This read drew me in with its interesting premise surrounding this weird town and its magic abilities to grant one winner every decade in choosing who they want to be brought back from the dead. The first half of the book was fast paced and interesting, and then fell off towards the end as a lot of the questions I had were left unanswered .. it just felt like it wasn't the end, you know?

I really liked Wilson and Annie's friendship and the whole mystery surrounding Annie's death, but the third of the trio, Ryan, got on my nerves sometimes.

I really enjoyed this book up until about the 70% mark, and from there it wasn't bad, just kind of dropped in quality compared to the first half. The premise of the book is really interesting, and I really hoped we'd get a good explanation for the reason as to why this town has magical properties or what how the rules and Welcome Back program came to be, or how Ruth is supposedly immortal and a shapeshifter. But we get NOTHING of the sort, which was infuriating.

The ending was also really confusing {SPOILERS AHEAD}: Is Annie actually dead or not? Because I'm mad if she is - what was the point of figuring out the secret of how she died and having a whole book dedicated to solving the mystery? It just felt lackluster for it to end as it did, although the final part makes it seem like she's not? I'm confused.

The characters were a bit of a rollercoaster for me. At first I really enjoyed all the different personalities, but then I got really annoyed by Ryan. We're told how sweet and caring she can be under all her spikes and bite, but the only time we really get to see her be nice is at the very beginning when giving the fire ball candy to Wilson, and then basically never again. She's supposedly this really cool girl that everyone wants to date, but she just seems so mean that I don't get it. These kids also have no communication skills, and Wilson's relationship with her mom is very weird to me (although I do think it could be a realistic depiction for some people).

Overall, I still enjoyed my time listening to this book. I just didn't like it as much as I thought I would at the beginning.

3.5 Stars

In this strange town of Lennon, every 10 years, one person is chosen to select someone to come back from the dead for a month. When Wilson wins, of course she's bringing back her ex best friend, Annie. But they were a trio with Ryan, who now also hates her...

Navigating female friendships in high school is challenge enough; throw in changing schools, interests, and well, DYING and a lot of times those friendships won't withstand the trauma. Alone as ever, Wilson hopes bringing Annie back will fix everything, specifically her trio with Ryan - even though Annie & Wilson weren't even talking when she died.

Hardships and struggles unknown to all sides are revealed along this journey of having Annie back. Can feelings and hidden truths stay buried? Can they find a way to keep Annie alive?

This was a fast, fun, interesting read centered around friendship. I loved the concept, but there were definitely some things left unanswered or resolved to quickly for my tastes.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ 3.5 stars

Annie Leblanc is Not Dead Yet is a YA novel told through the eyes of the female main character, Wilson Moss.
Wilson won the "Welcome Back" and decided to bring back an old best friend named Annie Leblanc. The novel has themes of love, friendship, secrets and forgiveness.
I really wanted to like this book but I struggled pretty hard to get through the first half. The story seemed choppy at times with too much back and forth between the past and present. There was times I had to go back and reread the last page to figure out what timeline I was in. I also wish it explained the "Welcome Back" much better, like how it started and how they were actually brought back.
I was happy that I stuck with the book because I did enjoy the second half much more! The pace picked up and the writing seemed to flow better.
Thank you to @netgalley &@wednesdaybooks for sending this E-arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

I'd give this 3.5 stars.

This book made me feel old because all of the bands and fashion mentioned were popular when I was in high school. Good oj Jody for raising her daughter with that stuff.

This book is kind of weird in that every 10 years, someone from the town of Lennon gets to bring someone back from the dead. Except it's never explained how or why, just some random happening.

Wilson, the protagonist, chooses to bring back her friend Annie, who died the year before after ghosting their friendship on transferring to a new school. Wilson hopes to put things to rights and maybe get in some time with her friend in the 30 days she gets to return.

This book is super angsty teen stuff, and I thought Wilson was a wimp who needed to grow a backbone. Her friend Ryan sounds like a good candidate for teen therapy and some antidepressants.

None of the characters really jumped out at me. The book was okay but not something I'd read again.

My thanks to Netgalley and the Wednesday publishing for this ARC.

Cute, clean, and angsty, this YA romcom has it all with queer & paranormal elements. It feels young and the drama among these girls seems so obvious and communication would have been a big help among them, but… youth, ya know. I’d def recommend for high school & college aged readers.

Unfortunately this book was not for me. Early on there is not much background information on Lennon and how the “welcome back” works or why it happens every year. More importantly the writing style is very clunky and does not flow. It reads as a continuous train of thoughts from a teenager but without serving the plot.

I LOVED this book. I would call this book sort of magical realism, which is a sub genre I am personally obsessed with. The characters relationships between each other were all well-written and they all had so much depth. I adored Wilson and her loneliness and then growth felt so real to me. Additionally, queer (especially sapphic) YA books are so special to me. Representation MATTERS! I loved this one dearly.

