DNF at 50%. Definitely a fun premise (and excellent cover), and I appreciated the way it tackled some more serious topics. However, I couldn't get invested in any of the characters and lost interest in finishing this book.

What a fun, unique read! The whole time, I envisioned this book as a graphic novel. That would be killer (pun intended)! The characters are relatively well developed and likeable, and the disgusting creatures are well described. Although this is a dystopian read, it wasn’t incredibly difficult to believe, which is great.

I had a great time listening to this ALC and would definitely listen to the follow-up if the author decides to write one. I would recommend this book to any lover of YA fiction and dystopia.


(ALC received from NetGalley in exchange for honest review. Thank you!)

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* this was a great book! lol i loved it, would buy, reread and recommend!

This was a fun, horror romp, featuring a diverse cast of characters and lots of bad ass young ladies.
Very interesting world building for a standalone, that didn't stall the plot. Loved the humor and how it felt like a campy, teen movie.

It features a main character struggling with anxiety, and lots of positive LGBTQ+ rep and commentary.

Highly recommend for those out there like me, that don't tend to reach for horror, but who like clever, storytelling in the vein of teen sleep away camp comedies, but sprinkled with monsters.

Thoroughly enjoyed Frankie Corzo's narration. Look forward to hearing more from her.

It took me a while to get into this one. (I started reading it two months ago!) It was hard not to compare it to [book:The Babysitters Coven|38856385] because that was my expectation. Unlike Williams, Anderson struggles with finding the right tone for this book. The author also spends a lot of time in redundant world-building that detracts from the plot and affects the pacing. When I finished it yesterday I was okay with the climax, but I didn't love the ending enough to redeem the first 300 pages or so.

I thank the publisher for an advanced copy of the audiobook. The narrator did a nice job bringing these characters to life.

What an absolutely delight! Lily Anderson is the new queen of YA contemporary-paranormal. I loved Undead Girl Gang so I had high hopes for Scout's Honor and it did not disappoint. The story was engaging and I loved the world building. I would have absolutely wanted to be a Ladybird Scout! This books does an excellent job at exploring challenging tradition and forging your own pathways while taking the parts of old traditions that you enjoy. I did feel like the romance was a little forced in for most of the book, but it did come around to a point where it made sense to be included. Overall a delightful read and I hope for many more books from Anderson.

As for the audiobook, Frankie Corzo was amazing, as usual, as the narrator.

I've really been struggling with this one, which is disappointing, as I'd thought it would be a 4-star no-brainer. But I'm honestly not sure if it's me or the book.

What I liked:
-POC character representation.
-Body type diversity. (but with caveats)
-Worldbuilding.

What I didn't like:
-The mother-daughter dynamic. I was simultaneously infuriated by Pru's mom's suck-it-up, you're a failure to our legacy coldness, AND annoyed with Pru's constant "but I just wanna be normal" whining.
-While Pru's boyfriend is described in positive terms for being both short and what would be considered "overweight" by people who have arbitrarily decided that humans should all be one standard weight, physical insults still get hurled, and Pru mentally describes a personal nemesis with masculine traits that are clearly couched to make her seem unattractive in a way that felt...gross to me.
-I had trouble pinning the tone down; it may have been the narrator (although she did a good job), but the book struggled to find a balance between the serious and the absurd.
-There's... an unnerving amount of spit in the text. I know this is a weird peeve, but one girl is constantly described as sucking saliva off her braces and at one point after Pru kisses her boyfriend she says his lips were covered in her spit and I just...What? No, thank you.

For what it's worth, I did like Pru's friends, but I just don't feel like sticking it out. I have a good feel for the book and will definitely recommend it to teens or other readers of YA, it just personally wasn't my cup of (peppermint) tea.

I LOVED Scout’s Honor by Lily Anderson! This audiobook was so fun and well voiced! The premise was a little wacky: women fighting inter-dimensional beings with mint and knitting needles? But I loved the world that Anderson built and was fully absorbed by this audiobook!

Scout's Honor is a hilarious tale about a girl, Prudence, who has tried to opt-out of the family legacy and community pressure of participating in the Ladybird Scouts, who are militant in the expectations that they keep the community safe by killing the local monsters in their high-octane version of Girl Scouts. The local troop borders on cultish levels of commitment and participation, and refuse to respect Prue's choice to no longer be involved. As an attempt to lure her back into the fold, she is tasked with training some novices and accidentally initiates a few others who were not approved for initiation ensuring she will again earn the disapproval of the local troop. Contending with family pressure, a Heathers-esque clique, and the painful memories of the gruesome death of a friend at the hands of these monsters that left her with PTSD, Prue struggles to keep her defenses up and maintain her resolve. She has a sweet long-term boyfriend, which is refreshing example of a stable teen relationship.

