Ok, let me start by stating the obvious. Sid and Brian are ADORABLE! Oh my gosh, they just melt my heart. Honestly, all of the characters were so well developed and left a lasting impression. Sid stole my heart from the beginning though. I will ALWAYS relate to the most socially awkward character in a book.

The story was so entertaining and well written. Magic, zombies, found family, adoption, racial diversity, small town…this book had it all. And the narration was fabulous as well.

Thank you NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for the chance to listen to and review this audiobook.

Oh I love this book. Everything about it is amazing. We have a disaster, teens trying to navigate life, the perspective of asian teens, family stuff, and magic. The narration is perfect too!
I love the zombies!
This is perfect.

Dead Things Are Closer Than They Appear was an OK book. The writing and storytelling were average, but character development and world building were executed well. The story felt longer than necessary. I really liked the cover, and it along with the blurb did a good job of catching my attention. Unfortunately, this book wasn't anything special and it's not memorable. Thank you to NetGalley for offering this title in their catalog.

Thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for an advanced audiobook in excahgne for an honest review.

4 stars

Sid Spencer lives in a tourist town where people come to hopefully see magic that is running through fault lines in the town. The seals are broken and magic takes over the town. Sid and some allies try to figure out what is happening and save the town.

Sid is a great character and I enjoyed her adventures.

Excellent narration by Eunice Wong.

Thank you NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for this audio ARC.

I liked the performance by Eunice Wong.
I liked the story and the intensity it evoked.

I did not like really long chapters.

3.5 stars

Okay, this blurb is doing the book no favors, painting Sid as an absolute pick-me-girl and giving vibes of “I’m not like other girls”, which at this point in time, I thought we were over.
Luckily though, Sid actually just feels like an outcast and is not a pick-me-girl, but just a regular girl, who has some growth to do and like most people can outgrow herself if given the chance and faced with difficult situations. And she does grow, it just takes time.
This is a YA book, where teenagers act like teenagers, which means that plans change, they don’t always do the most logical thing and, of course, it’s very emotional.
The story itself was pretty captivating and I enjoyed it a lot, most of the characters did grow on me and the worldbuilding was interesting as well. The ending tied everything up neatly and was fitting as well.
In the end, this is an entertaining story, but did not feel like something special to me.

Sid is a you adopted Korean girl trying to survive in a small city where people still ask her where she's from, her ex best friend started dating the guy she likes (hence her being an ex bff) and she doesn't really know where she fits in life, except with her brother Matty. Just yesterday that may have seemed like the worst of her worries, until a guardian died. Guardians protect the world from magic and without them it is running rampant, bringing zombies to life and imbuing those around with special powers. Sid's brother is missing, a man with what seems like an entire commando crew behind him is attacking her city and Sid isn't sure who she can trust in her search to find her brother and try to save the city from losing any more guardians than they already have.

I was lucky enough to received an arc of the audiobook of Dead Things are Closer Than They Appear from Netgalley and Simon Teen. Huge thanks because I have been eyeing this book and was going to purchase it anyway but I got to enjoy it in a different format first. Right off the bat the narrator isn't working for me. She sounds just a little too old for the character she is portraying, but I promise you, that does not last. I think it had more to do with the slow pacing in the beginning (hello we have to know where we are and who the relevant characters are before the killing can start!) and not really a fault of the narrator. Eunice Wong did great!

The beginning like in any other fantasy took a minute to get going because we really needed to learn who Sid is as a person before we were able to connect with her and care about her survival. I really enjoyed all the pop culture references throughout the book, especially the ones about K-pop and K-dramas (Goblin is #1 ). Robin Wasley's writing is so palpable there were parts that were so creepy I had literal chills going down my arms.

The action sequences are very well written making it easy to stay in the moment and visualize what is happening. I love a strong female character and Sid is that but she's also more. She is still trying to figure out life while wondering if she will have a life left to live when all is said and done. While the beginning may have been a bit more subdued you can expect an all out adventure once the action begins and characters start dying (yes, people die, so be sure to not get too attached!)

This is probably the most thrilling book I have read since Shatter Me and it makes sense because Dead Things are Closer Than They Appear is basically Shatter Me meets I Am Number 4 but more. My only complaint at this point is that I wish this book was the first in a series and not a stand alone, but Robin and I talked it out and Im just glad it exists and I got the chance to read it. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ stars for this fantastic read. I totally recommend this to anyone who was trying to figure out what Fourth Wing was missing. You will find it here.

This was such a fabulous listen! I absolutely love the way Wasley crafter her world, characters, and story. The incorporation of magic into this world was so original and well thought out, it added an element to the tale that was almost another character in and of itself. The narration was phenomenal and definitely brought the characters to life for me. Wong did a fantastic job giving each person a voice and inflection that were as unique as the individuals themselves. I would love to see more in this universe - and even if not, I am certainly looking forward to more from Wasley. She is a really talented writer and world builder and I cannot wait to see where she does next!

An absolutely wonderful audiobook! Such great talent on both the side of the author and the narrator, brilliant!

Sid Spencer is an ordinary girl, battling through the mundanity of High School, despite living in a small town that lays on top of every evil creature known (and unkknown) to humankind. Life is disrupted in epic fashion when a guardian is killed, causing the fault line to be rent open and a tsunami of evil chaos is let loose to unleash an apocaplypse of epic proportions, unless Sid and her friends can find her missing brother and stop it

I was both skeptical and excited about this as it seemed to me to be very reminiscent of the Tropes in Buffy, but while there are some similarties in the tropes, that is where it ends, because this book is so very much more!

Sid is the sweetest, she is as far from main character mentality as you can get, but deserves it wholly. It's that situation where you don't see your worth, but those close to you do see it. This is a wonderful YA book as it describes so many different aspects of the YA experience, despite the backdrop of post-apocalyptic monster mayhem. While the basic tropes are comparable to Buffy, in the aspect of the YA experience being grounded in fantasy, I would compare it to Potter in that sense alone and I hope this has as much success if not more

This YA is beautifully multifaceted and so very well written and narrated. Eunice Wong is empathetic to the fast paced narrative and really amplifies the fantastic prose. Her pacing and cadance is on point and a joy to listen to

Robin Wasley has created something absolutely fantastic here and I really hope that we will see more as I was utterly invested!

Thank you very much to Netgalley, Dreamscape Media, Robin Wasley and Eunice Wong for this wonderful ALC. My review is left voluntarily and all opinions are my own

This brought me back to old school dystopian ya greatness!!

With incredible characters (a huge focus on our protagonist, Sid - freaking LOVED her), beautiful nontraditional family representation, a fast growing outbreak of magical apocalyptic danger, and so much heart, Dead Things Are Closer Than They Appear filled my heart to the brim!

Sid feels painfully average… among her family members AND her ex friends, the friends who stopped talking to her just days after she went out on a limb wearing her heart on her sleeve, only for the limb to break in the most embarrassing moment of her life.

But, Sid lives in a tourist trap town on a fault line where magic simmers just underground, protected by guardians who hold the keys to the seal… and she is in for the greatest adventure of her life when someone kills one of the guardians, releasing the magic and something worse… the undead.

Encountering a group of guardians, Sid joins them to find her brother, who has been secretly mixed up in all of this. And she finds something she never expected… herself!

This was empowering, this was tender, and this was so funny! Multiple times I found myself racked with silent sobs, only to turn around and laugh out loud in the same page. I will read ANYTHING this author writes!!

Eunice Wong did a wonderful job voicing this beautiful, strong, and anything but ordinary main character!