2 stars.

I was a teenager once. I get it, we all want to be like everyone else. We all want to be famous, to leave our terrible towns and become something greater than we are, to get rich quickly, to escape the sins of our fathers and the obsessions and gossiping of our mothers...but haven't we read books like "Brutes" before? Ones with much more success? It feels like Dizz Tate wrote so, so many words for a story that says so very little. The plot is basically nonsensical and insanely disjointed, especially with unreliable narrators and a past-versus-present-timeline going on. The story is frenetic and frenzied, a whirlwind of screwed up and a cacophony of toxicity. It's ominous, sure, but to what end? I have no idea what this book was about! It left me more annoyed and bored than anything. It didn't make me think, reflect, or get angry... I just felt apathetic and glad to be done with the book. It did nothing for me. It's even worse via audiobook because the narrator barely attempts to change her voice to distinguish between characters (and there are MANY characters). After reading "Brutes," I feel like we should, collectively, as a society, write a law about how many similies is an acceptable amount of similies to have in one book because there are similies every. single. freaking. sentence. here. It got annoying after a while, like, do something new! Pick any other literary device and try that on for size! It's a no from me.

Thank you to NetGalley, Dizz Tate, and HighBridge Audio for providing me with an ARC copy of this book! All opinions are my own, and I was not compensated for my review.

A creepy read about obsessive young girls and a missing girl in town. Quick easy read but lost me quite a few times throughout. Belletrist book of the month. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Brutes explores what it feels like to be a tween, how to long for something, want to be like someone else. The last 15% of the book went off the rails in a supernatural way, which I didn't feel meshed with the rest of the book. I liked the perspectives from various characters' points of view as well as the time jumps. I think the author made the characters come alive, with their anxieties, pains, and joys. I did really enjoy the narrator, and her pacing was good. I would read from this author again.

Very disturbed and unsettling. The plot is slightly convoluted, nearly impossible to follow. This is neither a fault or a preference for me personally, but it is something to consider before reading.

This coming of age story reads lyrically, choppy, and reminds me of the Kacey Musgraves music video for “Simple Times.” It’s like Heathers and Mean Girls with zero humor, the drama existing in a missing girl instead of a burn book. It’s a literary fiction take on teen friendships and evokes similar feelings to Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfied.

I feel that I’ve had an existential episode that I wanted to escape faster than the 7.5 hour audiobook, but at the same time I just know pieces of this book must be beautiful in print. I would be amiss if I didn’t mention there is a lake monster.

This book made me feel clammy. Is that even a thing? Tate's imagery had me feeling like I was in the weird, cold early Spring dampness of Florida. Like, I could practically smell the lush rot.

I know the description of the book compares it to The Virgin Suicides and it's just so spot on that I can only compare it to that too. Although I will say, Tate writes Florida the way that Chelsea Bieker captures California.

The oddly captivating preacher's daughter, Sammy has gone missing and you get the feeling that something creepy has gone down. Their town of Falls Landing, Florida is also obsessed with getting their kids on a local Star Search-esque competition at any cost.

The point of view switches back and forth between the different girls in the story and I must admit, I never knew exactly which character was who. But it didn't matter in the least. Tate captured the awfulness and gorgeousness of girlhood so perfectly that it was almost disorienting. Like, am I in my thirties or am I thirteen?

There's angst and glamour and decay and beauty and it's an actual VIBE. I loved it.

Audio ARC provided by NetGalley.

Brutes is written in a such a way that you yourself feel as though you’re standing amongst the twisted group of girls, the Brutes, stuck in a summer daze as their Florida town searches for a missing girl.

The audiobook’s narrator does an excellent job of bringing Dizz Rate’s lyrical writing to life. However, with consideration to the story following multiple characters, the narration made it difficult to know which girl was talking or having an internal monologue. The same voice was used for all characters — for that reason, it was near impossible to distinguish the girls from each other.

Multiple timelines are also used throughout Brutes. The switches to the girls as adult women were easy to distinguish from their younger counterparts. The switches during the books main timeline, when the Brutes are young teenagers, was confusing.

I spent the majority of my time listening to this novel confused, sometimes in a good way and sometimes in a bad way. Uncertainty can be good, but at times the story itself was just hard to follow.

This is a very strange book. It is mostly told by a chorus of teen girls living in an apartment building in central Florida. (I'm including Christian in the girls). They are individuals with names and different family situations, but they seem to roam like one interconnected entity. The group has been closely following two older girls, Sammy and Mia. One morning Sammy disappears. The girls spend the day wandering the community, following the investigation but trying to go unnoticed.

I overall enjoyed this book, I connected with the girls on an almost visceral level, even though my childhood was very different. The writing is beautiful and otherworldly.

