When big city living doesn’t work for Laurel, she returns to her childhood home in Kentucky to way much more than expected!
This story may start out a little slow, but it delivers an amazing ending! Wake the bones is Young Adult Southern Gothic Horror at its finest. I love the creepy and magical elements in this book.
The narrator is amazing! Bailey Carr's Kentucky accents are on point and add even more to the book!
I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys gothic, magic, and young adult novels.
Thank you to Macmillan Audio, Wednesday Books and Netgalley for the opportunity to read Wake the Bones!

Fun crazy wild adventure great summer read super enjoyable For everyone
Fun crazy wild adventure great summer read super enjoyable For everyone

3.5 stars. Knocked the book an entire star for the violent killing of rabbits. So tired of "horror" books needing to kill animals, usually bunnies. Otherwise it would have been 4.5 stars.

I really enjoyed the creepy aspects, the relationships, the supernatural parts. This was such a good story. Imagine your mother dying to drag something down with her that wanted to kill you. And then coming back to warn you and give you a tooth. Super fricken weird.

Will look for the authors future works and hope for no senseless rabbit slaughter.

This is a YA that is for someone looking for something that rejects old tropes. Laurel Early is not a chosen one who gets away, she's a girl who got a scholarship and then failed out of college and went back home to her uncle's farm. Her hobbie is taxidermy and she has a bone pile that one day starts to up and walk away on it's own and something in the woods is calling out to her.
The writing is descriptive enough I would recommend it to someone who liked the rural Southern setting and descriptive nature of 'Where the Crawdads Sing' but wished it was a story with more bite and the characters had worn their true survivalist nature on their sleeves, and who like a bit of Supernatural in their stories.

Wake the Bones isn't like anything I've read recently. My biggest challenge with this review is figuring out how to properly classify it. It simply doesn't fit into any one box. It's a little bit of several things: horror, mystical realism, paranormal, romance, and probably more. The author does a wonderful job of world building. Her descriptions of the setting are quite thorough and you can picture the images easily.

It took me a while to make all the connections with the plot lines but once I did, I was quite impressed with the flow. It is a slowly paced book with bursts of action here and there. This means the reader has to be patient. There's a great deal of setup and buildup written into the book.

The main character, Laurel has recently returned back to her home town after being at college. This puts her back in the mix with her three friends - Isaac, Ricky and Garrett. They've known each other since childhood but now it's approaching the time for them to each decide what to do with their futures. Laurel is haunted by the knowledge of her mother's death in the well on their property years before and it's messing with her ability to focus on anything else. Also, Laurel has some "abilities" and senses something might be after her.

As the story progresses, the reader discovers there is a creature made of bones in pursuit of Laurel that continues to tell her it wants her bones. It seems indestructible and Laurel knows she's going to have to find a way to fight it with magic. She just doesn't know exactly how.

I thought the main plot was quite clever and the twists and turns it takes are smart as well. In addition, there are some well done sub plots woven into the story. Overall, this was a well written and enjoyable book. I will look to read more by this author in the future.

AUDIOBOOK REVIEW: I thought the narrator did a fantastic job. The audiobook was extremely well-done and entertaining. It made the book feel more like a production to me. (Just my personal opinion). There are some books that present better as audio and some that don't present as well. I feel that this one was a little bit better as an audio. 5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with not only an ARC but also an early copy of the audiobook. I voluntarily chose to review both and the opinions contained in this review are my own.

Wow. I did NOT expect to be sucked so thoroughly into this story. The characters, the magic, the simple small-town life that felt so familiar and yet mysterious and foreign. The writing in this book is magical, almost lyrical. The imagery: art. Pure and complex all at once. I will definitely read more by this author! 5 ⭐ only because I can't give more.

Triggers: death, loss, violence, gore, supernatural horror.

I really enjoyed the writing style here and was drawn into the scene, I could feel myself standing in the fields with them.

Laurel, I just couldn’t connect with her. She claimed to have nothing but love for her friends and to me it felt like she was holding on tight to an idea and not them as people. She was pretty selfish when it came to her friendship with Isaac and caused him so much unnecessary grief. The fact that she uses Ricky as a romantic interest knowing she doesn’t love him but “maybe could try to fall in love with him,” just no.

There were a few moments where the focus oddly shifts and takes a political vibe that took away from the magical feel of what was happening. This didn’t fit the theme of the book at all.

The idea of a farm being haunted by evil was actually really great. I wish the character chosen to battle this was more likeable.

Thank you to Wednesday Books for the advanced copy!

I received a copy of this audiobook from NetGalley. It was a good book and I enjoyed listening to it. Some parts of the story I struggled to follow and relate to while other parts really captured my interest. That may be because I an not normally a fan of fantasy but I am trying to venture out of my comfort zone.

This was such a creepy, unique, and thrilling YA horror. There is just something so chilling about taxidermy, bone creatures that shouldn’t be moving, and haunted woods/land. The setting of this small town was painted so perfectly in a way that truly immerses the reader! The cast of characters were what you’d expect of small town inhabitants, and had very relatable issues and feelings. I’m not going to lie, I stayed up very late listening to this book and it definitely creeped me out. The slight infusion of magic and the paranormal made for a perfect story. The narrator was clear and had wonderful intonation. She truly brought the story to life!