I really enjoyed this story, but the audio narration was not my favorite. The narrator dropped "t's" in the middle and ends of words, saying "ser-ain" for "certain" and "im-pour-ehn" for "important', etc.

This was fun! I think it's a really interesting premise, and I liked that parts of the ladybird handbook were woven in. I think my problem with this was honestly the audiobook. There was very little to separate the chapters and the handbook and it was so confusing. I didn't really enjoy this, but I think I might read a physical copy and that will be more enjoyable because I do think this is a really cool story. It's nothing terribly special, but I thought it was worth giving another chance. I love the diversity in this book, and I love the monster hunting. Overall I think this is just one of those times that the arc (audio arc this time) wasn't formatted very well and that was what made it confusing.

Loved this book! Such a cool idea and liked how the story developed. The idea of the ladybird scouts was well developed and I’d read more in a series

3.5 stars.

(CW: Death/gore, a super fuck-ton of braces-slurping, PTSD/anxiety symptoms/mentions).

This is one of my favorite depictions of the pains of puberty and societal expectations on teenage girls all with a supernatural overtone. As someone who was a Girl Guide, and later a Pathfinder (division for 12-15yos), so many of the themes and quotes from the Ladybird handbook and the story overall gave me so much wonderful nostalgia for that time in my life.
The Ladybirds do so much more for the community than regular Girl Scouts, there are emotion-fed creatures lurking beneath our very noses, only those who ingest these creatures or drink the tea of seeing are able to bear witness to these horrendous creatures. Not everyone can see them, but everyone can be hurt by them. Hence brings the purpose of the Ladybird scouts, to decimate these creatures and keep their designated branches/territories safe. But what happens when those who vow to protect their community are quickly swept under the rug when hunting encounters go wrong?
Here we meet Prudence Perry, annoyingly named after one of the main virtues listed in the Ladybird handbook, and definitely not apart of the Ladybird scouts when the story begins. Having recently quit the team after her best friend is killed by a grub, Prudence now suffers with severe anxiety and PTSD symptoms that her mom can do nothing about but speculate it isn't actually as serious as she makes it out to be.
Between two different parental figures being scout leaders, Prudence has got a lot of internalized guilt and shame about quitting the team and for her symptoms, it's a great thing she has a wonderful cousin, a boyfriend, and a great friend group to keep her upright, including but not limited to a softly-named Sasha, badass and reckless, fondly nicknamed "the beast."
Lovingly referring to the scouts in training as "babybirds," Prudence is made to train young new recruits in order to help the scouts curve a threatening new grub in town that's causing more trouble than just emotional outbursts. The relationship between the teenage Ladybirds and the pre-teen ones was so cute and nurturing, this was one of the best portrayals of girl bonding and the powers of friendship, humorous throughout all with a dreading undertone. I love a book soley about female bonding, sign me up.
Listening to the audiobook was a lovely experience. This narrator was fantastic and her voice was light and breezy, expressionful and incredibly somber at sad notes in the story. She had a way of heightening her voice and lowering it quite pleasantly depending on characters. Her tone of voice was perfect for the humorous and sarcastic nature of the dialogue.
But seriously, there's so many sentences towards slurping braces, I don't even know how to warn you adequately enough.

THIS BOOK WAS AMAZING!!!! If Astrid and Lilly Save the World and A Sisterhood of Secret Ambitions had a baby and named Buffy the Vampire Slayer as its godparent, this book would be the result!

Highly recommend the audiobook, Frankie Corzo did a FANTASTIC job narrating!

Thank you so much to Macmillan and NetGalley for letting me read (and listen to!) an early review copy! :)

I always love a secret society, so when I heard about a Girl-Scout inspired crew of monster hunters and tea party experts, I was hooked. This was a very fun read with an easy to comprehend world that allowed you to jump right into the story without feeling overwhelmed. It was a unique twist on monster hunting, and I loved the way the author used the juxtaposition of the hyper-femininity of the Ladybirds' outward appearance and the gruesome reality of their patrols. All in all, I really enjoyed listening, and will be interested to see what the author publishes next!

