Voice Like a Hyacinth is a queer horror novel with lyrical writing and quite the slow burn. The first three quarters meander and drag a bit, but it all comes together in a pretty satisfying and explosive payoff.

I especially loved the themes this novel explored. It features a friend group of queer artists in their final year and the pressure to earn the Solo spot at their graduation exhibition is on. Our main character is high key obsessed with her friend group and doesn’t ever want their relationship to change. Which is quite difficult, because friendships and people are bound to change, especially if you bring the occult into the mix.

The novel was a bit too long for my tastes. It feels a bit over-written at times, but I overall had an enjoyable reading experience.

I recommend it if you enjoy horror novels with artsy queer people, dark academia vibes, purple prose, and a slow burn towards an explosive finale.

Thanks to NetGalley and 47North for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really liked this book, it's introspective and dreamy, with a cast of art school students vividly painted. I didn't get a great sense of the narrator, but she seemed a bit unsure of who she was too, and her love for the rest of them was in ever page. I wouldn't call this a horror story, but there were some really scary scenes and imagery, and a through theme of being haunted. Also a great cover!

n college, I had a group of friends that I was extremely close with. There were 4 girls and 4 boys. We were constantly together, on campus, in class, at parties. We had designated TV nights at one of the two houses. We had themed dinners/drinking nights. We had a standing Sunday lunch date of just the 8 of us. We slept at each other's house, in various pairs. I thought we could have stayed like that forever, that we would leave school and just all move to the same place.

Voice Like a Hyacinth by Mallory Pearson is the story of 5 young women, all friends in their last year at an art school. It's a story of codependence, of terror, of stress and pressure, and. overall, the story of friendship.

There are art references, some of which I needed to look up, just for clarification, but that did not take away from the story. The fears and longing is a universal feeling. Everyone goes through this at some point in their life, minus the PTSD/paranoia that these girls did. Not everyone is going to go the way that these women did in order to reach their goal, but that's what makes this book fun.

The tone of Mallory Pearson's writing is insightful and deep. I can't help but feel that this is a personal story - with the caveat that I would HOPE she and her friends didn't do the ritual.

The idea of being with your friends forever is ideal. Could I still, 20+ years later, be living with those people? No, but at 21, it was a nice thought.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Voice Like a Hyacinth is an atmospheric, dark, and grotesque (in the best way) story of doing anything for a chance to be great. Five friends at a prestigious art college are coming to terms with the fact that in less than a year they will graduate and go their separate ways. Before that, however, they will all compete for the Solo -- an opportunity to be the single art student to showcase their work. As events unravel, the group finds themselves speaking horrors into existence that will undo everything.

I thought the pacing, tone and style of Mallory's writing was superb. It was a fun read from start to finish. I think it's a perfect book for those who like dark academic stories.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to review this ARC!

Five best friends in a competitive art program, decide to mess with magic in order to bolster their chances at success. A recipe for disaster in any circumstance.

Mallory is a master of the written word. This is definitely a slow burn but this is ultimately contradicted by the prose and the plot, which are both brilliant. The last third of this book had me in a chokehold so strong it deserves to be studied.

Pearson's sophomore novel is an absolute triumph. With characters that are more easy to fall in love with than I care to admit, this heartbreaking and brutal book wormed its way into my all-time top 5 and is set to stay there for a good long while. Recommended for those who adored If We Were Villains, but wished that the friend group was much gayer, and much more all in love with each other in a messy, terrifying way.

P.S. Finch are u free on Thursday pls let me know bc I'll clear my calendar for u in an INSTANT

Wow, I felt this book in my bones. It so perfectly captures that intense period of University when you are completely immersed in your own world, obsessed with your studies and living in your friends' pockets. But Voice Like a Hyacinth goes darker with glorious witchy, occultist vibes, body horror, toxic ambition and the gradual unravelling of one's sanity under pressure. Also, loved the friendships and sapphic yearning.

Summary: "Five young women eager for success rely on the unspeakable to make their dreams come true in a chilling novel about martyrdom, ritual, and obsession by the author of We Ate the Dark."

This is a very easy spooky read! Let me start by saying that the cover portrays stuff perfectly. It's dark, a bit gory and very queer. It portrays womanhood, obsession and relationships in a different and realistic light.

While it's heavy on the art world, it was a delight to read so many details and you can 100% tell it's a passion for the author.

Looking forward to reading more from this author!

"Voice Like Hyacinth" by Mallory Pearson is a slow burn that tests your patience at the start but rewards you with an intense, visceral final act. The first three-quarters are a trudge, weighed down by the main character, whose childish and often unlikeable nature can be grating. However, the last quarter of the book escalates rapidly, delivering a whirlwind of emotions that leave a whiplash effect. The writing is well thought out, though the pacing may challenge some readers. Overall, it's a decent read for fans of slow burn queer horror, offering a satisfying, if delayed, payoff.

At first I caught myself saying just get to the point and this plot could be told in a third of pages but then when I got myself to really focus on the words I became entranced. Pearson's writing is absolutely beautiful and I realized that every word is necessary to paint the beautiful depictions that Pearson is creating.

You will fall in love with the characters and at times you will be screaming "No! Don't do that!" and there are times you dream of being amongst this friendship while they are all nestled in their blanket nest watching scary movies together. I adored this book and it made me so nostalgic for my college girlfriends.

Pearson writes so beautifully and this is a book I see myself revisiting as an escape.

