DNF @ 9%

Let’s start on a lighter note and talk about the writing style. The Cherished feels very juvenile despite its very adult themes. Everything feels very clunky and almost like the entire page is just one long rambling thought.

From the get go the author includes multiple racially insensitive or even out right racist comments. This one about Jo’s dad: “He was dark-skinned, Hispanic looking. He could be from anywhere” was said in the first chapter and the very beginning of the second chapter said “Nana likes throwing Mexican-themed parties. When Jo informed Nana they actually, the caterers aren’t from Mexico, she shrugged and said what did that matter”. I just don’t get what the point of this is? I’m aware that they are fictional characters but I’m pretty sure someone didn’t have a gun to the author's head and threatened to kill them if they didn’t include racism in their book. At no time are comments like these necessary, especially when they do absolutely nothing for the plot.

These characters are absolutely awful, every single one of them. Even Jo our main character has extremely problematic thoughts. The fact that she’s calling her own dad a “schizo” is horrific. The representation of this mental illness is absolutely appalling. Who let this book get past the first draft?

The premise of The Cherished sounds very promising, I love books about changelings, but it was not executed well. Maybe if it wasn’t for all of the racist and insensitive content I could have enjoyed this.

I was really skeptical in the beginning because it was so slow I almost DNF'd it. I'm glad I hung on because the second half was nerve wracking! There were a lot of moments that had me on the edge of my seat with my stomach in knots! I really did like the way this came together and the few little twists sprinkled around. I just really wish the first half was just a tad bit more exciting! Either way, I'll be having nightmares about the fairies!

I hate to not leave positive reviews. I had such high hopes for this book. It’s never fully drew me in and never found myself at any point hurrying to get back reading. Most aspects fell flat. The characters are forgettable and I need felt and connection. I’m sure many may love this one, but it wasn’t for me.

Jo never expected to be placed in her absent grandmother’s will—let alone be left her house, her land, and a letter with mysterious demands. Upon arriving at the inherited property, things are even more strange. The tenants mentioned in the letter are odd, just slightly…off. Jo feels something dark and decrepit in the old shack behind the house. And the things that her father used to talk about, his delusions… Why is Jo starting to believe they might be real? But what Jo fears most is the letter from her grandmother. Because if it’s true, then Jo belongs here, in this strange place. And she has no choice but to stay.

I didn't really know what to expect from this book, as I came into it totally blind. The first few chapters are your typical story with a teen lashing out and a strict mother but as you get deeper into the novel, it takes a creepy weird stance. I was a little confused at some points because I felt like some things were not clear enough. However, I did actually enjoy this and it definitely kept me hooked throughout.

I rated this 3 stars.

This book is rough. The writing is difficult to read because it's choppy and inconsistent. The pacing is super slow. The author also approaches sensitive topics in an outdated way.

2.5⭐️

Jo hasn’t seen her grandmother since she was young and her mentally I’ll father tried to run away with her. But then she receives a letter from a lawyer stating that she had inherited Gammy’s house and the tenants that live there. Gammy was always particular about the house: iron pieces that should never be moved, an old house on the property with a permanently locked door and random messes throughout the house. And nothing had changed since the last time Jo visited the house.

Along with her heavily pregnant mother, Jo returns to the house to clean up before trying to sell it. There she meets Tom, the farm hand that Gammy’s letter said would never belong, and Hattie, a strange girl who acts much younger than she is. They are both determined to follow Gammy’s rules and force them on Jo. They aren’t the only odd people they run into-most of the towns people are very unimpressed by Jo and question if she knows the truth about the house. And then there was the statue in the cemetery that has the name of a person Jo knows is alive. Jo’s family has kept secrets from her and now she has to learn the hard way the history of that house.

The premise of this sounded more interesting than it really was. I was almost instantly out off by the main character’s fatphobic comments about her mother and even more by the gaslighting and manipulation from the mother. While flawed characters are usually interesting to read, this was just a lot.

The writing was also kind of all over the place. There was either short choppy sentences or run on sentences and paragraphs that were hard to follow. At times it felt like the author had a list of adjectives that they needed to check off and just used them wherever (I keep going back to the scrawny, muscular leg). Jo’s opinions changed so wildly and without warning it felt more like her original views were forgotten and then remembered later on.

Thank you Netgalley and HarperCollins for providing this ARC for an honest review.

