Creepy and tempting all at once. Sort of like feeling as if you're about to have a hand come down and clasp your shoulder while you know there's nothing behind you. This book is haunting and beautifully written; creepy and frustrating and heart pounding all at the same time. I get so nervous when a character is on the fringe of being discovered and that's the majority of this book--but it's understandable, natural, and makes sense to be on the edge of your seat. It will likely haunt my dreams for a good while and I happily recommend it to anyone who wants something that's dark academia with that quality of death and immortality. (No, there aren't any vampires).

Thank you NetGalley for an eARC.
I saw this all over instagram and loved the cover. I loved the synopsis. It held the promise of a juicy dark academia novel.

However it did not hit the mark for me, and this was a bummer, I was really excited for this book and really wanted to like it. I spent the majority of the book unsure of what was going on. It was easy to get lost in the philosophical conversations referencing the matrix and if you could really trust your senses. Trying to keep up with that, the Shakespeare quotes and the zig zag plot was a lot. It felt like there was always too much going on and personally it was hard to keep up with. I am giving this 2 stars for 2 reasons.

1-The concept with our main character talking to someone unknown through leaving notes in an old book was fun.
2-The truth behind the mirrors was neat! It had so much promise. It’s something I had not seen before
I would have liked more of the ghosts and mirrors.

This book was chaotic,and not in the good way.
I will say it DID feel like a bad 2010 teen horror movie, which could have been so fun if that was the intention. Instead it felt forced to be more serious than that.

I was going to DNF, however my best friend was also reading this to review. I felt like her and I needed to ride this weird confusing ride to the end.

A haunting is in every way the lingering of grief unprocessed. The aftershocks of guilt and love. This book is deeply comfortable within that existence. The emotionalism in that works well for Howell's writing but the rest of the book does not entirely live up to those feelings. There is a level of ambition in a haunting based on childhood trauma and classism paired with the plot of revenge, stolen identity, and a murder chalked up to suicide that while admirable does not quite land in the course of the novel. I enjoyed a majority of the work but I think a touch less of genre elements would have added rather than detracted from the over all vibe rather than detracted.

Thank you NetGalley for an eARC.
I really wanted to love this book, but sadly it let me down so hard. I ended up DNF'ing it.
0.5- Some people love the cover, but honestly I hate it. This however is not the reason for the 1 star rating as it has no bearing on the book itself.
1- The writing is super clunky.
2- The characters feel very flat, not dynamic whatsoever. And the side characters...what side characters?
3- I was expecting a badass FMC who is bent on revenge for her cousin but what I got was not that. I don't even know how to rightly describe the FMC but she is not the strong girl bent on revenge that the blurb made her out to be.
4- Absolutely nothing happens within the first third of the book except she infiltrates the prep school under an assumed identity (and can I point out {5} how ridiculous it is that she is somehow a tech genius to hack into their computer system and then a great con artist to setup her fake identity and get the correct falsified documents as well as a false check for her tuition and the school just accepts everything without any consultation with her parents).
Okay I'll stop here because I think my point has been made.

Thank you to NetGalley for the e-ARC!
I don’t know exactly what it was, because the writing of this book was overall very good, especially for a debut novel, but I really struggled with this book. I’m going to try to break it down into three things:
1. Henry Wu - he felt generically rich-boy evil and there was nothing truly compelling about him to me.
2. The supernatural - I’m all for a soft magic system, but it was so ill-explained and nebulous that it didn’t affect me at all emotionally.
3. The setting - I think I actually would have been okay with this if I didn’t grow up in Appalachia near a very expensive private school. Everything in regards to class divides etc. was superficial and nonspecific.

I did think the interactions between Marin/Baz/Graves were very well written, as well as the philosophy class. The love-hate chemistry between Marin and Graves was arresting, and I think the best part of the book. TW for self harm and suicide, and it should be noted that the book verges on romanticizing both of those things, which I was not a fan of.

{Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC}
i think its safe to say this is a literary MASTERPIECE!!! this was truly and genuinely so good, when i say i want a dark academia/fantasy, THIS IS WHAT I MEAN! everyone in this book was insane, from seeking vengeance to obsession and toeing the line between hate and love, this blended together to be such a captivating story and i loved every second of it. the entire time i was reading this i was questioning everything about everyone and wondering where it might lead and the ending absolutely gutted me. marin is such a convoluted character who shows just how much grief can take a toll on someone and drive them to do….things…

This book was difficult for me. I really loved the first half, right up to about the 50% mark. I loved the atmosphere, thought the writing was flowery but not in a bad way because it fit the mood, and adored some of the first-half scenes, like when they ride on the motorcycle and go to the forest. I enjoyed it so much that I got over some rather glaring plot holes (she doesn't pay the school but attends classes? I work at a private school and there is NO WAY a student is attending classes if they haven't paid. They get put on reg. hold. Also, why was no one looking for her? Also, why were the students constantly permitted to just talk through classes? Also, why were the students drunk/high all the time and no one cared? In general it felt more like a college than a boarding school - I did attend boarding school. But again, I liked it so I overlooked these issues).

