THE CHERISHED by Patricia Ward was such an engrossing horror novel -- I simply couldn't put it down! It was super atmospheric and perfect for fans of dark fairytales.

The Cherished slowly builds the creepiness in the story. It is a bit mysterious and has you questioning so many things at first. As things begin being revealed, it gets wild. Jo never expected to be left her grandmother’s house and land in her will. They were not very close at all. She has weird visions of a visit at the farm. It was creepy, with her grandma and father yelling at her and there was some blood and other strange things. Are these real or delusions? Jo has no idea that there is a dangerous enemy there she is responsible for keeping locked up. I loved this book! The narration was perfect! Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins Children's Books for the audio arc in exchange for my honest review.

This book was intriguing in an unsettling way. The writing was rich and it was just spooky enough to keep me engrossed.

Unfortunately, this book let me down in a big way. I was from the cover and description I was expecting an amazing horror/thriller that pulled me in and mixed a great plot with the creepiness of folk horror that makes you question what is really out there but that's not what I received. This book was so extremely slow and I had to push myself to move through it to the end. I want something more with my horror. I need it to cause my heart to flutter and my senses to tingle but this was just well boring in the least harsh way I can describe it.

I would like to thank Harperteen for a digital copy of this novel vi NetGalley. Jo inherits a house from her grandmother and is immediately met with pressure to sell the house. The plot slowly unravels as we find out why she was chosen to keep this house when everyone else wants her to sell it. The story has paranormal elements. Ultimately, the conclusion is consistent with the behavior of the characters up to that point.

Jo expects to walk into an escape from the complexities and struggle of her life with her mother and stepfather when she opens the letter from her adoptive grandmother Maur and learns she has inherited a farm and all it entails, especially since it comes just as her mother is nearing the end of her pregnancy and Jo is approaching adulthood now that she's 16 and about to gain access to the farm at the age of 18. She blindly hopes that the good memories of the past will offer her a fresh start on her own terms and she can blithely abandon all of the things that have held her down since losing her father at a young age. Now that none of the members of his family are here to remind her of all the things that had gone wrong when she was small and hugely affected by her father's mental illness and the complexities of her parents' falling out, maybe she can put it all behind her and throw herself into something new.

Except that's not how it is at all. Her stepfather Robert insists the farm needs to be sold and her mother, like always, capitulates to his lead and decides to make the trip to Vermont a journey to clean everything up and toss everything away before they sell-even the responsibilities and the very vulnerable man and child Maur left in her care along with the farm. Over and over again her mother insists that everything must go- there is no other choice- its almost like she's trying to convince herself right along with her daughter. Once they arrive on the property, however, nothing goes to plan and all of her mother's ideals fall to the wayside as she grows ill, Jo is consumed with memories about her past she thought she had forgotten, and both the workings of the farm itself and Tom and Hattie, who have full knowledge of what it is she must do and all it entails, demand that Jo face the truth about herself and the past that dictates her future whether she likes it or not.

This isn't the kind of book you pick up because you're hoping to read about lighthearted narratives of self-discovery, change, and acceptance or happily ever after endings. The Cherished is a book about loss, grief, conflict, and the complexity of interpersonal relationships-particularly those that are tangled with false narratives, trauma, and codependency. Jo's grandparents are racist and entitled, her mother grew up being controlled and manipulated by her parents and therefore her view of the world and the way it works are shaped by that manipulation and her own experiences with a partner who struggled with mental illness and who was raised by an adoptive mother who was herself quite complex and possibly mentally ill. Jo then, is a 16 year old who is better than her parents and the stepfather and grandparents she grew up with, but her own understanding of the world is still colored by the people with whom she grew up and the very complex trauma she underwent herself at a young age because of these combined families' issues. We're not going to get an ideal protagonist here, we're going to get an honest one for her circumstances and what little she knows about the circumstances of her childhood and the events that played out during her parents' lifetimes and those of the people who live in and around the farm she inherits from her adoptive grandmother, Maur.

Trauma and pain are not convenient and so neither are the views and understandings of those victimized by them, particularly not when those victims are faced with narratives that fall outside of the norm and include some very dark revelations. Here it is clearly underlined that healing and confronting the past is by no means an easy business but it must be done to go forward into what is rather than what we had hoped could be. The ways that plays out will vary, but so will the things you gain by pursuing what is possible over what is unattainable. I appreciated this book precisely because it wasn't just another dark fantasy/ horror thriller with all the usual tropes and easy resolutions. There's no romance, no poor girl given a sword to wield in an epic battle, and no easy abandonment of doubt and unquestioning trust from the side characters, even the unflattering views of our MC are called into question as she grows as a person and I think there's plenty to be gained from a book that feels like it understands what it intends to say is valid and worthy in spite of expectations. Is this truly horror per se? I'd say this is a bit more literary fiction with strong dark fantasy themes blended into the structure of the book.

The Cherished offers a haunting exploration of family and identity wrapped in a cloak of eerie mystery and dark fairy tales. Patricia Ward skillfully blends suspense with deep emotional undercurrents, examining the weight of heritage.

