I enjoyed Beholder!
I thought it was a great YA Horror read, and I loved the writing! Some of the scenes were so well done and disturbing, and they were written so well that i could vividly imagine them.
Athan was also a great main character with a tragic past and a power related to mirrors that I found really fascinating.
I also liked his romance with Dom.

I actually read another book by Ryan La Sala this month, The Honeys, which i loved. I've been really enjoying the authors work, and I'll definitely be reading more!

Also, after reading this book, I'll never look at wallpaper or mirrors the same way again...
I would love to say more, but I don't want to spoil anything, and I think it's best going into this book not knowing much.
I definitely recommend this book!
Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Ryan La Sala's YA horror is fascinating. I'm still not sure I fully understand the events of either of his novels I've read, but man, the creepy, unsettling vibes are impeccable. Beholder was frightening, weird, tragic, and very gay. In addition to the psychological horror of being exposed to like, a LOT of artistic death tableaux, Athan is clearly one of those <em>action</em> horror protagonists who can roll with the punches, because the number of times he was brutally beaten or burned or concussed or sliced up (and we, as readers, were subjected to descriptions of the same) in like a 3 day period was just unreal. I think I will forever have an eerie feeling about honey, and now, mirrors—I really hope La Sala keeps on keeping on in the horror genre, as I can't wait to see which item I literally use every day he'll get to forever subtly freak me out next!

This book was weird and I loved it! Similar to The Honeys, there is a steady undercurrent of "Danger! Run!" throughout every scene, which makes for an incredibly fun reading experience. Athan and Dom were great characters and the premise is so unique--I think that was my favorite part. This is not a standard issue YA thriller/horror story. It is thought-provoking and unlike most other books that teen readers are likely to come across. My only issue was that I wanted just a "little" more explanation at the end as to what the heck the curse was and why it was doing the things it was. I'll be adding a copy to my classroom library!

E-ARC generously provided by Scholastic via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review, thank you so much

4 star. Arthouse horror meets La Sala's signature prose in Beholder, a prismatic horror about what happens when you look into a mirror and something terrible and beautiful looks back.

Thank you Push and Netgalley for this eARC, these opinions are my own. What a story! Athan is attending a party, it’s full of rich people, he feels out of place especially since his family passed in a house fire and his grandma has dementia that’s worsening. To get away from it all he goes to the bathroom, but while in there he hears screams and someone bangs on the door. When he checks it out a mysterious boy pushes him back into the bathroom and warns him not to come out till it’s over. Athan has no idea what that means. Hours pass with all kinds of weird noises from the other party guests. When it finally ends and he leaves he finds the guests all dead and put together like a sculpture. What happened while he was in the bathroom? Who was the boy? Will anyone believe he didn’t do it? This is Ryan La Sala’s spookiest book yet and will draw you in and you won’t be able to put it down! Exciting and thrilling and will have you looking at mirrors in a whole new way! Plus the ending it’s beautiful and heart wrenching at the same time! Such a great story that will have you looking inward and pondering! Highly recommend! Can’t wait to read it again!

4.5 stars

This book was so weird! Like, honestly, I didn’t know what was going on most of the time and yet, I loved it.

Horror mixed with magical realism is something that I didn’t know I wanted but am so glad I got to read. It makes me excited to finally get to the other books by Ryan that I have on my tbr!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an arc of this book.

4.5/5 Stars

TL;DR - A trippy, surreal, and unapologetically queer horror story that’s as beautiful as it is deadly. An exploration of trauma, obsession, and the pain and suffering it takes to create art. Mind-bending and heartbreaking, this is a book that defies genres and delivers twists artfully and in rapid succession, making for a truly wild ride.

Big thanks to Scholastic, PUSH, and NetGalley for providing the ARC for this book in exchange for an honest review!

