An engaging read that I thoroughly enjoyed! Highly recommend and will purchase several physical and digital copies for library collections. Thank you!!

A decent concept here. A grief plot is going to be reflective and emotional while a mysterious abused girl plot tends to be more of a thriller. Mashing the two together gives us the strong pacing with moments of introspection. It explores a conspiracy as a method of unpacking grief. The execution is a bit shaky and the characters tend to be thin.

Where There’s Smoke
By: E.B Vickers

Genre:
Young Adult, Mystery, Thriller, religious

Summary/ Review:
Call’s is struggling after the loss of not only her mom, but now her dad too, when Calli notices a young girl. The young girl looks to be injured and Calli takes to supporting this young girl, a responsibility which becomes therapeutic for Calli until she begins to question so many things…This is a work of fiction which fell short for me. It had so many good aspects of talent in the writing, but quickly began to unravel the further I read, falling short in the plotline and character development.

Thank you to E.B. Vickers, Random House Children's, Knopf Books for Young Readers, and Netgalley for the Advanced Readers Copy for free. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

#reluctantreaderreads
#Ebvickers #netgalley
#wheretheressmoke
#advancedreaderreads

Interesting premise. Did not connect with the writing style. Would recommend to teen though as they might enjoy this story as I am seemingly not the target audience.

I love the way the author has chosen to tell this story. It’s got prose chapters from Calli’s perspective, and some short chapters or scenes in poetry in between them. The poems tell several other characters’ perspectives, and they’re a little bit veiled, really anchored in the context of what Calli learns in the scenes from her point of view.

It’s hard to talk about some of my feelings about this book without spoilers, but I’m going to do my best.

One of the things that made a lot of sense but sometimes frustrated me as a reader is the way that Calli waffled back and forth in her theories about what had happened to Ash. Sometimes, minute to minute, she’s convinced this person is totally guilty of harming Ash, and the next minute, she’s certain they’re innocent, and it must be someone else. It makes sense because new things keep happening, and she’s never sure who’s telling her the truth.

I did see some of the reveals in the book coming, but I think they were ones that maybe you were supposed to figure out ahead of time. There were definitely plenty of things I didn’t expect and some things that made me look back at earlier scenes with new eyes.

On the whole, I think the author did an amazing job creating a suspenseful story and including commentary on faith and faith communities in a neutral way that allows readers to draw their own conclusions about the characters separately from religion.

I found the question of who Ash was along with who had hurt her the most compelling part of this book. It dragged in places and though religion was a very prominent theme throughout the entire book, I would have liked to see a stronger analysis of the role it played in the various cover ups. Overall, I did enjoy this book and the suspense aspects worked very well. I just wanted a bit more critical examination of religion.

I found this one slow to get into. The preview for it sounded good, but the book wasn't as exciting as I'd expected.

After each chapter, there is a poem that tries to pull everything together. But they seemed a bit out of place. The main character is supposed to be 18 or 19, but acts like she's 11. She's also terribly naive. How she doesn't figure things out until the bitter end is beyond me, because I had this one figured out in the first 20 pages.

I had to force myself to finish this one. It was pretty dull. And then it got quite preachy towards the end and talked about God quite a bit. I had to double check to see if this was labeled as a Christian mystery or what.

This book was a solid 4 star for me for the majority of the book. I loved the suspense and intensity of the writing. The character and plot development was engrossing and kept me turning pages. I even liked the poetry, and I'm not a huge poetry fan. The slowly unfolding mysteries were beautifully executed without belaboring or rushing. Where it sort of lost me was at the climax. The use of what I feel is over-the-top drama felt less than true to the first 80% of the book. The reliance on an act of God to push the plot forward lessened everything the story had been to that point. The resolution of the story was solid and felt like a return to the delightful read much of the book had been. I appreciate knowing how loose ends were tied up, and I was very pleased with the conclusion.

Coming from a strict religious background, I thought the religion throughout the book was handled appropriately and with care, as were the harder topics of abuse, addiction, grief, etc.

I realize this book was intended for teens, but they are savvy readers. There are many books within this genre that readers would be just as (if not more) satisfied with. My actual rating would be a 3.5, but I've rounded it up to 4.

I had a difficult time getting through this one. I wanted to like it as the premise sounded intriguing, but unfortunately I felt like it fell short of expectations. I did not care for the verse entries that were interspersed between the chapters - it felt more disjointed to me than helpful to the overall story. Some of the interactions between the characters were interesting, but the pace was so slow it was challenging to want to continue. I can see my HS students struggling to get into this one as well.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a DRC of this title for review. All opinions are my own.

This was a solid shoulder shrugging "meh" for me. I had high hopes for this one, and the premise sounded promising. But the story suffered from uneven writing, trying too hard, and ultimately failed. With a majority of the book written in traditional 1st person prose chapters, the interspersed (unevenly) poetry chapters told from an unknown and unreliable omniscient narrator were distracting and confusing. I think Vickers hoped these chapters/vignettes would add an air of mystery and suspense to the writing, but they fell short of that.

Overall, this is a skip for me. I would only recommend it for incredibly large collections where kids are looking for something that is kind of a mystery, but also kind of a study in grief. But, if you have students looking for those things, go ahead and just give them a Mindy McGinnis book or a Karen McManus and save yourself the trouble.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Children's, and Knopf Books for Young Readers for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

How does an author take such heavy topics and write about them in such an accessible way?? I thoroughly enjoyed this novel journeying into the depths of grief, family secrets, friendship, and caring for our fellow humans. I would recommend this to high schoolers and young adults, and would even consider it for a book club.

The story of Calli and Ash is heartbreaking and heartwarming, both at the same time.

This was a very interesting story. I liked the way the author used different narratives from many character's viewpoints for some chapters. The primary story was full of twists and turns, mystery and love. When you add the narrative chapters you see the hidden parts of the characters that aren't show to the world. It was very well done.
The numerous relationships and personal histories really helped to drive the story in numerous ways. I loved how it was all woven together to make a mystery as well as a reflection on ourselves.
Enjoy!

I really enjoyed this book and couldn’t put it down. I’m looking forward to reading more from this author in the future.