep up with the storyline everything just didnt seem to click. Also the character seemed very unlikable and I just couldn't connect with any of them.

Oh my goodness...THis book is a dark contemporary fantasy/mystery with witches and had everything you could want including dark magic, spells, suspense, twists, and chills! It was really creepy at times and just what I was looking for. Really enjoyed it!

9.25 / 10 ✪

https://arefugefromlife.wordpress.com/2022/06/26/our-crooked-hearts-by-melissa-albert-review/

<b>The Suburbs - Right Now:</b>

Ivy’s summer break kicks off with an accident, a grounding, and a break-up. But there’s also a mystery to it all. The mystery of what happened that night; who that girl in the middle of the road was; why she was naked; and how she knew Ivy’s name. To find the answers, Ivy must pick apart everything that she thinks she knows about herself, her life—and her mother.

<b>The City - Back Then:</b>

Dana has always been perceptive, if not creative. But then she had to grow up quick. Didn’t have time for what-ifs, childhood, or fantasies of monsters and magic. Well… maybe there was time for a little magic.

Because Dana has always known she’s had a little bit of magic within her. She knew it from the time she was born, but really only came into it with the help of her best friend, Fiona. The two were inseparable from the moment they first met, from what their mutual gifts awakened in one another. When Dana meets Marion, for a moment she thinks she’s found another kindred soul, another piece of herself. But that moment does not last long. And while she discovers that the magic she’s always known she had can be so much more when she’s among other practitioners, witches, friends—she also learns the cost of betrayal and greed. It is a price she may have to pay in blood.

Or rabbits.

It might’ve begun with Dana, but this story is years in the telling. By the time Ivy comes into the picture the story has lulled, but soon it flares strongly to life once more. Both will just have to hope that the secrets at the heart of this shared story won’t tear their family apart, or their lives along with it.

—

So. Magic. It is the loneliest thing in the world.

—

It’s going to be hard for me to put into words just how much I enjoyed Our Crooked Hearts. I pretty much devoured this one, cover to cover, sleep be damned. The creepy, tense thriller that comes from next to nothing. The dark undercurrent of the story to start that grows and grows until the darkness begins to bleed into every part of the tale. The mystery of both mother and daughter—one told in the past, one in the present; one trying to solve this riddle, the other very much attempting to keep it hidden; a naked girl, a coven of witches, a dark secret. The shared story, told in two parts, each one teasing their own secrets out one piece at a time.

It was… oh so satisfying!

While the story itself is no slouch—nothing that’s been overdone or is too long or confusing or convoluted—the characters of Dana and Ivy are definitely the reason to read this. Or, I guess, their shared story is. It’s this link between the past and the present—that so many stories try, to only marginal success—that makes Our Crooked Hearts the amazing tale that it is. Mostly alternating chapters—one in the past, one in the present—up until everything starts going a bit pear-shaped. Both stories are exciting, mysterious and tense, highly interesting and entertaining, but it’s the way they play on each other that makes it so much better. The way the characters interact between timelines, where their problems and personalities conflict or overlap. The way they play off one another—something you can only really find in stories with two main protagonists (not that this only has the TWO, necessarily).

So, you see, it is the strength of the story after all!

Well, that and its characters.

The world is one very much like our own—I mean, it could well be our own. But there’s a darkness to it, something like a shadow creeping on its edges. Very much like what you’d find in the Hinterlands, which a lot of sense given the author. A delightfully dark tale, one fans of Schwab or Kingfisher will enjoy.

The romance, however. It’s not great. It… never really felt real to me. More like a childish crush that we just continued because we felt like it was the thing to do. Because we didn’t have any other prospects. It’s very much a love borne out of convenience, if history. And while it may not have made a ton of sense at any time in the story, it made even less sense in the end. Fortunately, the romance is a bit of an afterthought—it’s not vital to the plot. Less of a plot point, more of an addendum.

TL;DR

While I didn’t come to Our Crooked Hearts for the romance, I wasn’t asked to stay for it either. Instead, author Melissa Albert presents a world very much like our own, albeit with an ever-so-dark twist—one you may not even notice until it starts creeping around the edges of your vision. What unfolds is a story of a daughter and her mother. One of shared meaning and love. One of darkness and regret. One of mystery and secrets. One that is sure to thrill, but also make you think. One with blood, and rabbits—and often both at the same time. To be honest, I’m not sure what made me stay with Our Crooked Hearts. Maybe it was the delightful darkness. The amazing story. The equally amazing characters. The mystery. The magic. The tension. The secrets, and where they led. There were so many reasons to stay and only the briefest of disappointments when it came to the romance—not something I really read books for anyway. So try Our Crooked Hearts for basically every reason, as it’s an incredible read. Just maybe not the romance.