***Trigger warnings for a loved one with dementia, loss of parents, spiders, obsessive-compulsive behaviors and thought patterns, suicidal ideation and on-page suicide, anxiety, and depression.***

“My name means “immortal” in Greek, but it might as well mean “survivor’s guilt”.”

‘Beholder’ by Ryan La Sala is a surreal, metaphysical horror novel that goes beyond the borders of genre into something wholly unique and captivating. It’s told in two POVs, one from Athanasios “Athan” Bakirtzis, a teenager living in New York City, who takes care of his ailing yiayia (grandmother) by day and sneaks into all sorts of places he probably shouldn’t be by night, and one from a mysterious “other” who narrates directly to Athan as they follow him through his life. We watch as he attends a party that ends in the macabre and unexplainable deaths of everyone there but him, and follow him as his life is turned upside down by someone - or something - that has been watching him from inside mirrors for his whole life.

I don’t even know what to say about this book, other than I loved it. My notes document has 163 words in it, and most of that is just writing down trigger warnings and peoples’ names - I was genuinely so invested in this book that I had no time to stop and write out my thoughts.

This has to be one of the most unique books I’ve ever read, both for the horror elements and for the…well, it’s not magic, but it’s not *not* magic. All of it is so original that I struggle to even find words for it. I’ve never read anything like it, and you probably haven’t, either. I can’t go into detail because it will ruin the suspense and mystery, but I need you to know how much I loved the supernatural elements of this book - so, so much! I’m always a sucker for books that read like an episode of The X-Files (my favorite show of all time), and this one perfectly fits the bill. Spooky, unsettling, totally off-the-wall - incredible!

The plot is so twisty-turny, there’s always something flying out of nowhere at you. However, in hindsight, the pieces are all there to satisfy my personal need for foreshadowing, but all laid out so cleverly that you don’t even know it’s foreshadowing. I’m honestly in awe - I usually pick up on Checkov’s guns pretty easily, but the author does such a good job at telling you things that will be important later while also simultaneously keeping your attention fixed elsewhere that you just…don’t see it coming until it slaps you across the face. A rare experience for me, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

There’s also a lot of heart in this book. Athan struggles with life-altering childhood trauma, as well as taking care of his ailing grandmother, both of which I can relate to personally, so I really connected with him and felt for him deeply. He’s just a sad soft boi trying his best, and that is my JAM. I immensely enjoyed living in his world for the duration of the book, especially seeing him be so authentically himself with his pansexuality, without shame - and he even gets to enjoy a little romance while he’s not running for his life! More of this, please!

I also love that this is queer horror that *isn’t* about the horrors that come with being queer, for once. Please stop pitting us against bigotry and just let us be hunted by inter-dimensional beasties in peace, thank you very much!

I gave this 4.5 stars instead of five because I can’t help myself, I just want to understand why the creepy things are the way they are! It’s totally a personal preference, but I don’t especially enjoy more ambiguous endings - I need to KNOW! If you’re totally cool with not knowing everything about everything, then I think this will probably end up with a higher rating for you than it did for me. Nothing at all against the book, it’s phenomenal, I just crave neat little endings. I also feel like the whole aspect of the shadowy people in power in this book could have been expanded on more, but I know that this was Athan’s story and his life, so I understand why it took a backseat to that. I just think it was a really cool concept that I would’ve liked to know more about.

Final Thoughts:

Yeah, this book was amazing. I don’t have much else to say other than I loved it and I need to you read it! I will definitely be adding a hard copy of this to my shelf!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me an e-arc of this novel!

Unfortunately, I'm DNF'ing at 50%. The narrative just isn't working for me. It's a bit too all over the place. I think advertising that it was written in a day isn't the smartest of moves, because it reads like it was written in a day. It's repetitive and there's a manic pixie dream boy and the tone is all over the place...it's a shame, because I liked The Honeys. This one just isn't my cup of tea.