Unfortunately, the book sort of fell apart in the second half. I really, really wanted to like it and already did, but found myself growing frustrated. The MC's decisions don't make any sense in the second half (literally none at all), and I got so annoyed that she had convinced herself a certain person was the murderer and decided to hate him when CLEARLY there was something else going on. I'm not against an unreliable narrator, but I sort of need to buy their understanding of the world or else it just gets annoying. I did enjoy parts of the romance, but the cover and description implied more of a queer book or at least bi/poly-, and instead this one was pretty straightforwardly heterosexual. While at the start I had high hopes for the characters, who seemed intriguing and mysterious, they ended up being rather flat and one-dimensional. In particular, I felt the treatment of Henry's character was frustrating and reductive in that he became a cartoon villain. I was hoping for something more nuanced than that.

Finally, I don't NEED a happy ending in my books, but I do like to feel that character deaths are justified. After all, we have just been asked to spend hours with these people and get fairly emotionally invested in their lives. Both the deaths in this book felt wildly unnecessary and only there so the ending could have a 'bang,' In particular, why on EARTH would she kill Graves? It makes so little sense to me. She doesn't kill the villain but kills the henchman? Like I said, frustrating.

I would read another book by this author. I liked her premise, most of her writing style, and I did really like the characters/scenes/mood in the first half. It's a testament to how much I enjoyed the beginning how letdown I felt at the end. I hope that in the author's next book, she takes the time to plot out an ending that leaves the reader feeling more satisfied, rather than throwing at it everything and the kitchen sink.
2.5/5

Thank you to Roaring Brook Press for an e-arc of this book!

I love a good dark academia style book, and this one worked so well for me. It is a murder mystery at the core, with the allure of dark academia on top. One thing I will say is that this book is brilliantly written, and I was never sure which way the story or the plot was going to do. She also created so much tension between the characters, both romance and friendship.

Jenni Howell manages to evoke an almost frenzied, impatience feeling in this book. It leaves you breathless, gasping, never quite able to catch your breath as you careen through the book. I will admit, I had to put the book down a few times to take a breather.

I don't like the comparison necessarily, but I do feel like the vibes are somewhat similar to The Raven Boys. Not quite, but I do feel a familiarity with this book. And I can't explain it. This book was intriguing from start to finish, and honestly, this book is definitely best read without knowing too much going in, and that is all I am going to say on the matter.

All the characters in this book are morally grey. There is no "good" person here. I really enjoyed that our FMC was just as vicious as the boys in this one. So rarely do we also get someone who is as vicious as the MMC. This book overall was nothing like I expected, and honestly I'm going to have to chew on it some. Maybe eventually do a reread. I won't call this a The Secret History lite, but it definitely was reminiscent of it in more ways than other dark academia books are. And the thing is, while this is categorized as YA, it definitely has crossover appeal to adults as well.

Definitely recommend this book for gothic/horror/dark academia fans, I think you will eat it up!

Thank you for the chance to check out the ARC for this but sadly, it just wasn't for me. I ended up DNFing at 32%.

While I was intrigued by the murder mystery and revenge element of this, the story quickly became a mess by about the 15% mark. For me, it's another pretentious story of rich kids behaving badly, and I just wasn't feeling the vibe. Sadly, I didn't feel a sense of attachment to or interest in any of these characters.

If you're a fan of The Secret History though, this might be right up your alley.

Come one come all to the philosophical haunting of the year. This is the kind of reflective storytelling you have lore about, and I would nearly say I am gutted just to have been apart of its journey. Jenni has created a monster that might always be hungry for more and we adored every syllable and prose of it.

I truly cannot tell you how I will recover from this one, just know I will remain at the very edge of my seat as we see what is next for Jenni.

Though it was never really a question, if you're wondering, boys truly do have sharp teeth.. but if you're a girly you probably already know yours are sharper.

This just might be my least favorite book I've ever read. It started out great and I liked the premise but it ended up with me wondering wtf I was reading. I still have no idea what was actually happening. I honestly didn't even finish it. I DNFed at 80% because I just couldn't/didn't care to go on. Thank you netgalley for the advanced copy but I don't think this author is for me! Maybe others will enjoy it though!

