Wow, what an intriguing read! This is one of those books that is confusing--in a good way!--but doesn't frustrate you. Charlene Thomas does such a great job dispensing the right information at the right time. It kept me interested without giving away too much. I would definitely recommend this to teens who enjoy slow burn and delightfully weird books!

What a surprise!
This book may be slow moving but it was so good!
It is definitely a head scratcher and a brain jumble all in one though.
As someone who can usually decipher a book before the halfway point, I was pleasantly surprised by this book.

Thanks to Penguin Teen & Netgalley for the arc.

This was an interesting concept combining ya, small town, mystery, and time travel.

A secret society hidden in a small town with dark academia vibes - this story gripped me from the start. A perfect, spooky Fall read, this cast of characters reminded me a bit of Stranger Things. I'm a sucker for time-bending plot lines, and this one will stick with me for a long time.

Theres the haves and the have nots. Streetlight is controlled by the haves, both for good and bad. Interesting story filled with drama and longing.. no-one ever leaves, but there are those that want to. Do you believe in time travel .

A little bit Twin Peaks, a little bit Black Mirror, and a whole lot of eerie small-town mystery—Streetlight People is an unforgettable, slow-burning thriller that expertly blends social commentary with a mind-bending plot.

At its core, this is a book about power—who has it, who wants it, and what people are willing to sacrifice to keep it. Kady, a Black girl from a working-class family, has spent years on the fringes of Streetlight’s elite, dating Nik, an Iverson Prep golden boy, but never truly being accepted. The IV Boys, the town’s most powerful and privileged social club, have always kept her at arm’s length—except for Aaron, an outsider who understands there’s more to the world than just Streetlight. But when Kady stumbles upon the ability to manipulate time, she finally has a way to hold onto Nik and rewrite her place in the town’s rigid social hierarchy.

The tension builds at a slow but deliberate pace, weaving themes of privilege, microaggressions, and class divides into a chilling supernatural mystery. The town of Streetlight has secrets, and as Kady bends time to her will, reality starts to unravel in ways she never expected. The more she twists the clock, the more monstrous the town—and perhaps herself—becomes.

Thomas delivers a brilliantly unsettling atmosphere, rich character development, and a slow-burning sense of dread that creeps under your skin. The pacing might not be for everyone, but the payoff is well worth it. Streetlight People is an enthralling, thought-provoking read that lingers long after the final page. Highly recommended for fans of speculative thrillers with sharp social commentary.

Charlene Thomas is SO good at gradually releasing information, and when you mix that with friends to lovers in a small town, I'm going to enjoy it. This is the kind of book you finish and then immediately pick up again in order to better understand the story. I recommend this for fans of Inception, Get Out, and The Dream Thieves!

I haven’t read anything as lyrical and mesmerising in a while! The premise, in particular, was intriguing, and Kady a sour protagonist where time travel was concerned, absolutely did not disappoint. Their raw, hungry, but still so teenager voice leapt off the page and made this such an evocative story, with imperfect characters, a kernel of goodness, and a deliberate acknowledgement of what it means to be a have-not in a world built for haves. What a fantastic read!

This was a truly unique book with lovable characters. I really enjoyed the friendships. The have vs the have nots is always something I like to analyze in books. Thanks netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

There was a lot going on in this book, but I did enjoy it overall - even though it is not my usual type of read. The premise of the book was quite interesting, being time travel - so that was a selling point for me. For me, the pacing was a little all over the place, times it was great, other parts skipped over and some areas were so. I'd love more consistency there, but still, the ending wasn't as impactful as I would have liked.

This was a cute idea with a promising plot. I think younger readers will enjoy the coming of age, teen issues, and teen romance a bit more than me. While it was engaging at times, it kind of became background noise for me, and I lost interest. While I love the time traveling idea to fix small problems, it wasn't enough to keep me reading. Still, there will definitely be an audience for this YA book.
3⭐️
As always, thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to have an advanced ebook copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

3.75 stars

Back with more TIME TRAVEL. This book has some great ideas and creative metaphors for wealth and class disparity and racism, and I was ready for a gut punch of an ending. Unfortunately, it didn't QUITE stick the landing as hard as I wanted. There was so much I loved about this, but the things I didn't really rubbed me the wrong way for some reason. 

We're following Kady, a teen girl living in the small town of Streelight. Kady is one of the "have-nots" and goes to public school, not part of the elite private school in crowd---but her boyfriend Nik is. He's part of a club full of old money and big names that runs the town, called the IV Boys. The IV Boys don't approve of Kady or her relationship with Nik. We also get the POV of Aaron, another IV Boy, but the only Black student at the private school, who doesn't quite fit in or understand how seriously everyone in Streetlight takes the social hierarchy and traditions. 
While Nik is away starting college, Aaron looks out for Kady, and the two become close friends, despite a rumor about the nature of their relationship. But then, at a Halloween festival, Kady wins a game and her prize is a bag of magical, time-traveling candies, that come with their own set of rules. 