I've read and thoroughly enjoyed La Sala's work in the past (especially The Honeys and Reverie), and know to expect a strange and unique reading experience. Beholder definitely offered that and more. Unfortunately, for me, it also offered a LOT going on in ways that often seemed to be competing for my attention, rather than working together to hold it.

I loved the way this story started. The opening sentence is fantastic, and I loved Athan and Yiayia and the darkly mysterious Uhlar and enigmatic Dom. But about half-way in I realized I was losing the threads more often than working them into cohesion, and that's when it definitively lost me. I really like the premise, but there was so much going on in so many different directions that I felt like I was floundering to keep track of where I was, with whom, and why.

This was not my favorite of his reads. While he tends to tell a circular, winding story that leads the reader on a merry dance, this time I just never felt fully connected to the action or charaters, despite really liking them (which doesn't make sense to me either, but is nevertheless true). It feels like a visual medium would have helped me A LOT. The writing is very evocative (at times too much so, this is a dark and eerie tale!) and The Yellow Wallpaper references and gothic atmosphere were fantastic, but I still really struggled to follow the story and ultimately gave up in frustration...

The characters and premise were unique, but it wasn't quite what I expected. That said, I did find it highly engaging, and the storyline kept me turning the pages! The ending was a bit confusing, but this is a fun, trippy ride overall.

I just can not describe this. Okay, but I'm gonna try! This was mind-bendingly frightening while being one of the most thought-provoking books I've read this year. It's not only about what we see in the mirror, but what about us is reflected back. This was so good!!!!

This is one of those books that had me screaming into my pillow bc it's so creepy but so exciting and thrilling. This is going to be on my mind for a long time, and I'm totally fine with that.

If you're looking for the perfect creepy read this October, then check this out!

Out October 3, 2023!

Thank you, Netgalley and Publisher, for this Arc!

This book starts out with such a great opener: "The Sunday night of the party, a few hours before everyone dies, a girl with bleached bangs is telling you all about her future." How can you not be invested after a line like that!? And I was. I am trying to be very vague, because this book is full of mysteries that you are going to want to unfurl for yourself.

I really felt for Athan from the start, his life has been far from easy. He lost his parents young, and now even his grandmother is showing signs of decline. This kid just cannot lose anyone else, you know? But he also finds himself at this aforementioned party where bad things have gone down, which means both the reader and Athan are kind of thrown into the mix, and you can tell that this going to be a hell of a ride.

While the book definitely required some suspension of disbelief, the author did a great job of making all the different fantastical bits feel legit. There is a ton of action, but also a ton of character development too. I also felt really invested in the characters, and the book was surprisingly emotional at times, which I loved. (Sidenote, I feel like this would make an amazing show or movie, and someone should get on that.)

Bottom Line: Very solid book, go in without knowing too much so that you too can uncover all the things!

This book is WILD. I’ve read this author’s previous book, The Honeys, which starts normal-ish and then gets crazy at the end, but this one is a complete trip from start to end. I really enjoyed my reading experience and was prepared for it to be unrealistic/supernatural so while that’s not typically my thing, I was ready for it and enjoyed it here. The end got a little confusing and just a little TOO MUCH for me but for what it was trying to do, I think it achieved its goal in being a wild, fun, horrific, trippy horror book with surprisingly lovable characters and interesting themes and messages. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC!

goddddddddd.

what is it about ryan la sala and writing horror that i actually will read? much like the honeys, there is this lingering feeling of Something Not Being Right and you want to know but know that it will terrify you the moment you find out.

athan is my son and i was rooting So Hard for him to get his happy ending.

thank you to scholastic and netgalley for the earc!

Brace yourself because right from the start Beholder doesn't stop. Athanasios "Athan" Bakirtzis has an odd aversion to mirrors and reflective surfaces. He never meets his eyes in a reflection because, when he does, he "unwinds" the mirror and can see the past...and something terrible lurking within the mirror trying to escape. When a party Athan is attending suddenly turns into a bloodbath, no one survives but Athan because a mysterious boy named Dom shoves him into the bathroom with a promise to come get him when it is safe. Outside the door he hears manic laughter and sobbing and, after hours of this, silence.

