Things I enjoyed:
- The atmosphere and setting
- Some parts were really creepy!!
- All the little trivia about death culture 
- The exploration of death and what comes next 

Things I didn't enjoyed:
- The relationships fell kinda flat. Maren and Olive were "enemies" since forever, than they had like 3 conversations and boom, they fell in love? I hoped it would be a little more slow burn (but that is also an personal preference!)
- At some point Marens "I'm such a bad person because of what my family did"-thing simply annoyed me. It was mentioned a little to often and sometimes I couldn't see why she was mentioning it again.

Favorite Quote:
Maybe that's why sometimes living feels a little like grief.

All in all it was an enjoyable, spooky read, expecially for a debut novel!

Thank you North Star Editions, Flux & NetGalley for this ARC!

I love all things spooky so I immediately enjoyed the vibe of the book but the more I read, the more it fell flat for me.

Olive’s obsession with death and what comes after it starts off as interesting but quickly becomes annoying as it gets brought up every few pages. I try to give grace when reading about younger MCs, however, Olive’s indecisiveness, immaturity and attitude made here pretty unlikable. I went through most of the book thinking she was about 14 when really she was meant to be about 16 or 17.

The overall plot of this book was very weak. I didn’t find myself rooting for any of the characters or their relationships during their journey and everything felt rushed. I would’ve loved more constructive discussions about grief and the afterlife but the messages/themes in this book fell flat due to the plot being all over the place.

And I know where the author was trying to go with Vannessa’s plot twist but I couldn’t take it seriously after she got called manipulative and defended herself by saying “No I’m an empath!!”

I think this story had a lot of potential but it sadly just missed the mark.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced copy of this book. This was a really fun book and a unique spin on the "what happens after you die?" question that a lot of people (not just teens) have. It was nice to see a New Mexico setting and acknowledgement of the indigenous populations depicted too.

ARC REVIEW
This was awesome, such a unique plot that draws you in from the first snarky comment. I did not see that plot twist coming and it was really satisfying seeing the characters grow over the course of the book. Overall, an amazing debut 👏.

This was such a grateful surprise! The book has the vibe from the Young Adult books that I used to read as I was younger. Simple plot and setup, good developing from there. The White Haven atmosphere was very well created by the author, as well as the gothic aspects from the protagonist and the people living in this morbid city. You can tell these are habitants of a mere small town as we keep getting to know more secrets and particularities from the History that made White Haven and its Asylum.

The love interest made me happy, although Olive was pretty much incarcerated on the idea of post-mortum life throughout all the book, the mysteries and slow burn made up for it.

"Here Lies Olive" is a very cool piece of YA story, with an LGBQTIA+ twist and indigenous representation.

After Olive has a near death experience, she fears there’s Nothing waiting for her at the end of her life. Then she befriends an elderly woman who, when she dies, gives Olive a reason to believe there may be something at the end after all. Olive needs to know the truth and makes it her mission to explore the afterlife.

Good thing she lives in a small New Mexico town with a haunted asylum and an obsession with Halloween.

In her quest to see what happens in her death, Olive unintentionally begins living her real life. She rekindles a friendship she thought was lost and learns the girl the hates might not be so awful after all.

A combined ghost story, mystery, and exploration of love, life and death, this is a must read for spooky season!

I just reviewed Here Lies Olive by Kate Anderson. #HereLiesOlive #NetGalley
[NetGalley URL]

thank you Net Galley for sending me the e copy of this book.
Here lies Olive was a really good read, the characters are just loveable and so wholesome ( except for Vanessa , I just don't like how manipulative she is) and Jay is such a sweet heart. Honestly I can't wait to read more books by Kate Anderson who might just become one of my all time favorite author .

I really enjoyed this book!! It was well written and the story was engaging and well developed! Highly recommend!

Thank you NetGalley for providing this e-ARC, all opinions are my own.

I loved this so much !!!
The book is beautifully written and discusses some really deep topics such as death, life after death, the meaning of life, love and friendship and of course ghosts. Olive's thoughts and perspectives were so interesting and relatable, I instantly fell in love with her. She is going through so much and you can really feel her pain and struggle while reading.
In addition the world building or background to the place Olive lives in and the more supernatural aspects were so well done and interesting. And I loved the way the relationships were built. All in all just a great read, that truly deserves 5 stars.

