Mother trucker, what in the holy hell did I just read?!?!?

For those who thought The Last Housewife was too much, trust me, this is not the book for you. I repeat, this is NOT the book for you.

Someone will only have to show me this cover and it will instantly take me back to this book and an 🤯🤯 OH SHIT, THAT BOOK WAS INTENSE!!

Having read Betty (3⭐) by Tiffany McDaniel, it is 💯 undisputed that McDaniel can write a story that punches you straight in the gut. On The Savage Side makes you feel sick, angry, and frustrated. It kind of left me speechless. It's weird, it's abstract, it's confusing, and yet it's heartbreaking, maddening and like the title says, savage.

This book is inspired by the unsolved murders of the Chillicothe Six in Ohio. It's an Appalachian gothic read that will stay with you well past the last page.

A+ for the cover!

Thank you Netgalley and Knopf for the ARC.

Available now!!

How do I even begin to review this book? One of the most powerful books I have ever read. It will definitely not be for everyone and is a heavy, tough read. It is also very lengthy. This book was like reading a poem, the writing is incredibly beautiful and moving. I have so many paragraphs underlined that were so poignant. The story and characters will stay with me for a long time. I was intrigued by this book because of the praise for Tiffany McDaniel’s previous book, Betty, which has been on my TBR for too long. Then it said it was based on the Chillicothe Six, the six women who were murdered by a local serial killer, being from rural Ohio it immediately pulled me in. The lyrical writing kept me coming back and the characters captured my heart, mainly the two sisters. I wanted to save them from their awful lives and give them a hug, side note… I am NOT a hugger… and sometimes yell at them, just be there and care about them.
The two sisters are Arc and Daffy, twins, who live with their Aunt Clover and mom. After their dad and grandma die, these girls are forced to live in a house that is frequented with drug dealers and watch their mom become a prostitute. They stayed sweet and innocent despite their surroundings and dreamed of the day they would make it out. Their childhood is extremely traumatic and something no child should ever have to go through. Please tread lightly going into this book, check trigger warnings and make sure you are able to handle the heavy topics presented.

On the Savage Side is based on the story of the unsolved murders of six women from Chillicothe, Ohio. Arcade and her sister Daffy are bound to one another from birth and grow up in an environment of raw poverty and drug addiction. As women they are close to start disappearing, Arcade and Daffy struggle against the chaos they exist in, getting sucked into the vortex of an inescapable cycle.

This book was.... unsettling. It is lyrical and beautiful and brilliant and sucks you in, yet at the same time, it's stark and horrific and nauseating and heartbreaking. It depicts addiction, abuse, racism, and family bonds formed out of nightmares. I would have liked a bit more detail around the mystery of the women, but this book is certainly a reminder of the savage side of life.

this is not going to be a long review because I think it was gut wrenching, heart thumping, break my heart into pieces perfection. Tiffany McDaniel nails emotive reads that teeter on triggering topics that cannot stop the reader from flipping the pages.

Based on the Chillicothe Six (missing and murdered women in Ohio), the emotions run high as we follow vulnerable situations and families in pain.

I highly recommend looking at the triggers if you're a sensitive reader but wow, yes 5 stars from me.

Arcane Doggs and her twin sister Daffy live in a small town. Chillicothe. Both parents and mom's sister Clover who live in the house are addicts. After father overdoses, mother and aunts behavior worsens turning to prostitution. Arcane and Daffy struggle to get out of this life and every avenue they turn to seems to be taken or lost. The girls now adults are working the streets too and their friends start to go missing. Arcane is desperately trying to find out who is killing these girls, but doesn't know who to trust and each hand that reaches out to help could be a spider or predator.

A powerful novel, probably a story that is most accurate. The twins create a dissociative chatter among themselves as well as with their grandmother who has passed to help make life easier. There is a savage side and a beautiful side. They live a lot on the beautiful side to mask the hard life they have lived. Some difficult subjects in this book, but written beautifully. Towards the end of the book i had to wade through some of the chatter, but overall very well done and again probably an adequate depiction of a life. Thank you to Knopf Doubleday Public Catalog for the ARC.

“We aren’t on the savage side no more, Daffy,” I said. “We’re on the beautiful side. Where you are the captain of daffodils and rhyme, and I, well, I’m the one who’s going to find the horse Mom lost in the dirt a long time ago.”

“A daughter is a woman lost at sea. A mother is the one who saves her. But if she’s not there, the daughter will always be lost.”

Five stars across the board. This book has earned a spot on my forever favorites shelf. The writing is among the most beautiful I have ever read. The writing told a very hard story, beautifully, made the savage side beautiful. Even though I gush of the beauty and genius within these pages do be warned, if it is hard, if it is sad, if it is infuriating it will most likely be found within this novel. I loved that the author brought light and gave voice to a much overlooked portion of the community. Though you are poor, though you come from a lineage of addicts, though you find yourself struggling with drug abuse, your story still matters. Arc and Daffy's story matters. I rooted for them and their friends. I will think of this novel for a long time.