As Athan lets himself out of the bathroom he is greeted by a grizzly sight and, as the only survivor, he finds himself the only suspect. Athan finds himself swept up into a supernatural mystery which mixes crazy high society occultists with eldritch horrors with particular thoughts on art and even his own mystical mirror powers, just to prove his innocence.

I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy this book at the start. Despite it sharing the "we're off to the races immediately" feel that The Honeys also had, I didn't feel like I had a good enough grasp on Athan and his weird mirror powers and it kept me disconnected. I soon learned that the audience can't know because Athan doesn't quite know and that helped me settle into the story. With obvious inspiration taken from The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Beholder is a fun time but maybe not my favorite time. It felt simultaneously too long AND too short? The ending, like that of The Honeys, felt rushed and the characters never felt as fleshed out as I wanted them to be.

I still think that Beholder is a really good time and, with Ryan La Sala becoming more of a household name in queer book spaces, I know a lot of people will be reading this. I think this is a fun book that leans slight towards the more mature side of YA offerings that really proves that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scholastic for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I mostly enjoyed the very strange ride Beholder took me on. La Sala grabbed me from the very first chapter, and even though the pacing lagged a little bit toward the middle, I was on the journey with the protagonists.

I just wish I understood exactly how we all got there. La Sala drops us into a world where people just randomly have powers, and no one really seems to know about them except for a random cult-y group (and Athan's family, which are somehow connected to the cult), the origins and goals of which are never expounded upon. The idea is good, the execution is fun, but I also feel like it didn't really make a whole of sense because nothing is explained or explored.

Thank you, NetGalley, Scholastic and Ryan La Sala for providing me with an eARC of Beholder for review.

⭐⭐⭐⭐💫 - rounded up.

This is my first Ryan La Sala read and I was very keen to request it as I have heard wonderful things about Honeys - it is in the TBR pile, sorry.

This read is a wonderful combination of a bit of mythology, a lot of murder mystery, some classic RomCom shenanigans and a pinch of commentary on beauty.

For me, this book moved at a great pace. I wasn't distracted or bored at any time. I wanted to read it quicker than I did but holiday activities got in the way.

I am a complete sucker for ancient folklore and fables so Athan's exploration of this component really grasped my focus whilst we were also solving our murder mystery.

That ending was beautiful.

I think my only real issue with the book is the aging of the characters. I am not completely convinced that Athan and Dom were genuinely 17-year-olds or at least not written as teenagers in earlier drafts. But I didn't grow up in New York, New York so I may just be a little out of touch.

The cover and concept of this book are what drew me in; the Lovecraftian atmosphere and big bad along with some unique representation were also big plusses. The writing style and the dark, ominous setting are superb. For me this novel started out giving me, as the reader, too much credit. I felt thrown in to the story and into this character's life, which sometimes is a great hit the ground running experience: in this case, I feel like I was thrown in and landed on my head. As I got up reeling, trying to piece this character's backstory together, I found that I was startled and confused and unsure. I wanted a clearer definition of the past leading to the future. I needed to understand this curse more than was given me. I think this is still a great book. I think this book is for a niche audience who like cosmic horror. That audience is not me.

I enjoyed this funky queer Yellow Wallpaper inspired YA horror and was really excited about the author showcasing a protagonist with OCD undergoing therapy right up it became a plot device and the novel introduced the Evil Therapist Actually Just Suppressing Your Magic Abilities trope :(

This is a tough one to review for me. I adored La Sala's "The Honeys,' and enjoyed his earlier 2 novels as well. This one didn't work for me quite as well, I think mostly because the blend of this kind of massively-high-stakes horror with a more normative YA (queer) romance felt...dissonant. The tonal shifts were hard for me to handle, basically. There were still plenty of awesome things going on, though.