If you love queer books filled with deep topics, teenage struggles and ghosts, this will be the book for you!

What a sweet horror story with just the coolest spooky small town vibes. My favorite parts of this book are the dynamics with the friends and the quest they end up on. The main issue I have is that after the 4000th mention of the Nothing I started to just lose interest. It took me longer to get through the book than it should have. I love an exploration of what happens after we die but I just think the anxiety of the main character became too repetitive. Overall pretty cute though. Very sweet ending.

I wasn't expecting to love this book as much as I did. I have been revisiting some of my DNFs to get my Netgalley feedback ratio up and I don't know what put me off this one; maybe it was that the hook didn't grab me and the tone was a little casual. But I read a few more chapters in and I was hooked. This is another strong YA showing among several I have tried this year after overlooking the genre for years.

"Here Lies Olive" is about a town in New Mexico, White Haven, famous for dark tourism, and a girl named Olive, who has struggled with grief and trauma after dying for five minutes after an allergic attack to shellfish. For two years she avoids her best friend, Davis, and withdraws into herself, getting involved in the Junior Reapers and meeting her arch-nemesis, Maren Seymour. This year a new complication enters their fray, a new kid named Vanessa who is just as odd as the rest of them.

Olive becomes obsessed with what happens to people after we die and she is convinced the way to find out is by summoning a ghost. She involves Davis, Vanessa and Maren in a plot to summon a ghost at the Seymour House, a sanatorium from the turn of the century that housed the poor, at first those who were sick, and then undesirables, a house of secret horrors. It's the family legacy that Maren has spent her life atoning for, becoming the insufferable, perfect overachiever to make up for it.

While at Seymour House, Olive actually does summon a ghost, Jay Henderson, who died on the grounds. Now it's a race against time as the motley crew tries to bring Jay peace by resolving his unfinished business, all while Olive discovers she actually does have a heart as she tries to resurrect her friendship with Davis and fights growing feelings for Maren.

The characters in this were wonderful, complicated and multi-layered. The conflicts were very teenager friendly but relatable to all ages, fighting to find your voice, to overcome pain, to show your family what you really want in life. This had the vibes of Wednesday Addams meets Riverdale with a quirky, irreverent tone that I appreciated. The dark tourism vibe is not taken seriously in the book, until the ghosts drive the plot forward.

I also have been searching long and hard for a sapphic book that speaks to me. I've read several that I have found unsatisfying or mediocre. I loved the sapphic element in this book. Finally, proper sapphic heat, and a convincing slow-burn enemies-to-lovers arc. I loved the chemistry between Olive and Maren, and how they grew to be vulnerable around each other and realized they had more in common than they thought.

Jay's mystery was also unpredictable and had a nice buildup of tension and foreshadowing, which I appreciated. Amid all the talk of bloody family secrets and shades, this was a very earnest story about grief, death, loss and loyalty. Another highlight was the setting. New Mexico was described very well, from the border with the Navajo Nation reservation to the food served at Davis's mom's diner to the stark desert setting. I could totally see a bizarre town like this in the desert Southwest, also famous for quirky towns like Roswell.

Definitely one of my favorite ARCs of the year. Totally unexpected, completely refreshing.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

A nice read ! I guessed the plot twist pretty early, but I really enjoyed the setting (love the town !), the navajo vibes and the relashionships. The psychology of the main character and her anxiety toward death is quite interesting and seems real. A good debut, perfect for Halloween !

Here Lies Olive is everything my dark and spooky inner child could ask for.

I can't be the only one thinking about the old story of the girl with the ribbon around her neck keeping her head on whenever Vanessa touches her ribbon? Olive dreams it of her own head.

"We're all bones."

Olive's fear of mortality and need to know if there's an afterlife encompasses the story. The way the author takes the story evolves in ways I was not expecting.

There's ghosts, graveyards and a haunted asylum. The way the author describes everything is just beautiful and it reminds me of a Tim Burton movie! Can he make this into one? I'm just putting it out there.

The ending was a huge surprise and I absolutely loved it!


Thank you for the ARC of Here Lies Olive. I loved it!


To see more of my reviews visit my Goodreads and Instagram at Sacred Hearth Book Reviews.

