I am sorry to say I DNF this book. I could not get into it and it is certainly not my kind of book to read.

Thank you NetGalley and Text Publishing for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

Here, and Only Here is a maze of weird and unsettling incidences happening in a secondary school through one academic year, told from the povs of four students and a substitute teacher. The school (which everybody called "Here") had many absurd and cruel unwritten rules, which origins no one knew but upheld steadfastly.

The story started out pretty "normal": bullies were plenty, teachers didn’t give a shit, no one paid attention to classes, kids smoking cigarettes and even weed at school. Then things got uglier and uglier as the story unraveled. There was a ghost, invisible students, a murder, a (metaphorical?) immaculate conception, and a repeating upcoming apocalypse was waiting to happen.

It’s like one of those weird French movies but with junior high children instead of adults/sex stuff. It’s became more and more surreal by the page. I am sure somewhere there's an allegory for school life and puberty and growing up but I am not sure if I got it. But it was, weirdly enough, an enjoyable read for me. 3.5 stars!

eARC provided by NetGalley and Text Publishing.

Well.

WELL.

What a mindfork that was.

I absolutely loved it.

Christelle Dabos took the high school experience and morphed it into a deliciously weird combination of grunge, psychological horror and magical realism. It almost felt like an episode of Doctor Who, sans The Doctor. Or if Jaclyn Moriarty's Ashbury/Brookfield series took a dark turn.

I'm keen to read other reviews because I'm predicting Here and Only Here will be very divisive. There will be people who are obsessed with it (me) or people who detest it (those who can go to the bogs from hell).

Some things I loved:
- Every character had a distinct voice, which isn't always the case in choral novels.
- Despite the heavy subject matter throughout Here and Only Here, there were also a lot of opportunities to giggle. The Ultra Secret Club in particular made me laugh.
- You really feel for the characters and want to hug them/yell at them/call the cops on them.
- It made me question a lot of things, like, is this whole book a giant metaphor? Have I accidentally ingested the schmoil? Did Pierre really do what I think he did?

Although Here and Only Here has been categorised as children/ YA, this could easily fit into sci-fi/fantasy. Our bookshop will probably put a few copies in both sections, although I'm more likely to hand sell it to an adult. I think Here and Only Here will connect more with people who have been through high school, rather than kids/teens who are still in the thick of it.

Overall it left me both deeply moved and deeply disturbed. I'd give it 6 out of 5 stars if I could.