ARC REVIEW

1.5 stars

I had such high hopes for this book based on the cover and synopsis. However the cover was the best part of the book.

I don't really understand the "sharp teeth" aspect because none of these boys had "sharp teeth". Also this story was not believable from the start.

I don't think I would recommend this unfortunately

DNF at 15%. This book is just not one for me I think. It’s very beautiful and flowery, but the pacing is weird. I was immediately intrigued by the murder mystery aspect, but as soon as she gets to the school, things slow way down. I want to love books like this that are very fever dream-esque, but I just don’t and that’s a personal preference.

This story to me is a retelling of crave and a lot of Bella swan of twilight. Not bad but I’ve read it before. The title had me thinking where the story might go but I was wrong. A bit of a boring read since to me it was a retelling.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC in exchange for my honest review!!

Unfortunately, this book was not the vibe for me. I really really wanted to love it. From the beginning I just kept feeling like it was pretentious and everyone was so annoying/boring. Everything just happened so conveniently. She was at school for 5 minutes and meets the 3 people she needed to. Also her cousin took a pic with these people so of course they were the ones who did it!

Everyone talked in riddles and the use of philosophy was just annoying. I love the cover for this book so much and I hate that it didn’t live up to what I thought it would be. I really will be looking forward to more from their author because the book had so many good parts that just didn’t mesh well for me. Maybe I just need to reread it in a new light one day.

DNF at 16%. The prose was painful to read and the characters are dull. The premise also barely makes sense, so I was just thrown off by this whole thing.

Thanks NetGalley for approving me for an ARC of this book in exchange for my unbiased thoughts.

So I honestly am having a really hard time rating this book, as a result I am just going middle of the road with 3 stars. On the one, I had a really hard time putting this book down. I wanted to see where is was going to go and I just really needed my questions answered. On the other hand, this book was WEIRD. I have read this in other reviews and I have to agree, this book gave big "Bunny" vibes but for teens. I also found myself confused a lot of the time while I was reading this book. Like, I just couldn't fully grasp what was happening at certain point in the plot. I did correctly guess where some of this story was going to go, but I was surprised by the ultimate fate of some of our characters. I did like that most of our characters are not really very good people, I always enjoy a book that embraces human's darker nature. I think my biggest complaint with the book, aside from my aforementioned confusion, was how long it took for us to get to the big reveal. Like, I know that's the point and it is majorly hinted at along the way, but it just felt like the book fully changed genres in its final quarter.

So yeah, I am glad that I saw the book through and I think that there is definitely an audience that will really enjoy what this book has to offer, even if it wasn't exactly for me.

This was beautifully written. I was invested so quickly that I couldn’t put it down and it held tight until the end. The title had me craving blood suckers and this wasn’t quite that but the payoff was great. This is more of a 4.5 for me because it didn’t love the way it ended and I often got lost in the descriptions of physical interactions— what, who is grabbing their hand? Was that a good look or a nasty one? I reread almost every scene with the quartet piled together, trying to understand the description of their movements and looks enough to know who was playing who. And I think that was more guessing than the author intended. But I’m super visual so others may not have this issue. 5 stars for the story, minus a half star for minor execution issues.

I feel like books like this only come around once per blue moon. Books that have such a uniquely abstract voice that have a feather-light touch. Books whose voice tempts you into the darkest depths of what a human has the emotions for; despair, revenge, desire, need, control, ownership, love,e and when you are siren-called you answer.
The synopsis says that our main character Marin is on a mission. She is determined to figure out exactly what happened to her cousin. Sam, a security guard at the giant and rich private school up the road; Huntsworth Academy. Sam who'd made new friends. Sam, who'd told her she'd like his new friends. Sam, who went to a party, was found by her face down in a creek too shallow to drown in, covered in bruises, and doped up even though she knows he never touches the stuff.
Marin is on a mission to find out who killed her cousin, but her single mission becomes arched into a spiderweb of lies and deceit as she realizes just how dark the reasons for her cousin's death were and just how deeply she'll descend to get her answers.
This Dark Ya will scuttle into your brain, carve a place for itself with its claws, and just live there. for the rest of your days. I absolutely devoured this novel and it's a 2025 favorite. Please for all that's holy, read it. If you're the same as you were when you're done, read it again. You missed something.

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group in exchange for an honest review.

I had high hopes for this book based on the description, but it was really a let down. The supernatural element was meh and took too long to become part of the story. It was also really watered down from what I expected. The only likeable character was Baz. The pseudo-triangle between Marin (Jamie), Henry, and Adrian was boring. The killer was predictable. Most of the action took place in the last 20% of the book. I ended up skimming over paragraphs because they were plodding along and dragging the story out without adding anything to the plot. And the ending was aggravating.