Prudence was once proud to be a Ladybird Scout but when she witnessed the death of a friend and developed PTSD from the incident she left scouting behind and wanted nothing but a regular life. Regular life is a bit hard when you're a legacy scout that is born with the sight to see what a Ladybird Scout is meant to do with her life. The sight means that she can see grubs that are summoned from another dimension by human emotions. There are five basic grub types that are summoned by emotions like fear, apprehension and anger among others. Some misinterpret them as monsters or demons but the Ladybird handbook clearly says they are just grubs from another dimension that need banished not killed. Pru wants nothing more than a normal life away from all this but her mom, aunt and even their mother were all Ladybirds and are disappointed that she can't just get over it. Pru's mom decides that Pru needs to train two new recruits, her cousin and her boyfriend's sister, and can get out of scouting afterwards. Pru isn't looking forward to it but learns a lot from her experience and even is able to make some positive changes in the organization from what she goes through. This was a slow start but was pretty fun and I think girls who were scouts and like stories like Buffy the Vampire Slayer would really like this.

Prudence Perry is a legacy Lady Bird Scout, third generation.
She has been keeping the streets safe from Mulligrubs, a parasite that feed off your emotions and can grow to eventually kill you, for years, until her best friend was killed during a routine hunt. Unable to deal with the loss Prudence left the Scouts and is now dubbed a quitter by her former team.
This summer Prudence will return to the scouts for one final mission, to train the next generation of Lady Birds. Once her mission is complete Prudence plans to turn her back on the scouts for good. But when strange occurrences threaten her new baby bird scouts will Prudence be able to turn her back on them?

This was an interesting story. The premise was fun and it had a decent twist.
But there was nothing stand out about this book.
Great cover though !

Prudence Perry is a Ladybird Scout, taking after her mother. The Ladybirds are a secret society who fight mulligrubs, intergalactic parasites who are created from and feed off human emotions. If fed enough, they turn carnivorous and feed off the humans themselves. After an attack that ends in the death of her best friend, Prudence quit the Ladybirds and was diagnosed with PTSD and anxiety. When she is asked by her mother to train three new recruits of the Ladybirds, Prudence reluctantly agrees.

I was initially drawn to this book because I was a girl scout as a child, so I thought the concept of this book sounded really fun! The idea of different monster grubs feeding on different human emotions was an interesting concept, and I was intrigued to see how it was going to play out in the end. Unfortunately, I just found this book to be very average in my opinion and a bit sloppily executed. There wasn't anything about it that made it jump out to me, I didn't love it, but I also didn't hate it. I did enjoy how different each mulligrub was, and learning more about how each one came into existence. I like how this explored family obligations and parental expectations as well. I also liked getting to know that "babybirds" and their unique personalities. They were super supportive of one another, and I really enjoyed their growing friendships with one another. I really disliked Prudence's mother, as well as her Aunt, they made me so angry on multiple occasions with the way they treated Prudence, especially in regard to her trauma. They actively went against what her therapist suggested and basically tried to reinforce the idea that everything was in Prudence's head, all while belittling and embarrassing her any chance they got.

Will say that I adore this cover though.

Lily Anderson is consistently delightful and this fun outing is no different. A recommended purchase for YA and HS collections.

Scout’s Honor was a fun paranormal YA read! When I saw this was available I jumped right on requesting this story. I enjoy Lily Anderson’s writing and her stories are so different. This is perfect for the Spring/Summer seasons when your missing a little bit of spooky in your life. It’s isn’t scary at all but neat to see this cast of characters fight off theses “monsters”. The cover of a scout troop that are secretly being trained as monster fighters is a pretty cool premise!

An overall fun and original story! I think the idea that powerful emotions summon certain types of interdimensional monsters to be very interesting and this storyline has a lot of promise if Anderson decides to continue on with this series. I'm interested to see where the characters will go in their lives, especially Prudence. Prudence is the only character to go through any development which is kind of disappointing since other characters had a lot of promise.
Prudence is said to have been diagnosed with PTSD but shows little to no symptoms (which is good I guess because she's maybe recovering?) and is only referenced when Prudence is being bullied by other scouts for quitting after a traumatic event. This bullying over a mental illness is never unpacked, so we're just left with the impression that it's acceptable to do so and there is little to no repercussion for it. Not the best message to send.
It features a diverse cast of characters race and body-type wise, but is lacking in LGBTQ+ rep despite being shelved as LGBT. The only thing I can think of is that a minor side-character is briefly mentioned as being queer... but it's only alluded to once and plays zero part in the story. That being said, if you were hoping to find some LGBTQ+ content in this book you'll be sorely disappointed.