I randomly requested The Bad Ones and was super surprised when I saw I was accepted! Thank you NetGalley, Melissa Albert and Flatiron Books for the opportunity to read this ARC and leave my honest review!

I do want to first off preface this review by saying that I have only (attempted to) read one other book by Melissa Albert, The Hazel Wood, and for some reason I just couldn’t get into it. That being said, Melissa Albert is a talented writer and she uses a lot of description in her writing, which really does help you to get into the minds of the characters and sets the scene very well.

Overall, I think that I enjoyed reading this book, but there were things that weren’t explained as well as they could have been, especially as we get to the end of the book and its conclusion. I can see the complicated dynamics of Nora’s friendship with Becca and how that could lead to messy situations as they both grow older, and the theme of toxic friendships is very well explored.

When it comes to Becca’s reasoning for why everything happened and what led up to her disappearance, things get a little foggy and even at the end of the book, I am still uncertain as to her motives. But then again, sometimes we do strange things for our friends. It also explores some heavy themes so check trigger warnings!

The pacing is great, the themes are well developed, and I liked the horror/otherworldly feel woven throughout. Overall, I gave it 3/5 stars and would recommend to anyone who likes a bit of small town friendship drama with some supernatural horror elements thrown in for good measure.

Thank you to NetGalley & the publishers for this ARC in exchange for my honest review!!

This was my first book by Melissa Albert and I was pleasantly surprised by the story. It’s full of mystery and suspense and kept me guessing. In the beginning, I was so confused but it all gets explained very well as the story progressed. The end really picked up and I was mostly invested in Rita & Patty’s story. It was heartbreaking & devastating. I liked how this book dealt with friendships that are pretty much toxic and how you need other people in your life. Nora depending on other people who weren’t Becca was nice to see. The blend of fantasy and reality was done so well. I was unsure what was real and what could be in Nora’s imagination.

I’m excited to read more by this author. I also have Our Crooked Hearts and will be reading it soon as well!

Content Warnings: death, murder, death of a parent, toxic friendship, blood, drowning, violence, brief descriptions of sexual violence, grooming

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this eARC!

Love and devotion, while similar, are not exactly the same. Their definitions run alongside one another, sometimes overlapping, their edges bleeding together. In that dark, blurry space where they meet lives Melissa Albert’s The Bad Ones.

Over the course of a single winter night, four people within the same city vanish into thin air. One of the missing is Nora’s best friend, a talented photographer named Becca. Becca and Nora haven’t spoken in three months, until the night that Becca texts Nora “I love you” out of nowhere.

By the time Nora arrives at Becca’s house to talk, her friend is nowhere to be found.

This is a story that starts out creepy and gets a whole lot creepier. The sense of dread was wonderful; it was impossible to look away. The more I learned about the missing people and the city’s dark past, the more questions I had. All I wanted was to stay up all night and finish the book in one sitting.

I enjoyed the characters a lot more than I usually do with YA books. As a narrator, Nora was a character I could empathize with, and who I couldn’t help but root for. She was believable and likable, which is not always the case with teenage protagonists. The glimpses of Becca were even more interesting to me; I would love to read a version from her point of view. And all the side characters — James, Ruth, Sloane, Cat — stood out in their own ways.

The magical aspect is deliciously done. This is not sparkly, Disney-fairy magic. This is dark and primeval and quite possibly not of this earth. It is magic with a taste, a texture. It is feral little girl magic, amplified a thousand times over.