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I really enjoyed this book. I am always looking for more romance that I can recommend to teens who don't want to see the intimate scenes explicitly. This book was also a really tasteful story about a lesbian without a "coming out" storyline or some type of trauma. She just existed as a queer girl and developed a crush on a girl. I absolutely loved the heck out of this book!

I am always up for a ghost story. Throw in LGBTQIAP= rep and its a prefect recipe for imaginative yet all too real drama. Dash of horror never hurts either. Anderson manages to hit every note with this story.

Thank you to North Star Editions, Flux, and NetGalley for providing an eARC for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and North Star Editions for giving me early access to this book.

Wow! This is how YA should be wrote more often! This story was incredible and the main character Olive was very relatable to teens and young adults dealing with grief. Death isn’t something we talk a lot about even as adults and I feel like this story really captures a lot of the fears and emotions that come along with the unknown that is death. This was tackled in a beautiful and fun way, the spooky elements helped keep it fun and more lighthearted making it a more accessible way to talk about the hard stuff.

The pacing felt pretty close to perfect didn’t really lag but also didn’t speed past the interesting parts. And though the ending wasn’t a huge surprise it still managed to be enjoyable and kept my interest throughout.

I did feel like there was a tiny bit of not like other girl vibes, but it wasn’t super bad and not as outright as most YA.

I think even if you’re not a fan of YA this can be an interesting read especially if you have experienced any type of grief, then it feels really relatable. About a 4.75 which I am rounding up to a 5.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The characters were well thought out and the description of the town of White Haven, NM made me wish I lived there. Any town that embraces its spooky side is a good place for me. The main character olive is still reeling from a tragedy that occurred after a personal brush with death. The way she has isolated herself and lost her sense of identity as an after effect of this makes the reader feel for her and at times made me wish I could reach into the book and shake her and make her see that she mattered to those around her every time she couldn't see it for herself. I always enjoy when the "supporting" characters are well thought out and given a storyline of their own versus just being essential to only propelling the main characters story forward. Davis, Jay, Maren and Vanessa all had their own journeys and storyline that were nicely resolved. They were some interesting twists. I honestly thought I had the eventual ending figured out but then the story twisted again, leaving me thinking "how did I not see that coming".

3.5

For the most part, I really enjoyed this. It was fun, a little scary, and a little wholesome too. I loved getting to know the characters and their relationships with each other, the fast paced plot and the atmospheric writing.

However, I did spend some of the book confused with what’s going on (which could have been a me problem, really), and it felt like it lacked something, but I couldn’t say what. I think it just needed a bit more of an edge, maybe?

Overall, this was an amazing debut and I can’t wait to read more from this author and see how they improve. She is clearly super talented. This was a lovely paranormal romance and I had a lot of fun, it made me think a lot about things, especially our relationship with death.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of this cover but let me tell you, it’s true when they say not to judge a book by it.

This book was so much more than I thought it was going to be, I went in thinking it would a somewhat low stakes, playful ghost story but it was so heartfelt and gripping. And much more scary than I thought. This was one of those books where I had to stop my eyes from dashing ahead to get the answers because between the characters, the actual story and the tropes that made it all the more exciting, I just kept burning through page after page.

Definitely getting a re-visit during Halloween!
Thank you so much to NetGalley for an giving me and arc in exchange for an honest review.

For transparency, I received a copy of Here Lies Olive from NetGalley in return for an honest review…so here we go.

Olive is a teenager who’s gone through something traumatic that has coloured the way she experiences life and how she interacts with those around her. I say “coloured” but I mean she’s gone goth (which is a trope I’m kinda over. Got trauma, go goth) and started pushing everyone away.

She lives in a town after my own heart, the dark tourism capital of America with it’s home for orphan ghosts and it’s open sky pyre. It is, of course, Halloween.

Putting aside the cliche bits, I enjoyed this book. I’m not usually a fan of first person narration, but Olive made it work.

There was one character I would have liked to see fleshed out a bit more, but without a bad guy monologue I’m not sure how that could be done (see, this is why I’m not an author).

So, if you’re looking for a supernatural young adult story with a bit of a sweet LBGTQIA+ romance thrown in, give Here Lies Olive a try.