Part dark witchy contemporary fantasy, part mystery. Our Crooked Hearts is a seriously creepy book packed with secrets, spells, and suspense. There was dark magic and a constant sense of foreboding that gave me chills. I loved it🖤.

After leaving a party, 17-year-old Ivy and her boyfriend nearly crash into a naked woman in the middle of the road. When they go to check on the stranger, she somehow already knows Ivy’s name. Later, dead rabbits start showing up around Ivy’s home, and her mom, Dana, begins acting erratic. When Dana disappears, Ivy must learn the truth about her mom and find her before it’s too late.

The “right now” POV follows present day Ivy as she unravels the secrets of her mom’s past. The “back then” POV follows Dana as a teenager discovering witchcraft and dark magic. Dana’s POV gave me all The Craft vibes🖤.

I have not been able to stop thinking about these characters and Albert’s gorgeous haunting prose. I read and listened to this book. Thank you to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, and Flatiron Books for ARCs of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Our Crooked Hearts - Melissa Albert
4.5/5⭐️
Pub Day: June 28, 2022

A few weeks back, I read The Hazel Wood and fell in love. I'm currently working through the second book, so I jumped at the opportunity when I saw this book available for request.

Told in alternating viewpoints from past and present, mother Dana and daughter Ivy have come a long way. However, Dana is keeping secrets that can harm her entire family. In Ivy's quest to uncover these secrets, she learns so much more than she ever dreamed possible.

I loved the way Dana's story unfolded. It's atmospheric and mysterious and incredibly nefarious. I can see why things with Ivy went the way they do, but I think Dana has a responsibility for her family, above all.

The story is slowly unveiled, building suspense as Dana masters her craft. The more she learns, the more sinister the spells. You don't want to stop reading because the secrets and spells are so imaginative. This is a super fun, witchy read. Thank you, Flatiron Books, for sending this along!

From the beginning, something seems eerily wrong in Our Crooked Hearts. And this atmosphere of witchcraft and sacrifice only builds. But my favorite element has to be the mother/daughter relationship. There's this gap between mothers and daughters, between who we think they are and the past behind their eyes. Because how much do we really know about our parents? The lives of those around us? Our Crooked Hearts examines not only this gap, but the ways in which their lives are similar.

How when we get a look at their past, their trauma, their secrets, we begin to understand what was previously mystery. Our Crooked Hearts is also about someone who tumbles into our life and sets it on fire. Becoming something consuming, burning, and invigorating. The ways someone can change our life so completely in both good and bad ways. If you love books in which magic touches our lives without knowing, you have to read Our Crooked Hearts.

The nitty-gritty: A seductive, multi-layered story with family secrets, betrayal and magic, perfect for fans of dark contemporary fantasy.

“We didn’t wonder where the magic came from, or why it worked. We never asked ourselves, Is this ours to take? We were three damp ducklings, green as leaves, believing with all our crooked hearts that we were the ones writing this story. Even as a dead woman’s book paved the road beneath our feet.”

I’ll admit I knew next to nothing about Our Crooked Hearts when I started reading it, and boy was I surprised. This is my first Melissa Albert book—somehow I missed The Hazel Wood, although it’s still on my TBR (and even more so now!)—and I’m so glad I looked past the rather bland cover (which doesn’t do the story justice, in my opinion) because this was 100% my kind of book. If you love contemporary stories about witches and family secrets, and you enjoy urban fantasy with a tinge of horror, you’ll probably love this too. Our Crooked Hearts is part The Craft, part Alice Hoffman but much darker, with a gorgeous, evocative writing style that hooked me from the first sentence.

Driving home from a party one night, seventeen-year-old Ivy is trying to figure out how to break up with her boyfriend Nate, when they nearly hit a naked girl standing in the middle of a dark road. When they stop to help her, Ivy is shocked that the girl seems to know who she is. The next day, Ivy finds a decapitated rabbit in front of her house, and from there things get even weirder. She sees her mother Dana bury a jar in the backyard, and later when she decides to dig it up, it’s full of blood, herbs and other strange items. Ivy is also having flashes of long forgotten memories that seem to revolve around Billy Paxton, a boy who lives down the street. Ivy is certain her mother is keeping secrets from her, and when she and her Aunt Fee seemingly disappear one day, Ivy suspects that figuring out those secrets might help her find them.