If any of this sounds up your alley, make sure to check out The Bad Ones. You won’t regret it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The mix of mystery and dark fantasy was perfect. I’ve just started getting into fantasy and this was a great read!

melissa albert has a way of writing that imbeds itself into my soul and doesn’t let up.
the bad ones is a ya horror fantasy about four people who vanish from seemingly thin air. one of those people being nora’s bestfriend, becca.
we are taken on a journey of learning the backstory to nora and becca’s relationship & why this disappearance might not be so mysterious after all.

nora is a multi-faceted character that i really enjoyed reading. she’s going through a lot and the character progression was done so well. by the end of the book i felt like i knew her better than i knew myself.
we are presented with an array of background characters that each add something different to the story, whether that be plot progression or just comedic relief. i felt like each character fit perfectly into the story & was fleshed out to be a single person.

the small subplot of romance is sooo good. melissa always does a great job of this & i loved the mmc so much. he was so cute. this story is not a romance by any means, but having that small little bit really adds to everything imo. sometimes i don’t enjoy romance in books like this. it can feel useless but melissa does it so well every time.

the writing is so creepy and claustrophobic. i could feel myself cringing while reading at certain points. the prose are so beautiful, adding such a beautiful depth to this story. we essentially are following multiple cases of disappearances in this town, and melissa ties it all up with a beautiful ribbon at the end.
the underlying messages of her stories are always so good, and this one just the same. she has such a way of writing about female rage that really hits me in my core.

the reason i rated this a 4/5 was because i did feel like at times the story dragged at bit. it definitely kept my attention, but the flowery writing just isn’t for me all the time.

i definitely recommend this! it was such a good story with such a good ending.

thank you netgalley for an e-arc of this book.

4.5 stars rounded up

I really enjoyed this - it's a nice mix of mystery with dark fantasy elements, set in a well done YA framework. I definitely stayed up late reading it!

I think this has adult appeal - give to fans of Leigh Bardugo's Ninth House and Holly Black's Book of Night.

The premise and beginning of the story grabbed me, but the mc bored me. That with a way too slow plot that seemed to drag its feet at moving forward made this book a chore to read.

3.25 ⭐️ NetGalley ARC Review
The description of this book sounded really interesting and unique, so I was excited to give it a read. I found the whole concept/plot intriguing, but I felt the overall execution of it to be lacking something. I was invested from the start, wondering where the story would take us, wanting to figure out what happened to all the people who mysteriously disappeared. However around the middle of the book I felt like things kind of lulled and then they picked back up towards the end (in which everything happened all at once and it was almost an overload of information). I’m not sure if it was the ending in of itself or just the way it was told, but it wasn’t as satisfying as I was hoping. It made sense and everything was technically wrapped up, but I felt like it was missing something. To me, it almost felt as if the story was just on the edge of fully committing to the supernatural/fantasy elements, but not going all the way. I think if it had been expanded on/added to (and not in such a rushed manor), the story would’ve felt more complete as well as more satisfying to the reader. I enjoyed the characters and there was a little romantic sub plot, which I didn’t mind, but it also felt a little random/incomplete. I think it should have been built up more and further explored or excluded completely and just been a friendship. Overall, it was a fun enough and easy read, which I enjoyed for the most part, but I do feel like it was lacking in some areas.

3.5 stars rounded up. In order to solve the mystery of the #PalmettoVanishings, The Bad Ones by Melissa Albert delves deep into past wrongs and the creation of the Goddess game. It is a slow paced mystery and asks you to suspend disbelief because it deals with the supernatural. Slow pacing and some glitches in reality decreased my enjoyment of the story. The cover art is fantastic and the author’s creativity is amazing. Thanks to Flatiron Books and NetGalley for the ARC. I received an advance review copy and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Oohh this dark and twisty new YA offering from Melissa Albert is so good!

We’ve got strange disappearances of 4 young women in a small town, local folklore, vengeful goddesses and loads of witchy goodness.
I’m here for anything Melissa Albert writes and I loved this one. It’s a slow burn but the sinister tone of the book and horror elements will keep readers flying through the pages wanting to find out what exactly did happen to those girls?

This is a story that blurs the line between reality and fantasy. Overall a really fun, paranormal YA horror book!

Thank you Flatiron Books and NetGalley for providing me with and ARC in exchange for an honest review!

First, I must say that I really love Melissa Albert’s writing style. It reeled me in right away. And what an imagination! I loved the idea, and I loved the slow revealing of the meaning behind what was thought of as an innocent childhood jump rope rhyme that actually had a much deeper and darker genesis—kind of like most nursery rhymes and fairy tales!