Brutes is a haunting YA/ New Adult novel about a group of girls living in a Florida community, right next to a Christianity-themed theme park. All the local kids are focused on getting famous through "star search". It alternates between the girls as 13 year-olds, the perspective a collective "we", and the perspective of the individual girls as they've moved on from the group and face the struggles of adulthood. The novel centers around a mystery: the local preacher's daughter, just a year older than the 13 year old girls, has gone missing.

While I found the perspective of the collective "we" to be very interesting, I did not enjoy the perspectives of the individual girls as adults as much. I found the back and forth to be jarring at times. I think some of Tate's descriptions were gorgeous and at times terrifying, and she really has a handle on what it's like to be a lonely, unsatisfied, 13-year old girl with toxic friendships. For that reason, I'm giving the novel 3 stars. I did find it hard to listen to at times, as there is not a whole lot of plot. Everything kind of simmers underneath the surface, and not much is revealed, even at the end. It leaves you to your own interpretation. The reader did a good job capturing the tone of dissatisfaction and emotional detachment. However, perhaps this tone is also why I got bored and also sleepy at times listening.

Overall, it's an interesting read but I would not recommend it for everyone.

CONTENT WARNING: This book contains instances of sexual assault.

Welcome to Falls Landing, Florida where teenager, Sammy Liu-Lou has gone missing. Sammy’s father is a famous televangelist and the town starts to search for her but there is a group of girls watching others search while they are seemingly unbothered. Sammy missing only scratches the surface of the group of adolescent girls and their behaviors.

The writing for this book was exceptional. It was dark, atmospheric and captured adolescent girl groups that are not often wrote about. While I did enjoy the tone of the book, it did not blow me away. There was a lack of character development. As the story continued it became more challenging to grasp due to the timeline being all over the place.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of the book to review. All opinions are my own.

"Brutes" by Dizz Tate is a beautifully written novel that follows a group of young girls in a lakeside community in Florida. The community these girls live in is currently navigating the disappearance of Sammy, an older girl adjacent to the girls' friend group. The narrative is written in a shifting first-person perspective, with past chapters told from a collective "we" voice and future chapters from an individual "I" voice. The unique format adds to the dream-like quality of the story, and when it worked, it worked soooo well. When it wasn't working though, I was lost.

To start with what I liked, this book is full of vivid and nostalgic imagery and scenes that made the reading experience all the more immersive. The collective narrator of younger girls, referred to as "brutes," provides an interesting perspective on the story as well, really emphasizing them as a unit. However, while the writing is undoubtedly beautiful, the plot at times felt disjointed and fragmented, and I was left with more questions than answers. The mystery of Sammy's disappearance doesn't really get tied up at all by the end, and too many subplots and ideas are introduced but not fully explored. I really felt like I was having to go back and regroup a lot, trying to piece together the plot only to never revisit most of the things that were mentioned.

Overall, "Brutes" is a unique read that I truly believe will work for those who appreciate poetic prose and unconventional storytelling. I need things laid out for me a little more clearly and so, while I really loved certain aspects of the book, it wasn't a total slam dunk for me.

I did listen to an audio version of this book, and the narrator was absolutely fantastic. I really felt her voice lent to the dreamy vibes of this novel and that she was the perfect narrator for it.

Thanks so much to HighBridge Audio as well as NetGalley for an ALC of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts!

"Brutes" is the story of a a group of teenage girls in a town in Florida where the popular girl goes missing. I read this book via audiobook and is my first book of the year that I was unable to finish, stopping at about 40%.

The audiobook narrator does a good job matching her tone with the ominous nature of the book. However, to me, this was done to a fault. All the characters were narrated with the same tone of voice and there was little narration.

I don't know if this was a product of the narration or the story itself, but I found this book incredibly difficult to follow. Each chapter seemed to bop from character to character with very little room for character development and description.

I would recommend this book if you enjoy elusive mysteries with an ominous style. But for me, this book just didn't live up to my expectations.

Thank you Netgalley and RB Media for this audio ARC in exchange for an honest review.

“Where is she?”

Brutes tells the sickly sweet tale of girlhood. How we are impacted and influenced by those around us and how that can quickly evolve into an obsession. It’s a dented up hazy dream of a novel shifting from past to present day in a way that took a second for me to grasp. It’s creepy and at times truly made my skin crawl. The writing and the story at hand reminds me of both The Virgin Suicides Jeffrey Eugenides and Godshot by Chelsea Bieker which are favorites of mine.

The book is visually stunning and really puts you side by side with the girls. Painting your nails the air thick with the scent of acetone, stomping through the foliage thick with the humid Florida air. It reminds you of bubble gum dreams with razor sharp edges. Bright cherry lip gloss with glimmers off the lake which houses the monster we are warned about. That all being said, it is a little tricky to navigate and you never 100% know what’s going on. I think that may be part of it genius though. I could see myself revisiting this book and in doing so gaining information I missed upon my first read. Would definitely recommend to a friend and look forward to Tate’s future books.