On the Savage Side by Tiffany McDaniel
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Inspired by the unsolved murders of the Chillicothe Six, this is the story of two sisters. Arc and Daffy are the daughters of addicts. Their grandmother taught them to turn the savage side beautiful and so Arc is constantly trying to give them a happier ending. Which proves more difficult when she finds a womans body in the river.
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Tiffany McDaniel knows how to write heartbreaking stories. I had to read this book in teeny tiny doses because I would be wrecked after just a couple chapters.
My heart broke for Arc and her sister and friends. Just when things were starting to look up they would be dragged down again and again.
Arc was so brave and tried so hard to make everyones lives better even though all she had were her words.
I highlighted this quote from Arc:
“Don’t tell me what is and is not here. I create things out of nothing every damn day. You can too.”
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4⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I admire this authors ability to write such gut wrenching stories. Just reading them takes something out of me. The synopsis calls this story haunting and that is an apt descr because this story will haunt me for a very long time.

My honest review is freely provided in return for the kindness by NetGalley and the author/publisher in providing me with this book.

Truthfully, this book is not what I was expecting from the blurb that attracted me to request it. It's not that I don't enjoy books inspired by true crime, but there is a disconnect with this one. Dark and bleak are almost not sufficient to convey how this story feels. It's lyrical and poetic tone will appeal to some, but it's not for me.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. Unfortunately after trying several times to start and get into this book I decided it's just not for me and quit after about 50 pages. I have heard several raves about this book so it seems like a lot of people love it!!!

DNF - this book is not as it is described. I feel people should get a heads up on the content. Not really sure how the Chillicothe 6 tied in.

"In life, there is a savage side and a beautiful side."

Six women - mothers, daughters, sisters - gone missing. When the first is found floating dead in the river, it reveals the disturbing truth of a small Ohio town. Inspired by the unsolved murders of the Chillicothe Six, this harrowing and haunting novel tells the story of two sisters, both of whom could be the next victims.

First, thank you so much to @aaknopf for my beautiful finished copy. This is a book that I have yet to stop thinking about since finishing it and I know it will be one that I don't soon forget.

Arc & Daffy's stories are raw, harrowing, heartbreaking, hard to read, but yet with all of that you still have moments of sisters who would do anything for each other, memories of a grandmother that loved them fiercely, and somehow hope.

This book will be on many 2023 favorites list. It will be on mine. I honestly don't think I have the right words to even describe how I felt with this book. It is HEAVY. It deals with addiction, prostitution, sexual abuse. It's hard to read, but I also think that's the point. I didn't know much about the missing women of Chillicothe before reading this book.

Arc & Daffy will suck you in. You will root for them, and you will want to shake them most of the time, too. This is a masterpiece in storytelling. It's lyrically beautiful and is told in a way that will make you never want to stop reading.

It reminded me a little of Long Bright River, so if you were a fan of that one I think you'd enjoy this. I haven't read Betty, but after finishing On the Savage Side it is very high up on my TBR.

Easy 5 ⭐️ read.

TITLE: ON THE SAVAGE SIDE
AUTHOR: Tiffany McDaniel
PUB DATE: 02.14.2023

When I read Betty in the summer of 2021, Tiffany McDaniel immediately became an auto buy author for me, and Betty remains one of my all time favorite books that I still continue to recommend to this day.

I was thrilled to be an early reader for ON THE SAVAGE SIDE. This book is based on the true story of the women killed in Chillicothe, Ohio.

ON THE SAVAGE SIDE is centered on twin girls Arc and Daffodil, born one minute apart to a life of hardship and poverty, addiction and prostitution, clearly - the savage side of life. Their only escape is the use of their imagination and dreams, with the help of their grandmother, who unfortunately died when the twins were only nine.

McDaniel wrote a powerful story that is well paced, has a beautiful prose, is heartbreaking and painful to read at times, but compelling and visceral. This book will stay with me for a while as I continue to process the themes in the story.

This is a triumph!

I have such mixed emotions on this book. On the one hand, the marketing is all wrong. This is being spun as a crime fiction based on the Chillicothe Six and really it just isn't. I see where there are very small parts that could be crime fiction, I think this book will be widely loved in the literary fiction category where it truly belongs.

This book takes place mainly in the the 1980s ans 1990s while the Chillicothe Murders happened not even 10 years ago in 2013-2015. While I can see how this string of murders inspired this book, I think this should have been in the dedication instead of stating this book is based off the Chillicothe Six. It just isn't.

I loved getting to read about Daffy and Arcs coming of age story. I loved the premise of trying to show that people are more than their addictions, more than their professions, and that just because you don't live the life that society deems "ideal" does not make you less of a person and that you matter.