For me, this book and I didn’t click as much as I wanted it to, there was to much information that i believe was not needed especially on the characters, This book just really wasn’t my cup of tea.
I’m glad the other people love this book but for me I just couldn’t get into it!

Thank you for my gifted copy.

I actually thought this would be more Hazelwood or horror, but this was a big miss for me. I could not click with the characters.

I tried really hard with this one. I really did. Unfortunately, it did not work for me. It would be rude and a disservice to rate this as I know several others really enjoyed it.

It is not for me and I had to DNF (did not finish) for reading reasons. I could not connect with the plot of the characters at all. I did not and could not force myself to read it as I picked it up and put it down several times, but could not get into the book.

I appreciate the opportunity, but it is not going to be one I will recommend going forward.

Thank you again for my gifted copy.

This slow-building character study is a contemplative exploration of embracing an enigmatic legacy. Sixteen-year-old Jo inherits her estranged grandmother's Vermont home, setting off on a journey of self-discovery amidst a town steeped in eerie secrets. Despite the pressure to sell the house, Jo's curiosity leads her to unravel the mysteries of her family's past, culminating in a confrontation with otherworldly forces. While tension mounts gradually, the story's impact is marred by insensitive language regarding mental illness. Nevertheless, Jo's journey offers a vivid portrayal of grappling with traumatic memories and identity in a town fraught with ominous undertones.

oof. the premise and beautiful cover are what drew me in and uh…wow. i’ll just say it was nothing like i was anticipating! i think the actual magic adjacent spooky elements were in and of themselves *bad* but the execution was terrible. the writing was choppy and somehow both convoluted and lacking so many important details. i felt disconnected the entire time and i know she’s 16 but the MC, Jo, was whiny, inappropriately immature, and honestly just boring. i had no interest in any of the characters other than Hattie. also at one point the MC calls someone a Nazi in the same vein as calling someone a Karen. yeahhhhh not for me. 2.5⭐️ rounded down bc i can’t include this with my 3 star reads

TW: gaslighting, kidnapping, parental death, toxic parental relationships, language, blood, animal death

What is a girl supposed to do when the a grandmother she has met once in her life leaves her a house and land with a mysterious set of instructions? This is the situation Jo finds herself in at just 16 years old. With a very pregnant mother who is weeks away from giving birth and has patience to match Jo’s teenaged hormones and her mother’s partner, Robert, who is the worst as far as Jo can see, it’s a fight to get them to even go see the place Jo barely remembers from her one traumatic visit years ago. When she and her mother arrive, they find standoff-ish townsfolk, a house that’s falling apart, and two tenants that are just strange.

This book was a bit of an acquired taste when it came to many parts. The writing was choppy, the descriptions and characters felt awkward and not super fleshed out, and the decisions made were questionable at best much of the time. But it’s a YA horror, so I expect to be uncomfortable reading it, I expect it to be a bit difficult to get through because while trying to not give away the sort of twist (which the cover already has) the author makes the book simply an awkward tale of a teenager who is dissatisfied with her life.

That being said, once I settled into the writing style and the awkwardness and remembered that teenagers in general are stupid and make bad decisions and are stubborn all the time, it was a pretty good story. I did predict what happened, but I have spent a lot of time looking at folklore and studying it, so the signs were mostly there not to mention as a paranormal horror, there was really only one way for it to go. Overall, it was fine and I gave it 3 out of 5.

why was she so whiny? The main character really pulled me out of this book a lot and had me so annoyed i coulnd't really focus on the plot or other elements of the story

I am sorry for the inconvenience but I don’t have the time to read this anymore and have lost interest in the concept. I believe that it would benefit your book more if I did not skim your book and write a rushed review. Again, I am sorry for the inconvenience.

At some point, you think I'd learn to stop judging books by their covers! I wanted this to be a creepy thriller with some horror elements, but I was a little less invested in the mythology and fantasy aspects. The build to the end was slow which should have built suspense but didn't? I struggled with the characterization a little and some of the stigmatization around mental illness.

I liked the premise, the setting, and the dual timeline of the novel. I didn’t like the ending of the book…not a satisfying conclusion.

Musings:

I enjoyed my time reading ‘The Cherished’ it was a book that I related to in a way having grown up with a grandmother that treated me similar to some of the ways the mom in this book treats Jo. This book reminded me more of Bridge to Terabithia more than anything remotely close to midsommar or any of Rory Powers books.

I also wouldn’t call this book horror most of the time it more has sprinkles of it. This book isn’t really terrifying in any way. This book would be better described as an urban fantasy set in a rural town where children are disappearing and Jo has to figure out and accept that she is the one that needs to stop it. I believe some of the ratings on the lower side are due to this book being marketed as something that it’s not.

A movie like Midsommar and the books written by Rory Power are in their own category of horror and this book just isn’t remotely that. This book doesn’t have the detailed atmosphere mixed with extreme body horror elements that that movie and those books have.