First, a thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me read an eARC of this book.

Listen, I normally give books more of a chance.. but two pages in, and I can tell this isn't for me. Sorry. The vibes are off, and I have over 1k books on my TBR.

Jo was left a house and a mysterious letter from her absent grandmother. She never expected to receive anything, and the property feels strange once she arrives. The tenants are odd, and there is a dark presence behind the shack behind the house. If this is real, then her father's delusions might not have been delusions after all.

The first half of the book is definitely the normal world: Jo feeling different from her very highbrow and cultured maternal grandparents, and the passive-aggressive country club life she never fits into. She's a teenager that isn't listened to and resents it, so she leaps at the thought of inheriting a place separate from them. She always believed her father had schizophrenia, and that his stories of fairies and their dangers were manifestations of that. It's what she was told and what her mother believed until we find out that it's very real. Fairies had stolen away children, and the portal they use is on her grandmother's property.

Introducing us to this world happens a little at a time, and Jo realizes what it means long before her mother does. She also realizes the real meaning behind her grandmother's letter, the hard but necessary work that has to be done, and what happens to the children that are taken. We see how hard it is, how exhausting and thankless that task is, and know it must be repeated. It's a chilling realization for her and for us, too. There's no easy solution, but it's a thrilling ride to get to the conclusion of the book. I really enjoyed the book, and the odd little Vermont town she must protect.

I just couldn’t get into this book. It had such promise but it just dragged out for me. I fell for the cover immediately and wanted to love the story.

It took me way too long to get into this one and unfortunately there was no pay out for me as I still did not enjoy the book.

Thoughts

This book took me a while to get into, for good reason. While I really did love the second half once I got there, it wasn't enough to erase my unfortunate first impression. My feelings on this book are... complicated.

Pros
Air of Foreboding: The one thing I do love about the opening chapters of this book is the building sort of tension and suspense for the readers. Something feels off. Something feels wrong, but it's hard to pinpoint what. And that sense of foreboding is a great thing to have. Something is coming, and while you can't be quite sure what that something is, you'll be at the edge of your seat, hackles raised, as you wait.

Mundane: Patricia Ward does an excellent job of mingling horror elements and uncanny bits of fantasy with perfectly mundane life. Lawyers and realtors exist alongside unsettling foundling children and eerie loners. It's always refreshing to read a fantasy set in the real world--horrifying and fantastical but also concrete and real. Being trapped in the mundane alongside these unsettling bits of the Uncanny only made the whole story that much more unsettling.

Classic Fae: Sarah J. Maas and her fae can move aside! These aren't handsome, ethereal, and strangely rugged faeries. These fae are much more traditional than that. They're gruesome and irritating little interdimensional beings. They'll kidnap your kids, spoil your milk, and eat all your candy. They'll definitely be laughing at you from their unseen realm, and they're not afraid to get their hands dirty (in a lot of senses). These are classic faeries, and Ward doesn't hold back on their antics--or their grisly (if necessary) end.


Cons
Family: Jo's family is... absolutely horrible. And not in a "I just don't like them" way. The snide comments and attitudes aren't just needling. They hold undercurrents of racism... that aren't always undercurrents. They're quite horrible to Jo, but beyond that, the attitude displayed toward mental health is really quite damaging. I don't think we're meant to like Jo's stepfamily necessarily, but I also don't think we're meant to dislike them. And when bigots don't get their comeuppance, I just... can't get on board. It was uncomfortable to read not because it was challenging backwards ways of thinking but because this book wasn't challenging those thoughts.

Dull Writing: Something happens. And then something else happens. And then something happens after that. The writing here is particularly flat and unvaried. Though the foreboding is real, the excitement for what's to come really isn't. It's hard to get invested in a book that reads so... flat.

Unfortunate Verbiage: This builds off my first critique, though that one was relegated to Jo's relatives. This one relates to Jo herself. Such casual usage of words like "Nazi" and "schizo" feel off for this character, this age. Not only are they not really relevant to any situation where Jo applies them (and therefore uncomfortable to read), but they don't really fit her character. Her character is young, and this book is supposedly set in our own age. Gen Z is nothing if not zealous in their endeavor to respect others and keep language inoffensive... so it doesn't feel like Jo would so casually use these words in any except the most accurate contexts. It just feels wrong.


Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐
4/10

Fans of Liselle Sambury's Delicious Monsters will enjoy this new unsettling inherited home. Those who loved Graham Joyce's Some Kind of Fairy Tale will enjoy the goosebump-inducing fae of this story.

Liked:
The cover
The premise
The relationship between Jo and her mother seemed realistic
My favorite part was that it finally ended

Disliked:
The pacing and the writing were both a hot mess. Not to be confused with the hot fun garbage that I sometimes enjoy. This was the kind of mess you can’t clean, you just gotta shut the door and never go there again
The writing would bounce between short & choppy to long winded run-on sentences
Pointless derogatory, racist, and offensive language
Jo felt a lot younger than 16
The weird excerpts in between some of the chapters were never really explained

Thank you to @Netgalley and @harpercollinsch for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Posted to Instagram: 03/31/23
Posted to Goodreads: 03/31/23

The sheer amount of racially insensitive (at the very least), fatphobic, ableist lines with more just terrible takes is so incredibly disappointing. No thank you.

The cover of The Cherished is what immediately drew me in. I love fairytale and folklore horror, but knowing this is YA, I went in with expectations of it being tame.

I agree with the other reviewers that there is some problematic dialog, that I really hope is removed before being published. It's 2023, casually calling someone Nazi, or schizo is not okay. The racist, elitist attitudes of Jo's family is so off-putting. But my main problem was with Jo herself. She's moody, rude, negative, spoiled, and bratty. She comes off so incredibly childish, you'd expect her to be ~13, not someone who just got their learner's permit. Her character was pretty unbearable, and almost made me DNF.

Buuut I'm really glad I stuck with it, because I really enjoyed the last 2/3 of the book. The writing is a bit clunky, and the ending felt a bit rushed, but I really loved the concept and Jo and Abigail actually grew on me. It's a fun read, and I'd recommend it to people who aren't quick to DNF.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperTeen for providing the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is pretty solid. The plot is well-written and really engaging. It’s an interesting take on fairies, and decently scary and suspenseful. I did feel like it had a lot of build up, but the ending felt rushed and disjointed. The characters were well-written and enjoyable. Overall, I really liked this book, and I would recommend it, especially to people looking for something a little less intense or fans of YA.

I wanted to give this book a chance, and was compelled by the introduction and the relationship between the main character, her mother, and her stepfather. I also liked how the main character talked and thought like a teenager, rather than a youthful adult. However, I simply could not get past the blatantly racist descriptions of the main character and her father, who was Hispanic. A lot of the descriptions used are incredibly outdated and reflect a lack of thoughtfulness on the part of the author. The mental health representation is also incredibly poor - I really do not like horror elements that rely on schizophrenia to start with, and the language used to talk about the disorder is also highly insensitive - e.g. "paranoid schizo state”.

The Cherished is a new twist on the haunted house (haunted farm?) genre, a slow burn story that creates a real sense of menace without being needlessly gory. There are some genuinely creepy characters, but also a lovely underlying message about family and how we don't always understand why certain people act the way they do. Best of all, the heroine Jo does not have a cheesy, forced romantic storyline! (FYI, although some reviews refer to "problematic" content, there's only one small section where a character makes a dismissive reference about appearance, and that character is a snobby old lady, i.e. the comments are meant to show that she's a terrible person.)

*I received an advance copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review*

This had the most amazing premise, but damn I was really let down. The mental illness representation was handled really badly and in a very out of date way, as well as some racist comments that just came out of nowhere. On top of this, it was not really horror - this is a YA fantasy through and through. Overall, a very big disappointment.

While I wasn't crazy about this book, it may be a favorite of someone else. It had a good plot and concept but could have been better executed. The beginning of the book starts off strong and you are instantly engaged. but somehow the book could not keep the momentum in the middle half and begin to lag. I really like the fairy concept, and felt it was very unique. I also liked the development of the characters and how their relationship developed over the course of the book. Another thing I loved is the showcasing of strength and bravery. of such a young female character. This will speak to many young girls who are looking for strength and bravery to overcome their fears. I think this would be a good read for YA and teens who like mystery and horror.


Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins for this ARC for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I will say that I only read the first 4% of this one before quitting out. The prose felt awkward and stilted. The word choice was not ideal to say the least. The main character's father has schizophrenia and brown skin. The author chose this as an opportunity to use derogatory language about both--hard pass for me.

I was excited by the plot description, but I couldn't get around the language/prose style.