In alternating chapters, the story jumps back in time and follows Dana Nowak and the events that unfolded when she was fifteen. Dana and her best friend Fee have always had strange abilities that they can’t explain. Dana is able to find lost things, and Fee can sense whatever someone else needs. One day they meet an older girl named Marion who ushers them into the addictive world of witchcraft, or “spellwork” as Marion calls it. Using an old spell book that belonged to a dead occultist, Marion, Dana and Fee begin experimenting with magic, reveling in feeling of power that comes with performing spells—until a spell goes horribly wrong and ends in tragedy.

Slowly the two timelines begin to merge, as Ivy searches for the truth about her mother. What happened during that last, fateful spell? How is the girl in the road connected? And what is Dana hiding from Ivy? With lives at stake and her mother still missing, it’s up to Ivy to solve the mysteries from the past before time runs out. 

Our Crooked Hearts has so many unexpected layers, like opening a puzzle box and discovering surprise after surprise. First of all, I’m a big fan of alternate timelines, especially when there’s a mystery to solve. We know something isn’t quite right with Ivy and her mother, and it’s obvious that Dana is hiding a big secret from her daughter, but we don’t know what it is until nearly the end of the story. There are hints along the way, and the more we delve back into Dana’s past, we begin to see how the two parts of the story are going to come together, but I was blown away by the reveal when it finally happened. In addition to these two stories, a third, unexpected viewpoint emerges, and seeing the events through yet another lens revealed even more shocking surprises. Melissa Albert has a firm grip on her story from the first page to the last, and I am in awe of how skillfully written and plotted this story was.

And oh boy was this creepy and scary at times! The suspense is so well done, and the spells the girls use are odd and disturbing. There’s a sense of unease that permeates the story, and on one hand I could barely put the book down, but I was also afraid to turn the pages at the same time! I don’t want to give anything away, but I will say that there are some terrifying scenes involving mirrors that I won’t be forgetting any time soon. 

But as much as I loved all these elements, it was the characters and their unconventional relationships with each other that pushed this to the next level. Ivy and Dana have a pretty normal mother/daughter relationship—that is until Ivy finds out that Dana has a big secret, something that happened when Ivy was twelve, and even worse, her father and brother are in on it as well. This dynamic doesn’t play out the way you might expect, though. The more I learned about Dana and her experiences with Marion and Fee, the more sympathy I had for her. Nothing is really black and white, and the villain of the story isn’t always easy to spot.

I also loved the relationship between Ivy and Billy, which is much more than it seems at first. There are so many emotions swirling around the events involving Ivy, Billy and Dana: heartbreak, anger, confusion and finally forgiveness. The romance between Ivy and Billy was unlike anything I’ve read before, and even though it’s only a small part of the overall story, I thought it was a great addition.

Dana’s flashbacks have a wonderful feeling of nostalgia to them. The author is so good at writing about childhood and coming-of-age, the emotions, the sights and smells, and all the little details that pull the reader back into the past. This is a story about more than one kind of magic—the kind you summon with a spell, and the undefinable magic of childhood. Albert brings these together in, well, quite magical ways.

I had no idea what to expect at the end, and I’m happy to tell you I didn’t guess the outcome at all. The author brings all her story threads together with a satisfying conclusion, but even so leaves the reader with a niggling sense of unease, which I thought was a perfect note to end on. Our Crooked Hearts will definitely end up on my Best of 2022 list at the end of the year, and I can’t recommend this book highly enough. Do yourself a favor and grab this one when it’s released next week, you won’t regret it.

Big thanks to the publisher and author for providing review copies. (eARC from NetGalley and a physical ARC won from the author on Instagram)

Concerts are my way of escaping from stress and still getting to spend time with my husband. You may be wondering what concerts have to do with this. Well...I was at a rock concert. The music should had drowned out all thoughts but instead, I found myself wondering about Ivy's mom. What was she? What is she hiding? Does she even love her daughter? I got home late that night and I finished the book!!

After leaving a party late at night, Ivy encounters a naked stranger in the middle of the road. What's weirder is, this stranger knows her name. After the encounter, Ivy can't help but feel she is missing something she should know. She also suspects this all has to do with her mom. When Ivy's mom and her aunt goes missing, Ivy must piece her memories together before it is too late.

Our Crooked Hearts is one of my top reads this year. It had the perfect balance of darkness and witchcraft. The book is told from multiple points of views and multiple timelines. At times, it can get a little confusing keeping up with it all. Two things really bothered me with this book. This first being all the metaphors. I feel like they were a little over done. The second being Ivy's neighbor. It felt like that relationship didn't add much to the story and kind of just thrown in there.

Thank you Netgalley and Flatiron books for the free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Scheduled to post 6/21/22.