What The Cherished does well is provide complex difficult relationships between characters and explores the internal struggles with Jo as she discovers that she is being given a huge and difficult responsibility she never thought she’d have. If the marketing focused itself on that aspect of this novel I think readers would have felt that it was represented better and not have unrealistic expectations of what this story contains.

I really liked the book and I was entertained by it the whole way through. It is well worth the time so long as you have the correct expectations of it going into it. It’s a fun thrilling novel.

I had put "The Cherished" towards the bottom of my to-be-read pile after seeing that it had received somewhat mixed reviews. I have to admit that I felt lukewarm at best about reading a run of the mill young adult thriller. I am happy to say, however, after finishing the novel, that "The Cherished" was a homerun. I'm not sure what was missing for other readers, but as a librarian that reads hundreds of middle grades and young adult novels each year I can say, without reservation, that "The Cherished" will be a smash hit for its target audience. The creeping, all-encompassing dread that Patricia Ward manages to build chapter after chapter, the way that she roped me in as a reader to suspend my disbelief in the imaginary, and honestly to be terrified by what might be going "bump" in the dark felt masterful.

Jo finds herself in the middle of an endless summer, wishing for any escape to provide her a respite from the suburban nightmare she finds herself living. A mother expecting a half-sibling that will be 17 years younger than she is with her staid and controlling stepfather, a Nana who won't ever let her forget that she doesn't fit the upper crust model she had dreamed of for her grandchildren, and a best friend who seems to already have one foot out the door. The letter from her father's mother, Gammy, comes as a surprise and a salvation as she discovers the old woman has left her a working farm in Vermont.

Her mother insists that she sell the property, but Jo becomes determined to see the farm in person. She hadn't been since a fateful trip over a decade ago that ended with her father being accused of custodial kidnapping.
Upon their arrival any dreams Jo may have had of a rural farm escape instantly disappear. The tenants that live on the land send chills up her spine, and the boarded up "Old House" emanates a chill that invades her nightmare and sends her backwards to hazy memories of that long ago visit. As Jo works to piece together the cryptic message left for her in her grandmother's will along with the stories her father used to tell her as a child, she's left to wonder, what if this place is one where the boundaries between worlds wears thin? And what if the stories she'd thought were bedtime tales for a little girl contain more truth than she'd ever imagined?

I will definitely be ordering copies of "The Cherished" for our collection. This is the perfect mid-winter book for teen readers looking for something spooky to occupy the long. dark nights. Perfect for those interested in the paranormal, and for those who enjoy their mystery with a side of horror, this will be a book I recommend again and again and one that I feel certain will be swapped around with the accompanying whisper "you won't BELIEVE..." Special thanks to NetGalley and to HarperTeen for providing an Advanced Reader's Copy of "The Cherished" in exchange for an unbiased review. I will be eagerly awaiting Ward's next effort!!

Sixteen year old jo lives with her mum, whom she barely gets along with, and her step-dad, who she hates. So when she receives a letter informing her of her grandmother's death, she definitely doesn't expect to be mentioned in her will, let alone left the house and the land it sits on, all tied up with a list of mysterious demands. As soon as Jo and her mum step foot on the land, they are immediately overcome by its intensely creepy and sinister atmosphere. Slowly Jo's long repressed memories being to come back in fits and starts, and she begins to realise what her father long ago feared about this place, may just be true.

No matter how hard I tried I just really couldn't get on with this story. There are some really problematic representations throughout the story, especially towards mental health, and race, making it a very uncomfortable read at times, as well as some insensitive remarks about certain character's weights. The characters were unlikeable, and problematic, and overall quite insufferable, the only redeeming character was little Hattie.

Jo came across as incessantly whiny, complaining about pretty much everything, waiting for the day she can leave her mum and step-dad behind and begin her life anew. Jo is a very insensitive, rude and incredibly selfish young girl, only doing things if it serves her wants and needs, and when things don't go her way she becomes unbearably juvenile, and stand-offish with no regard for anyone else's feelings.

Abigail, Jo's mum is also very unlikeable, she's critical of everything and everyone, perpetually angry, and definitely doesn't understand mental health, or even make time to try to, and she doesn't communicate her feelings in a healthy or compassionate way, constantly judging and projecting her insecurities on to her daughter. I especially found her lack of care towards Jo's mental health, especially when returning to her grandmother's house with all her past trauma, really enraging and alarming, just expecting her to get on with it, and ignore all these intense and painful emotions bubbling below the surface.

I found that I got lost with deciphering who was who because they had basically no differing personalities, and their convictions wavered and changed so drastically it felt very chaotic and messy whenever they all interacted amongst each other.

The story itself was very descriptive so in that respect it's picturesque and vivid, but the creepy atmosphere and horror elements weren't executed that well, it didn't give me shivers or make me feel a sense of unease that the author was going for. The pacing was also quite slow, and the fairies and the battle really lacked the intensity and high stakes it should've incited. Overall, I just found it fell a little flat of what I was expecting, it wasn't thrilling and didn't really pack that emotional or horrifying punch I was expecting.

Great atmosphere despite some pacing issues, with intriguing characters I wish had a bit more depth.