First off, thank you so much to the author for the review copy, I can't wait to get my hands on a hardcopy in January!
I adored this book. I love to read lesbians in my hands, I love to recognize our bullshit on the page and see our mess as it happens and the carnage of loving each other so much. It felt like a slow moving car crash in a way that was so tense and effective for me, I fell in love with these characters and felt so strongly for each of them. Our narrator felt natural to inhabit, and I continue to love this author's prose; it feels so lived in and vivid.

oh how i loved these girls and their hunger for everything: power, friendship, oneselves.
i especially loved jo and her pov, i deeply related to her and her fear of not being enough, for both society, her parents AND her friends. how she loves so deeply and with all her being, so much so that it overwhelms people and she loses herself in the process.
i loved the whole friendgroup, however toxic it may be i wish i experience something like it (minus the death) with the friends i have now.

I stayed up to 2am finishing this because it was such a maddening spiral into oblivion and I absolutely needed to understand how it ended. I cannot stress enough how much I love Mallory's writing and how she writes, especially how she writes grief. there was a section where the grief was so palpable and visceral, I had to stop reading and have a good cry and grieve right alongside the characters for a moment.

this book was outstanding.

dark academia
toxic obsession
witchy bonding
sapphic representations

let's go team boar!!

I did not finish this book. It wasn’t my style of story telling. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for gifting me this arc.

This book was absolutely STUNNING! I am not a brand new Pearson fan but this cemented that I am a permanent one.

i've been putting off writing this review for a while. i don't know, book, if i loved you less i'd be able to talk about you more. listen, i've said it before - mallory writes The Books of my heart. her first book, we ate the dark, felt so familiar that it made me feel seen. voice like a hyacinth made me feel seen because in the dreamy prose i have always loved from mallory, she lovingly described a world that i want for myself so much.

voice like a hyacinth is about a group of girls who love each other in some of the most intimate, beautiful ways imaginable. they're all art students at one of those teeny tiny universities. when i tell you the setting was vibrant, what i really mean is that you can ear the skittering of leaves as we follow characters walking to class. you can see the ivy crawling up old stone buildings. you can feel the chill in the air. and you can feel the warmth emanating from the cozy home that jo shares with her friends.

but it's senior year, a culmination of all the time the five have shared together. and maybe this is the year that they fracture too, jo fears. because now they're being asked to compete against each other and the rest of their class. and for some of the group, those coveted spots mean everything. and so they end up convening in a field, doing a macabre ritual to help them create. and then, when their teacher dies, they begin to wonder if they've bitten off more than they can chew.

hello, this is the dark academia sapphic dream book. i really don't know how to adequately convey how much i love this book. all i can tell you is that this book felt like the word yearn. all i can tell you is that the camaraderie between friends, the blurry lines between fondness and pining, the long, delicious moments between the girls, the intimacy - well. i can't really explain to you how much i love it.

people are going to compare this to the craft and though i don't necessarily think that's incorrect, i think that presents an incomplete description of the love and queer joy that this book is thoroughly imbued with at every level. i love the craft, don't get me wrong, but where that film makes enemies out of women, voice like a hyacinth is so full of love and pure adoration in its celebration of desire, queerness, and girlhood.

not kidding you when i say this is one of my favorite books of all time. read it.

The Voice Like a Hyacinth is the tale of five friends who attend the elite art school Rotham in Indiana. The five friends (Jo, Caroline, Finch, Saz and Amerita) are in their senior year and all vying for the honor of being chosen as the soloist. The soloist is the one chosen art student who gets to do a full art show. The competition is high and so are the stakes. They find a book that has a ancient spell and they opt to try it. The effects of "the spell" on the group are vast and lead to the friends re-evaluating the stakes and just how far they are wiling to go to be the soloist. Also, the book has major " The Craft" vibes as well.

i can't wait for this to be on everyone's dark academia lists next year! there's art students, deeply codependent friendships and bits of horror that'll give you goosebumps. mallory is a amazing when it comes to giving readers a book where friendship is so deeply ingrained into the story it makes you even more invested as a reader. i do wish there was just a biiiiit more horror throughout the book but it was still enjoyable! also, that COVER. GOSH. i'm obsessed.

This luscious novel has all the delightful tropes that we've come to expect from Dark Academia; the close knit friend group, the academic setting, the obsessional devotion to their subject, weather that becomes it's own character, murder. But the overlay of sapphic longing and gorgeous imagery softens the horror into something poetic. You can find beauty in the gore.

The story follows five young women who are painting students at a small exclusive arts college in rural Indiana. Although they have been devoted friends throughout their time together, the pressure of their senior competition gets to them and they call on the occult to help. The drama that unfolds between them is at times deeply heartfelt and other times horrific. All is seen through the main character who is both apart from and entwined within the story.

Art, magic, love and lust, what lengths will one go through to be the best? Fans of Sirens and Muses, The Secret History and If We Were Villains will adore this lyrical and evocative book!

I enjoyed reading Pearson's first novel (We Ate the Dark) earlier this year, so I jumped at the chance to read this ARC.

Set at a remote art school in the middle of Indiana, the story follows a group of five inseparable girlfriends - all painting majors now competing for the top spot as their senior year comes to a close.

Cue occult rituals and some psychological/body horror. This story blends non romantic love, introspection, sapphic romance, and loneliness into a dark and captivating story.

I identified with the main character a lot through her friendships, fears, art, insecurities, partying. This brought back a flood of memories, which helped immerse myself in their lives, knowing their joy/pain.

Pearson's style carries through into this novel, which seems more mature and well paced than her first (but could still pass for YA). There are some spicy scenes, but nothing graphic.

It seems like I can count on her for something queer and creepy. Loved this.