I'm a fan of dual timeline narratives and OUR CROOKED HEARTS is no exception. Despite the fact that Dana's and Ivy's voices sounded pretty similar, I still found myself able to immerse myself in each of their stories without any issues or confusion about who was who. It helped that each chapter was headed with what timeline that chapter was in, which made all the difference.

The story is a slow build toward a sudden climax, but I really enjoyed being in Dana's history, to the point of nearly forgetting Ivy was even there. That's probably because I could have been Dana. This book made me realize that I am now the adult in a YA novel. All of the references, the clothes, music, everything in Dana's past could have been my own high school experience. So that's where we are with that. Except the actual witchcraft and murder, of course.

OUR CROOKED HEARTS is an unsettling horror that is constantly pointing toward something disturbing without really revealing what's happening. It does, but not in a gotcha sort of way. Even when the magic starts in Dana's past, there's a tint of sinister attached to it that leaves you bracing for the inevitable other shoe to drop. Which, of course, it does.

The book culminates in a rather rushed ending that has things happening within a blink of an eye and then they're settled. While I didn't mind the ending, I wasn't particularly in love with it either. Ivy's sudden forgiveness of the situation seemed forced and ultimately added to her being a rather blah character. For most of the story she is insinuated as being less than the person she was, and I feel like she ended there too, despite everything. I don't think it's a bad ending, or out of character, per se, but for all the change Ivy did go through, she appears to come out rather the same as she was throughout the book. That about sums it up.

I liked the story. I liked the underlying creepiness of it and the nostalgia factor definitely helped it along. But I think the rushed ending and Ivy's ultimate lack of growth worked to counteract the good the story did have.

3

Our Crooked Hearts is a unsettling, haunting story full of witches, dead rabbits and powerful magic. I was drawn in from the very first page and was really glad I was granted the opportunity to read this eerie standalone YA Fantasy.

The plot: the main storyline revolves around Seventeen year old Ivy. summer break starts off with an almost accident when a naked woman is standing in the middle of the road and Ivy's boyfriend swerves off the road. unsettling events continue to happen and Ivy is realizing that something is wrong. I loved the way the storyline kept you guessing for awhile, I definitely felt confused in the beginning but in a good way. all the pieces eventually fit together and I enjoyed all the twists and turns. the downfall I found was in the ending. it felt a little anti-climatic.

the Characters: I loved that this story jumped around in the timeline and had multiple POV's. I think I actually enjoyed Dana's POV better than Ivy as I think her journey was a little more interesting. I liked all the characters but one thing I struggled with was the Chemistry between Ivy and Billy. it just wasn't there for me and it felt a little forced.

overall, I did really enjoy this book and loved the take on witches. it was eerie and creepy and the magic system was a little different which really added something special to this story!

Recommended for fans of Ninth House, Horror meets thriller, Witchcraft, and the movie The Craft.

thank you to Netgalley and Flatiron Books for the E-ARC!

I've somehow never read Melissa Albert before, but I'm SO glad to have gotten a copy of this beauty -- truly, wow. A witchy, atmospheric, decidedly spooky YA with well-drawn characters and lyrical prose.. I loved the dual perspectives of Dana and Ivy, and I was compelled by the novel's sharp look at the volatile, frenetic passion of both female friendship and mother/daughter relationships. What a read!

Title: Our Crooked Hearts
Author: Melissa Albert
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Read if you like:
Witchcraft
Thriller
Multiple POV
Multiple timelines
Mystery


My Thoughts:
Wow! I’m not super into dark stories because I’m kind of a baby, but this was amazing! I couldn’t put this down and honestly was left guessing up until the very end. I loved the dual timelines between Dana and Ivy (mom and daughter) and their different perspectives on witchcraft and how they experienced it. I think Melissa did an amazing job of suspending reality just enough where I could honestly imagine this playing out in real life. Just such a good and different read!

Mmm yes - defs one of my best books of the year. I'm not usually one to annotate books, but there are so many beautiful sentences and sentiments captured so well in this book that I couldn't not highlight so many of the quotes and passages.

Albert created such a compelling story. She so accurately captured the angst of teenage girls, the volatility of their friendships, and how much the weight of the world feels like it rests on their shoulders. Both POVs feel this way, but they also both feel like distinct characters.

The dueling timelines are excellent in how they are interwoven, and I truly wanted to return to both timelines. Additionally, the use of 1st, 2nd (yes, 2nd!) and 3rd person felt useful and really added another layer to this book.

The book is spooky, has a hint of romance, and will definitely keep you on the edge of your seat. I suspect some people may be frustrated by not more explanation of how the magic works, but that's never something that's bothered me.

This was one of my most anticipated this year and I am overjoyed that it did not disappoint.