This was a cute magical realism YA book. The main character's name was chosen in the lottery that occurs in her town every 10 years. In that lottery, the chosen person gets to pick one person from their life that has died to come back to life for 30 days. Wilson chooses one of her childhood friends that she was not talking to anymore when she died. The book starts out at the beginning when Annie comes back to life and the 30 days that follow as a result of her coming back to life. A lot of the adventures are more about Wilson growing up than Annie's return to earth. There is a lot of growing up to do and learning for the girls who have been left on earth.

Thank you to Wednesday and Net Galley for a gifted e-copy of the book!

I enjoyed this book and its premise, but it was a little bit slow for me. I really liked the worldbuilding in this book, its done so cleverly and you never question the laws that govern Lennon. The different pieces of each girl's stories fall together quite beautifully, and the ending is a fitting resolution to the book. However, I felt like the middle of the book dragged a little. It was cute and it was fun, but it was just lacking that something extra that would make me want to voraciously consume it.

This is the first book I've ever read from Molly Morris and I really enjoyed it! It was a fun premise that kept me engaged and interested throughout. It was also fast paced and I kept thinking about it whenever I wasn't reading it! Thank you for the chance to read this story!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of Annie Leblanc is Not Dead Yet in exchange for an honest review!

The story takes place in Lennon, California where we meet Wilson, who has just won the Welcome Back lottery where she can choose one person to bring back from the dead for 30 days. She has chosen Annie, her ex best friend who died unexpectedly. Wilson finds out that in the past, winners of the contest have been able to permanently stay after the 30 day timeframe, and her goal is to find a way to keep Annie on earth. Wilson’s plan is to get Annie and her other former best friend Ryan, to become friends again, hoping that this will be enough to convince who ever is in charge to let Annie stay.

I really wanted to like this book but I just feel like something was missing. The concept was interesting; I liked the idea of being able to bring someone back from the dead, and getting to spend time with them and saying your goodbyes. Unfortunately, I just felt like nothing was really happening in this story. I didn’t feel like I connected with any of the characters. Wilson was a bit all over the place and it seemed like she was constantly arguing with somebody, whether that be with her mom Jody, Ryan and even Annie at times. I think Wilson also falling for both Ryan and Ryan’s brother didn’t sit right with me either.

At the end of the day, I just think that this book wasn’t for me.

I found myself to really enjoy the main characters and thought the concept was also very interesting, I don't think I’ve read anything similar but I feel like the storyline dragged a bit in the middle. It also felt a bit predictable in such an odd way. The only thing that just felt so out of place was the romance, I don’t feel like the two characters had a lot of good chemistry at all during the book, almost like they were forced together last minute. I think I would’ve liked it more if it was just about their mending their friend group back before the 30 days was up. Thank you so much for the opportunity of the ARC.

I absolutely FLEW through this! I had pretty low expectations going into this, solely because I'm not really a fluffy contemporary/romance reader, but I had so much fun! I literally couldn't stop reading. I love the concept of a raffle where someone can choose to bring a lost loved one back to life for 30 days but I really wish you learned more about how it works and why it even happens. I also found most of the characters to be insufferable but I'm able to look past it a bit because this is a young adult novel. Overall, I had a really good time and I'm definitely going to read this author's other book and look out for more that she writes in the future!

This is a strange little book. Wilson enters her town's contest to, you know, earn the right to bring someone back from the dead for 30 days. She picks her best friend, Annie, trying to overlook the fact that the two weren't friends at all in the last year of Annie's life. But when she gets Annie "back," she seems to gloss over that fact, falling back with Wilson like the old days and confusing her to no end.

So I'm fine with a book about someone coming back from the dead being quirky; in fact, you'd expect it. Instead, ANNIE LEBLANC seems like a standard YA story about friend drama--it just happens that one of those friends is dead. Nothing seems to happen! Wilson is an OK main character, if a bit in her head, but I didn't even like Annie, or Ryan, the third friend in their trio, or Wilson's mom Jody.

Wilson spends her life being responsible for her mom and her little sister, feeling lonely with no friends after a blow up with Annie and Ryan. The book drags out the reveal of why she and Annie and Ryan fought and it still doesn't make sense. Wilson seems to think she's found a loophole to keep Annie alive, so she works diligently to achieve it, while being rather clueless. Meanwhile, there's a million miscommunications, and it appears as if this gang never once interacted with one another or another human.

I'm glad the story has lesbian/bisexual rep and enjoyed the themes of friendship (albeit awkward ones!) and family, but this plot missed overall for me.

Thank you Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press for this ARC! I thought this was a fun, cute summer read!! The style of writing was easy to follow and I completely fell in love with the small town community! It was very fitting that I finished this one around the 4th of July where the story ends. I’ll admit I was totally confused by the end of the story. At first this bothered me but I do think Molly Morris intended for it to be that way and I respect it because the reader’s uncertainty and confusion aligns with the coming of age theme and accurately reflects the idea that even as we “grow up” there is still so much uncertainty and things unknown. Even as adults, no one has it all quite figured out.