I liked the Virgin Suicides-esque technique of narrating from the perspective of an amorphous blob of teen humanity (in the case of Eugenides, a group of teen boys obsessed with five sisters; in this case, a gaggle of pre-teen girls from a Florida neighbourhood). Unlike VS, the narrative group in Brutes is also the subject of the book, so the vague interchangeability and nebulous delineation of characters makes it difficult to get engaged with any character.

It's got an abundance of atmosphere, and evokes the body-conscious horror of being a preteen girl. As a rhetorical device, not being able to tell the characters apart very well (even as adult in their first person narratives) tells a story of longing to have one's identity subsumed into the group. Clever and effective, but at the sacrifice of plot. Lots of style, not quite enough substance for me.

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

2.5 stars. This is hard to review because I’m not sure what I just read. I had no idea what was happening for most of it, and I’m not sure I even understand the ending, which is frustrating because that’s why I stuck it out!

The writing felt like a fever dream, and it’s mostly told in a greek chorus style collective “we”. That narrative device is hit or miss for me, and it didn’t work for me here because I was never able to feel grounded in the story. Interspersed were chapters told in the first person by specific characters, and I liked those a lot more. I actually think this book could have been a hit for me if the author had stuck with that for the whole book.

Listening to this book might have been a mistake too, because even though the narration was well done, I might have had an easier time following the story in print. Oh well. This book was definitely a *vibe* and while it wasn’t for me, I think it’s really really going to work for a specific group of readers. I suspect fans of Mona Awad (particularly Bunny) will enjoy this one.

Thanks RB Media and NetGalley for the free copy in exchange for my honest review!

2.5 stars
What even was going on!? This felt like it was kinda trying to be experimental in its storytelling. The author keeps you guessing and confused as to where you are in the narrative and what the wanted outcome even is. Till the end I don’t know what happened at the end but it is clear that the author intended it that way but it wasn’t done well in my opinion. There was nothing satisfactory about this novel. With that being said this could have sort of been helped if the narrative had us captivated. I wasn’t at all and was grasping for any some type of understanding throughout most of the novel.
This did get easier to read once I let go of the fact that I don’t know what’s happening. After that I was able to appreciate the writing a bit. I do like the way Tate writes young girls in Falls Landing, Florida. I think these girls trying to imitate this and that and their obsessions and critiques is accurate.
The audiobook was my saving grace because that was the only way I would have been able to pay attention to this story.

When a pastors daughter goes missing, a group of girls are fascinated with her disappearance and it then haunts them as adults

I really enjoyed this book! It was a really good story about girlhood and how your younger self can impact your adult life. It reminded me of The Virgin Suicides but as a girl version and it is very obvious that Tate was inspired by the book. Overall I really enjoyed the mystery and the vibes of the novel and it was a great audiobook that I feel made the book even better!

I really loved this book, I'm planning on buying the physical version to re-read and take it in a bit more. This novel shows the honest coming-of-age of a strange group of girls in Florida, centered around their fascination with a local girl who goes missing. They're still holding onto the strangeness and lack of empathy of childhood but trying to fit in and be perceived as adults. As a weird kid who grew up in Florida, I really connected with this. So many little parts of my childhood found their way into this book. It was dreamy, unsettling, and so so good. A wonderful debut. I can't wait to read more from Dizz Tate. I'll be giving further feedback on my YouTube channel.

This dizzying story will bring back the heat of childhood summer and life in Florida. Dizz Tate easily weaves a tale that reminds you of every thought, fear or joy you had as a young teen.

The narrator has a great voice and it slowly pulls you into a merry go round or roller coaster of events as the group of teens try to find out what happened to the girl they all looked up to, the larger than life Sammy.

There are lots of books about the cusp of adulthood and coming and age but Brutes truly capture those feelings - the highs and low emotions of every single day. #highBridgeAudio #Brutes #DizzTate

This was my commute read on the train back and forth from the Denver suburbs to the city, and it's definitely the kind of book you want to be reading if you're in your "stare out a moving care window and romanticize your life, hot-girl-sad-girl-lit" era. While I found the overall writing to be well=done, I found the story to be disjointed and confusing for the sake of being "out there," with no real focus. The book felt like it was trying to capture some feeling that has already existed in books before and has now become more of an aesthetic than anything else, and now in the year of our Lord 2023 it doesn't really do much for me other than create a really beautiful coffee table book.

Thank you NetGalley and HighBridge Audio for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook.


There were things I liked about the book. The writing style. The "they" However. I felt like it was a waste of time. I felt it was unfinished. Not a fan