This book is so heavy. It took me two weeks to read because I would have to stop and put it down to protect my own mental health. I highly reccomend reading through trigger warnings prior to reading,

this book honestly has most of them including: death, child death, pregnancy loss, drugs, descriptive talk of needles, domestic abuse, child abuse, sexual assault, molestation, and murder.

Despite my feelings of dread and heaviness reading this book, it will live in my head for a long time. Not all stories are meant to be pretty, and this one gets a 5 star rating from me.

Betty was one of my favorite novels of 2020, and I knew Tiffany McDaniels would deliver a stellar follow up.

Betty and On the Savage Side both took inspiration from real events. Betty, from the life of the author’s mother, and On the Savage Side from the Chillicothe Six, a series of unsolved murders in Appalachian Ohio.

Arc, the narrator of the novel, and her twin sister Daffy are being raised by their mother and aunt and are left to more or less fend for themselves after their grandmother dies. The women are heroin addicts and sex workers. As the story progresses, the narrative goes back and forth in time to round out a gorgeously written, emotionally devastating portrayal of generational addiction and wretchedness.

“We humans have always been in pain. History tells Us that in the artifacts civilizations have left behind. Pain is there in the broken vases, the fractured poetry, the overwhelming music we have played for centuries. We belong to grief until the engine goes out. Then we belong to the dirt, our bodies identical to other fallen things."

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

This book was very hard for me to read and finish. I know that because it was written of so positively in the NYT we will most likely add it to our collection, but the content was definitely not for me and my disinterest in graphic descriptions of violence. Thank you for the chance to preview this ARC, my opinions are my own.

Thank you to the publisher who provided the ARC via Netgalley. Unfortunately, I DNF after 50 pages. I could not get into this at all. The dialogue was very strange to me - both as children and as adults - because nobody talks like that. I get they are on drugs, but it seemed too far out and unrealistic that it took me out of the story.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the ARC. This book has left me pretty much speechless. I read Betty by the same author last year, and I thought going into this that it couldn’t possibly be as emotional and beautiful as that book. But I was wrong. On The Savage Side is a compelling, lyrical, stunning, and absolutely heartbreaking novel. It has broke me. I won’t ever forget it. Just so gorgeous and yet so utterly moving.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for gifting me a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review of On the Savage Side by Tiffany McDaniel - 5 stars!

Inspired by the still unsolved mystery of the Chillicothe Six, Arc (short for Arcade) and Daffy (short for Daffodil) are twins born one minute apart into a family full of addiction, abuse, neglect, poverty, and mental illness. Their grandmother helps keep them on track and stable, but when she is killed, things fall apart farther and the girls escape into their fantasy worlds. As young adults, Arc does her best to keep her sister on the right track, but they soon follow their parents' tracks. The river always calls and one by one her friends disappear.

This book left me gutted. It is full of pain and horror but the writing is so beautiful that you can't put it down. I loved Chillicothe's issues mirror so many small towns, the jobs dry up, poverty is generational, and prostitution and drugs are there for escape. It's a commentary on how disposable society feels the underprivileged and addicted are, not worthy of police time or investigation when they disappear. The girls' grandma tried so hard to keep the girls safe, to show how to make the savage side beautiful - a good lesson to all of us how we can be a force in others' lives. This is a must read book.

Wow. Wow wow wow wow wow. What a book, what a story, what a devastating narrative to read, made much more devastating by the fact that it is inspired by true events.

There are a lot of trigger warnings for this one: prostitution, child sex abuse, drug use, parental abandonment, murder, rape, I could truly go on and on. But please don't let that scare you. This is a book that I feel is incredibly important to read, if you can soldier through the difficult parts.

This book will not make you happy, but it will make you desperate to help and understand and learn. Written with a poetic bent that serves to show you how some of our smartest girls are finding themselves in the worst kinds of trouble, it is both beautiful and stark. Read with caution, but READ.

I want to thank the author and NetGalley for the advanced e-arc in exchange for an honest review. I want to start this review by saying to check all TWs before getting into this book. This book will not be for everyone, and that is okay.

On the Savage Side is based on real life events following the case of missing women in Ohio. Going into this book, I thought I was going to get a true-crime type book, and that is not what it was at all.

I became so engrossed in this book. I felt so bad for all of the women, despite their circumstances. Who are we to judge one's life? I feel like they never stood a chance, and there was evil all around them, with no means to escape.

There really isn't a whole lot to say about this book without giving away many of the details. I thought I knew how it was going to end, but I didn't have it quite right. Early on, I had my thoughts about what was happening.

Some parts of the book did drag a bit, but those moments didn't last long at all. There was one chapter that I personally could have done without...I see how those events played into the storyline, but it was very hard to get through.

I didn't go into this book thinking I would love it, but I was very surprised. This is my first book by Tiffany McDaniel, and I will be checking out her previous books.

I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys a murder mystery/thriller based on real events. Do not go into this thinking you are getting a play by play of how everything went down.

For me, this was an easy 4/4.5 out of 5 stars.