I loved the small-town setting here, and ancient traditions and secrets are always fun. I did like the reveal and the allegories present here, a lot of it was very timely. I also liked Kady and her friend group a lot, and Aaron as well. But oh my GOD I hated Nik for not standing up to his friends or sticking up for Kady, which then made me annoyed with Kady for not dumping him. I think the reader is meant to be shipping Kady and Aaron, but Kady's with her boyfriend for the entire book, so I was not rooting for her to cheat, just to get the heck away from them all. I ended up a little disappointed there wasn't more detail in the time travel portions, we'd mostly get told "Kady repeated the day 5 times" or something and not actually witness it, which took the fun out of the novelty at times. The epilogue was a bit of a downer for me, despite the realistic message behind it. Overall this is a very interesting and smart premise with more weight behind it than you might think, and also includes a healthy dose of teen drama. Thanks to Penguin Teen and the author for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

I wish I liked this a lot more than I did. It set up a great story with the candies and how they move in time. I hate that the movement through time only lasts a year and you can only do it from Halloween to Halloween. I also hate that we didn't know our main character was an unreliable main character. She knew all about the candies from the get go, but made it seem like this was all new to her? And then finding out that everyone else knew about the candy and they use it whenever they want... well not everyone just the IV boys and their families? I don't think this was all spelled out in the way that the author wanted. This novel left me confused and wanting more about the IV's than the relationship that this was surrounding. To a boy that didn't even matter. The author spent too much time on the BS, unfortunately.

This is an interesting one for me to review, because there were two things really going on: the magic and the tension between two groups of people in one town, combined into an attempt at dark academia. I think the latter part worked incredibly well - Kady's independence but also love for someone from a different group from her is an interesting story to follow. However, I found the IV boys so incredibly silly in their obsession with the local area. I have experience with both the small-town "elites" and the actual coastal elites, and neither of them feel quite right. It's hard to put my finger on exactly. I think there was so much potential for an incredible story, so I'm excited to read more from Charlene Thomas, but this didn't totally hit.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I found this book challenging to get into. I think there were too many storylines that felt as though they weren't connected. I was also a bit irritated by Kady and how dependent she was on her boyfriend. I thought the premise of the book was quite interesting. I have not been too interested in time travel, of being able to go back/bend time, but this author made it interesting.

I can't decide how I feel about this book. On one end, it was a great story telling - easy to read, mysterious, with a bit of teenage angst and a romance trope. But at the same time it didn't feel like there was enough stakes in this story for me to make it such a big deal. I felt like the feelings over the candies was a bit exagerated, as it didn't show how using them was bad. In the end, all we got is that we're holding people hostage, keeping them repeating loops, not letting time slip by, but it's not true, is it? And I felt like the boys needed a bigger "bad thing" for it to be so so important. Maybe killing or stealing, or gambling, something. It felt like that part was maybe hinted at, but never confirmed nor denied. The whole anticipation of finding out about candies just died. It didn't have that explosive confrontation. It was more about people and the relationships, and who chooses who or why they choose to act one way or another. Which was good, but I wanted more drama, per se.

Overall a very unique time travel book for YA. I enjoyed it, just can't say I loved it. Would definitely pick another book by this author, because the writing style is superb.

I really enjoyed the concept of this books, especially the magical time traveling bit of it all. The overall vibes of the book were great and the secret-club nature of the IV Boys was so well-done. The pacing felt a bit all over the place, but I can appreciate that it might have been related to the nature of the constant time traveling and resetting that was happening. I really enjoyed the diverse cast of characters, but found that due to the pacing I had some difficulty truly getting into this story. Due to the writing, the characters, and the sheer creativity of this concept, I think a lot of people will really enjoy this.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC. All thoughts are my own.

This novel was a new spin on the "secret society" trope, blending it together with time travel.

While I did appreciate the fresh take and much of the story, overall there were a couple of issues that kept me from fully enjoying this novel. The first is the time travel itself. Time travel is inherently difficult to pull off, and for me, there were too many gaps in the logic of the way time travel worked in this story. I also had trouble with both narrators. Both narrators present as believable and honest, but around the 75% percent mark, we learn that both have been lying to the reader. To me, this felt very dishonest, especially as both points of view were in first person and there was no reason for either narrator to have lied in the ways they did. It made me feel cheated by the story.

I also felt a bit cheated by the ending, which didn't really wrap up most of the story threads.

Overall, while there was potential in this novel, it didn't quite land for me.

4.5 stars rounded up

This is not a fast-paced book. It takes its time in slowly building up the characters, the relationships, and what is going on in this strange and sharply divided small town with secrets. Kady has lived her whole life in Streetlight, and it's a small town that most people know nothing about. But there are clear lines between the wealthy and mostly white kids who go to Iverson prep, and everyone else. Kady is Black from a working class family, but her boyfriend goes to Iverson and is part of an exclusive social club known as the IV's.

For years she's dealt with being ignored or subtly slighted by the rest of the IV boys because she loves Nik. But now, he's in college while she's still a senior and there are nasty rumors being spread about her. She wants him to bring her as a date to the mysterious IV Ball and finally prove that she's something lasting in his life, but he has always refused. The social pressure ratchets up, and things start to get strange...

I don't want to spoil things but while I think the pacing could have been a little bit faster, I really liked this book. It's dealing with race, class, and microaggressions in a small town called "a little bit Twin Peaks" which feels apt. Things get weird, but at its heart this is a book about relationships, privilege, and the things people will do or put up with to have or keep power. Really great novel. I received a copy of this book for review via Netgalley, all opinions are my own.

I mostly enjoyed this book but I found the main character's choices frustrating and towards the end I felt that although it wasn't a case of unreliable narrator, it came very close to falling into this category.

There were some lovely character developments and interactions and the reading experience would be greatly improved with more of this and less of the toxic relationships and deceptions.