#summer #goodyareads #teendrama #smalltownusa #graduation #newrelease #offthetbr #booklover #adventuresintbrland

This was a very interesting switch up for me. It has such an interesting concept and I had no clue what to expect. I had a fun time with this

The premise of this one sounds really fun. However, I was bored and found myself not caring for the characters. I DNF at 40%.

This was a delightful and creative story. I liked the exploration of the relationships and time. How do we treat people if we get a second chance?

I did not expect this book to make me feel all the feels.I think having my father recently pass away probably helped in that. I truly don't know if I would enter the Welcome Back Lottery or not but man wouldn't be it be great if we at least had that option? It absolutely gutted me to think about it. I was so happy for Wilson, Annie, and Ryan to get those 30 days to figure themselves out and to figure each other out. I felt like this was a really great story that a lot of us could relate to in different ways! It made me cry and laugh so much.

Thank you @netgalley and @wednesdaybooks for the ARC.

I got an ARC of this book.

I did not read all of the description, I read the bold part and then saw it was queer. That was it. So I was surprised by some of the details that others know going in. One day I may fix this quirk of mine so I read a full book description, but it made this feel so alive. Not knowing that Annie ghosted made it have a huge tonal shift really fast. It was wonderful.

The romance is weird. I didn’t really get it. It felt like it was all of a sudden. It didn’t really work for me. The end result did, but getting there felt like a weird deviation. The more compelling plot that also felt a bit side lined was the feelings the MC had about her mom. Those were intense and complicated, but it felt thrown on and not given as much time as it deserved. I loved the plot, but I wish it had gotten more page time to really make it powerful. It took me a bit to realize that her parents were her parents since they were introduced by name at the same time as her sister, so I kept flipping the names around. Once I got it, it was just a weird detail that I enjoyed. Gave the feelings around not being enough some teeth.

The idea the book focuses more on was how to keep Annie after her 30 days are up. The thought process and set up for that was mild, just don’t think too hard level of set up. It worked. I didn’t really need the details to enjoy the story. If it were an adult book, I think too much time would have been devoted to setting up that part of the world instead of just going. It kept the book more about the characters than about how magic works.

I read this over two days. It was fun to read and I wanted to see what happened. I didn’t have to think really hard and it was mostly clear what was going to happen (outside of the romance). It is not the most amazing book I have read this year, but I really enjoyed it and can see myself getting more by Morris.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the eARC.

Oh this book was just so cute. I really enjoyed the characters and the storyline. It was unlike anything I had read before and look forward to recommending it far and wide.

It was okay. The weird little things like the contest itself and its immortal host were delightful but felt underutilized. The relationships felt a tad underdeveloped, especially the main character and her mother. That conflict felt life it was 3 scenes long. Overall it felt like the book went on too many tangents and had to rush the romance and friendship reconciliation. Ending also felt rushed and predictable.

I really enjoyed this. The concept of the Welcome Back ceremony was unique and whimsical. And to be honest, a little emotional. Who wouldn’t want to bring back a loved one for a little extra time? This was like a ghosty girlhood novel in the best way. I loved the sweet sapphic romance although I would not market this as a romance in and of itself

IDK where the magical realism comes into play. I did not like this book, overall I was disappointed. The blurb really is nothing like the book and I will not be recommending this.

This was such a fun concept for the town. I loved the story and how the author wrote the story for the friends to work through everything together. The relationship between Wil and Ryan wasn't the most believable only because Ryan was SO HARSH in the beginning and through most of the book. Like it would take a lot to make up for that and I feel it needed to be done better.

This book left me conflicted. Basically (in a non-spoiler summary) this small town has a Welcome Back every 10 years in which someone is chosen to come back from the dead for 30 days and sometimes they get to actually stay for good. Annie is picked to come back from the dead thanks to her ex-bff, Wilson, submitting her name to the drawing and Wilson subsequently tries to figure out how to get the ~magic of the town~ to let Annie stay alive past the 30 days.

While the story itself was an enjoyable concept, the characters all kinda sucked. Miscommunication trope left and right. As well as the MC talking down to herself allllll the timeeeee while still managing to be selfish. It got real annoying real fast.

There is thankfully character development once people start actually being honest with each other, but the development all felt super rushed towards the end. Also my brain struggled to remember that these characters are 17-18 years old and just finished high school. So I guess I can excuse some of their ~bratty~ behavior.

I think my favorite part was a conversation between the MC and her mom that (as someone with eldest daughter syndrome) left me in tears. A beautiful moment that you'll just have to read to experience for yourself.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an e-ARC of this book (that I definitely didn't forget to read before the book was actually published, my b).

super interesting idea! loved this book, the characters were very well developed and i did not expect everything that played out