What a roller coaster of laughs and tears shed. This book was a bittersweet journey of loss, mourning, friendship, and what It means to be a loyal person. Wilson has 30 days to make her dead friend Annie friends with their former friend Ryan, but when things don’t go according to plan, a new lesson is learned. A beautiful story, well done.

This was beyond good. Great if I must say. I can’t wait to rave about this to everyone. If you are looking for a good book, pick this up. Annie girl you are a star. I'll never forget you.

I loved the story, the world building and meeting the different characters. I felt completely immersed in the story and couldn't stop reading it.

I really should have read a synopsis of this book before going in. The re-aliving of one of main characters was such a jump scare haha that I was like "What?" and should have just known beforehand the premise of the story. This is not my typical genre and I love a good magical realism book- this just was not the one for me. LOVE the queer and lgtbq+ representation. I just couldn't stop picturing the Corpse Bride and found the overall world/setting hard to picture.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book!

I absolutely loved the premise of this book. There were great things but there were also sections that drug.

The book begins with a very fun fantasy premise. Once every ten years in a small California town there is a lottery. The winner gets to choose to bring back someone who is dead back to life for thirty days. The person can only be recognized by those who live in town and they can’t share anything about the afterlife.

Wilson (Wil) Moss wins and chooses to bring back her childhood best friend Annie LeBlanc. For their senior year of high school Annie’s family sends her to a private school and Annie disappears from the friendship. At the same time Ryan who was the third person in the friend group also stops being friendly to Wil. When Annie returns Ryan is still antagonistic to both. Wil wants her friends back and not to feel lonely. She also gets caught up in the idea that there may be a way for Annie to stay alive.

With the premise and the blurb I thought the focus would be on keeping Annie from returning to the dead. Instead there Wil going to her first party or getting drunk and singing karaoke. This is a YA book but the group break up is very juvenile. The feelings are spelled out better later but doesn’t totally explain why Ryan has been such a jerk for over a year. And I couldn’t get into wanting them to be together. A possible romance feels stuck in without purpose. I did like Wil’s mother and Wil’s relationship to her ex-step father.

Overall it is a sweet story, it deals with friends, feelings and relationships. But the middle feels muddled and slow. It doesn’t help that the blurb, while technically correct, gives a misleading impression of what the story is about. Recommend for middle school and up.

This puts a great spin on something we've all thought about before - bringing someone back from the dead. What would you do if you had one more chance at spending time with the person gone, that you loved, yearned for, miss? Make the most of it, ask questions, get closure, try to prolong it? This book has all of that, and definitely brings this topic to light, of which I think every one of use can see ourselves in this type of situation if it were possible.

This book was a really wholesome YA coming of age story, which I always love. The bit of fantasy of having a town lottery that brings someone back from the dead was a really fascinating concept and added a subtle underlying creepiness to the book for me. All in all this was a good look into teenage girls’ friendships and self-discovery of those early adulthood years.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the ARC. I loved reading this. This book made me cry several times, the teenage angst really hit me in the feels.

I really wanted to love this book.

The premise was interesting and I wanted to learn more about the town and this world, but I felt like I wasn't given enough. To me, people were acting way too casual about Annie being back and while I understand it's something that happens in their world... It still only happens once a decade !

I really had to push myself to finish this book, but I thought about aband0ning it a couple of times... Thankfully, the ending was more interesting, but once again, I felt like it wasn't enough.

Thank you St Martin's Press and MacMillan Audio for the chance to read Annie LeBLanc Is Not Dead Yet from Molly Morris. Great writing and a strongly acted audiobook, both formats worked really well for this story.

What a really thoughtfully executed YA book, I really loved the way that this story unfolded, how it became such a sweet coming of age, self discovery story about Wilson, Ryan. and Annie, their shared history, their friendship "breakup", and the chance to come back together (through a little unique twist of small town life in Lennon CA) to figure out what happened to their friendship and what comes next. The story focuses on 30 days to reconnect, to address past misunderstandings that happen in adolescence, to figure out what love and friendship is, and to realize how we often don't really know each other/don't show our true or full self. So very good!

Note, if you think the premise of someone coming back from the dead via a small town lottery seems like this is a book with a lot of suspension of reality themes, magical realism and that's not for you... ignore that feeling because this is just a way to tell a really good story, the nature of the little big of magic isn't the focus of the story at all!

An intriguing concept that kept me invested through the teenage angst. I love magical realism and I thought this worked really well. It leaves a lot of questions unanswered about the town and the mechanics of bringing someone back from the dead every decade but the ambiguity did not detract from the story for me. Bittersweet is the best word to describe this book, especially the ending, and I think it will resonate with a lot of people, not just teens.