I was back and forth between 3 or 4 stars for this one but I decided I felt generous. I really liked the story but left wanting more. I just felt like there needed to be a little more detail for things to really come together for me, like more background on the magic & the devil. And it seemed like Laurel went from not believing in magic to being able to wield it so quickly… I would have appreciated a little more story building there. Not to mention Christine who is a super interesting character but didn’t play a large role.. I would have loved to see her tie into this more.

With that said, I really enjoyed the ending and how things were tied up. I loved where the story of Ricky went and was surprised with the twist and turns with her mother. I really enjoyed the authors writing as well & even though I hoped for a little more out of the story, it was an easy read to get through!

Rating: 2.75 leaves out of 5
-Characters: 2.5/5
-Cover: 2.5/5
-Story: 3/5
-Writing: 3/5
Genre: Horror/Fantasy
Type: Audiobook
Worth?: Eh

Want to thank Netgalley and publishers for giving me the chance to listen to this book. I will admit that about 1/4th through the book I was hella confused on who was who when dealing with the two women. Even after finishing I still wasn't sure who was the outcast or not. Anyway, there were some chilling factors in the book but I would say it was lower end horror. The actual story was pretty flat. It is like a cold flat coke, you don't want it but it is a hot as hell day and you drink it more for the cold instead of the flavor. That is what the book was. It isn't something I would remember in a couple years but the story was still good enough to read when you don't have much to do.

Wake the Bones is difficult to rate/review. Kilcoyne has undeniable skill in writing beautiful, atmospheric scenes. The descriptive language is immersive and intriguing; so much so that by the 30% mark I didn’t mind the relative lack of plot progression. I was simply happy to keep hanging out with these characters. However, by the halfway mark, we were already well acquainted with our characters and their intentions– yet the plot still didn’t move forward. The increasingly creepy events/scenes were successful at building tension in the first half, but it ultimately felt that the author let the pressure leak slowly in the second half rather than going for the explosive “pop” that we seemed we were building up to.

Notwithstanding, readers who are fans of southern horror or gothic horror will find the imagery and setting especially satisfying. Casual horror fans or occasional readers of spooky fare might feel Wake the Bones’ pacing is a little languid.

The audiobook was exceptionally narrated by Bailey Carr. Carr has the chops to infuse emotion and suspense without overreaching the source text. Additionally, her southern accents were authentic and accurate without the overblown theatrics that often accompanies a “Southern” US accent.

This book was more gruesome than I anticipated, which may have been my fault for not reading the blurb well enough. I do you think this book should be marketed towards older teams. This sex scene isn’t too graphic but I don’t think it will fly in middle school libraries of today. Also the descriptions of the gore and viscera are very detailed. Do not listen while eating. The narrator of this text is excellent.

A good pick for teens asking for adult horror. The magic is not always understandable but it only detracts from the story a little.
The ending is clever

This is an American gothic book set in present day time. I wish the characters had more depth and less stereotypes, I didn’t connect or care what their fates were. So that was disappointing. But the atmosphere of the story was creepy & eerie, which I loved.

Wish we could give half starts because this is a 2.5 for me.

I was given this ARC audiobook by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. These are my opinions.

This book wasn't for me. It had some great plot ideas - discarded bones coming together, a forest working together to prison a character. I DNF @ 50%. A very slow burn, so much description and I just didn't care to finish.

This is more of a 3.5 for me. I was intrigued by the horror/monster, and I wanted to know what was up, but I wasn't horrified by it. I also didn't really feel myself getting attached to any of the characters. I WANTED to like them, but I just didn't really care what happened to any of them, which is probably why the horror didn't feel real to me. It was entertaining, but I wasn't invested. That being said, I do think that many of my students would be more invested in the characters than I was. I could definitely see it being a good edition to the horror section of a teen library collection.

There was not a lot of the paranormal or the horror elements. The story was teetering between the two without committing. My biggest issue, unfortunately, ended up being the characters. While they are interesting, I feel like this could have been better without multiple POVs.

This book felt uneven. I was never sure what the book was trying to be. The supernatural aspects weren't smoothly integrated into the stories and made the narrative disjointed. Also, I never felt like I got to know the characters. The basic parts of this book are fine, but the overall product didn't work for me.

Laurel returns home after a disappointing year at college. Much to the dismay of her friends and her uncle, she is ready to work in the tobacco fields. Upon her return, she is plagued by the memory of her mother's death (she drowned in the well), but also by a supernatural being who looks very much like the bones Laurel collects, and the animals she taxidermies. Part mystery, part magic realism, Wake the Bones is an uncommon plot, with progressive characters (despite the novel's setting), that transports the reader through its beautiful language. The metaphors, imagery, and details in this novel is what sets it apart from most contemporary thrillers. You will not be disappointed when you read this novel.

Another fever dream of a book. It felt very whimsical but it was hard to keep my attention with this one.