When her best and only true friend goes missing along with three other people, Nora finds herself traveling a twisted and rocky path to find out what happened, a path that takes her to some very dark and scary places. Albert’s characters are well drawn, its a wonderful plot, and there is more than one surprise in this wonderful YA book.

This was wonderful. I really loved the theme of childhood imagination merging with something darker and becoming more sinister as childhood gives way to young adulthood, with those games becoming more meaningful and deadly. The characters were all very vibrant and the mystery unraveled at a satisfying pace. This is my favorite Melissa Albert book to date.

I'm a huge fan of Mellissa Albert and The Bad Ones does not disappoint. It's a highly entertaining YA supernatural mystery with vanishings, vengeful goddesses, possession, and some light romance thrown in. I would describe it as My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix meets The Secret History.

3.5 stars. The Bad Ones by Melissa Albert — available Feb 20!

Thank you Flatiron Books and NetGalley for my free advance copy 🫶

Read this if you:
💀 are all about the vibes, and the vibes are dark
👯‍♀️ had/have a bestie that you get into epic fights with
🧙‍♀️ ever played hedge witch in the woods as a child (or adult?)

Four people vanish overnight from the same small town, and one of them is Nora's best friend Becca. Becca who sent a strange text to Nora right beforehand, and who seems to have left clues behind for her as to what's going on. But the clues are bizarre, and they seem to point to the old town legend of the "goddess game" — which every child knows of and has played, possibly to dangerous outcomes. Has Becca somehow confused reality and legend? Or is the goddess real, and hungry for souls?

This was such a fun ride!! I flew through it and found the pacing pretty solid, though it did drag just a bit for me in the middle. The vibes are immaculate, so if sinister suspense is your thing, you'll love them too. I found myself relating hard to the games Becca and Nora used to play, including their current "game" of not talking to each other (teen girlhood is tough, y'all). I wish the ending had been more impactful for me, it was wrapped up super quickly, but overall I found this one really enjoyable.

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

I really enjoyed this one. It was unique to anything I've read before. I read it in just over a day. The pacing was and the characters interesting. This is my first read by this author, but won't be my last!

A fascinating concept for a book. However, I found the main character quite irritating and the way she behaved and how she was discussed did not match. There was a romantic plot line that was entirely unnecessary. Overall, a really interesting book, just some improvements could have been made.

The pacing is slow at first, but once things kicked into gear I found myself anxious to know where it would go next. When it came to characters, I felt Nora and Becca were compelling and well-developed, but there were so many side characters I found it difficult to keep track. On the positive side, the romance between Nora and James was very sweet. The prose was standard for a YA thriller, however there were some metaphors and turns-of-phrases that struck me as odd or confusing. There were certain words I had to look up, as I had never seen them before, so I can’t imagine the average teenager would understand them either. All in all, this is a solid addition to the genre and will resonate strongly with its intended audience.

The Bad Ones is a YA horror thriller, especially thrilling with the three disappearing scenes in the beginning. Albert's third novel/series is more YA than her previous hits, with a sweet, well-meaning main character Nora who has a loving normal family and active high school life.
Spoiler: and there's a happy ending rather than an ominous goodbye.

Thank you Flatiron (Cat) and Netgalley for the digital advanced review copy.

Thank you to Netgalley and Flatiron books for this ARC!

(netgalley arc)

The Bad Ones is your typical YA thriller, similar to A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder and One Of Us is Lying, except with some supernatural elements.

I wasn’t super impressed by the way the story panned out, but it was very entertaining and did its job at being thrilling and keeping the reader on their toes. I also enjoyed most of the characters, which is pretty rare in thrillers.

All in all, I would recommend this mostly to teens (obviously) and/or those who are fans of Holly Jackson and Katherine McManus.

Thank you Netgalley and Flatiron.

First of all. I wanna say Melissa has a unique writing style that I struggled to get into. Her pacing and storytelling is a bit unusual to me. However this was perfect. The reason it was not a five star is mainly due to me struggling with the writing and pacing. That's more of a me issue than author though.