Everything You Left Me

Really cool concept! The book is written in verse and each verse is titled & flow into each other. They read as one continuous plot. Definitely would use parts of this book to teach my high school English class on poems/verse(I.e not all poems have to be about nature or by Shakespeare). The book as a whole has an amazing storyline about making your own history in life and not letting others affect who you are.

One of the most emotional reads of the year. And this will be when it comes out for many too.

The book is short and even seems shorter as it is written in verse.

It tells a story about a girl who is going to find out some harsh truths about her family, more so when it comes to her father.

The parts which are the happiest memories spent with her parents are the highlights for me and it made me more emotional the further I read the book.

So good I say.

I love the cover. I love the presentation. I love the pages and how subtle details making the reading experience a better one.

Definitely recommending this book!

Thank you, West 44 Books, for the advance reading copy.

What a great quick read. I love to read YA novels even as an adult. This had me guessing what would I do if ai was in that situation? Do you choose the love of a parent or the right thing to do? I guess everyone’s perspective is different…

I didn’t know what to expect when I first started reading this but I ended up really enjoying it. I loved the writing style and how fast paced it was. The fact that it was fast paced throughout the whole book kept me really engaged and I ended up finishing it in about 30 minutes. The ending really had me wondering about how I would react if that was my life and just how devastating it would be for something like that to happen. If you’re looking for a quick and easy read this is definitely the book!

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an E-ARC to read and review.

This book was better than I honestly expected. I did not know that the book was written like a verse, making it a very quick read and it also helped me get closer to finishing my reading goal for 2022, LOL.
The book is basically about a girl living in Joleen; she is on her way to become the valedictorian and can't wait to get out of the small town. But her life shatters when she finds out her dad, who left her family years ago, might not be who she thought he was.
The plot of the book does sound very generic but believe me, the book is actually pretty good. The verse writing kept me hooked throughout and although I did expect some things, the ending was pretty unexpected. I think my personal favorite part about the book was how real it was. I could see the love Maybeth had for her family and the internal conflict she was going through with the very few words Classey used to describe it. There isn't much I can say about it other than how impressed I was with the writing, even if the story wasn't that fancy or extraordinary.
I would give it a solid 3.5 out of 5 and would totally recommend it to anyone looking for a contemporary fiction and a quick read.

I received this as an ARC to rate and review. This is my honest opinion.

I enjoyed this story and loved how fast paced it was! I was engaged in the plot and had fun reading this one. While the ending was a bit predictable for me, I won't be docking stars for it since it is more of a Middle Grade read and I am an adult so a middle school child will have a different perspective.
I think this was a fun, great read and will be recommending it to friends and anyone looking for something like this!

Thank you, NetGalley and West 44 Books, for the chance to read and review Everything You Left Me by Paige Classey.

It's essential to remember that West 44 Books exclusively publishes books for younger readers, so middle-grade and young adult. Everything You Left Me follows this theme as a HI/LO book but in verse. Hi/Lo (also hi-lo) means that the book covers a fascinating subject but is also at a low reading level.

I mention this because when you open amazon and look at Everything You Left Me, it's billed as being ideal for 7-9-year-olds to read. And yet it's also in the Teen and Young Adult fiction category. This is something that the publishers may want to correct; the point of HI/LO is to get people into reading and to not shame them. Even if we hand this book to a 13-year-old, do we really want them to feel like they're reading something for little kids? Given that Young Adult ranges from 18-26 (I just realized I'm no longer in that category and I feel old), we should be careful about how it's sold on amazon.

Keeping all that to the side, Everything You Left Me is excellent! It's effortless to read, the book is presented nicely, and the story is compelling.

The story is set in a small, mostly-white town that Maybeth and most of her friends aspire to leave. As she works towards this goal and is set to graduate as valedictorian, she finds out that her estranged father is a serial killer.

The book shows us what Maybeth is going through as this happens. There is a happy ending or an ending with as much happiness as can be expected. The little details Classey includes, like the postcards, were awesome! This 200 page book is Paige Classey's debut novel and comes out on the 16th of February.

Everything You Left Me is beautifully written. It left me wanting more (in a good way)! I am looking forward to reading more by Paige Classey in the future.

I really enjoyed this book & read it in under an hour. The formatting was different & threw me off at first, but I grew to quite like it. It worked well with Maybeth’s character. The story was good. Simply, good. Nothing about it necessarily stood out in a positive way, nor a negative way. It was just right, & I am quite happy about that.

An interesting story of a girl living with her recovering drug addict mom when the cops show up with questions about her dad. When the girl does some digging she finds he may be linked to some murders across he country. She must find a way to accept the memories of her father and the possibility that he is a serial killer. There was a lot of build up in the story with little resolution at the end. I wish there had been more of an after section at the end to let us know what happened after she turns in her dad.

Overall rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I think the content of the book is interesting considering this is a middle school aged book. As a now adult, who during middle school, saw and dealt with parents, other family members, and close family friends deal with addiction problems, it was nice to see an author include this family/young life dynamic in a book for others to relate to. Nonetheless, I do think it may be a an uphill battle with parents who monitor what content their kids are reading since on a surface level “drug scene involved mother” and “serial killer father” aren’t topics I think I’d let my kids read.

My only complaint with the book is I wish it was tied up better in the end. Maybe a second book could be squeezed out of this and it could be a 2 book series; just a thought because I felt like I didn’t get enough of the “after”!

Lastly, It read really well for a HI/LO book! I’m not a HI/LO reader so this read to east for me but nonetheless great job!

5/5 stars! I am so appreciative that West 44 Books is giving authors with unique stories and perspectives a platform to share their works. This book is a journey of trauma, loss, and resilience; a recognition that we are a sum of our actions not just our parts. Maypole (Maybeth) is a typical teenage girl; except that she's not. She lives in a small town and has gotten by since her father left at age 8 by being the smartest, most driven student at school in hopes of getting a scholarship to college and getting out. She carries resentment towards her mother and misses her father, holding a collection of postcards he has sent over the hears close.

Then the police show up with questions about her father and everything begins to fall apart ...

This story is beautifully orchestrated with short chapters and some loose prose that pulls you in and makes you feel like you're entrenched deep in Maybeth's thoughts. There were a few lines that I felt physically pull me closer to the story. At the end of the day, Maybeth had the opportunity to show that she is her own person with her own dreams and motivations and that she is so much more than who her father is. Highly recommend.

This story is beautiful. It tells the story of a teenage girl dealing with the aftermath of finding out her father is most likely a serial killer. This is not a mystery story. While it has a mysterious vibe, it is largely about the emotional journey Maybeth goes on. We see her go through a range of emotions: rage, love, sadness, etc. we all are taken through the aftermath of what an investigation like this does to both Maybeth and her mother. It is told in a beautiful way with an interesting voice that kept me engaged.

The formatting of the book as well as the plot make it a fast read. It is short as well and I was able to finish it in one day.

The ending does not provide significant satisfaction so if a nice and tidy ending is what you need in a book, this may not be your story.

Overall, highly recommend for anyone who likes stories that centre characters going through great emotional challenges. The backdrop of the police investigation provides and excellent setting for the emotional journey of a struggling teen.

I was at first disappointed in the poetry of this book. The poems didn’t stand as well on their own as I wanted them to. They seemed to flow right into each other and didn’t stand as individual vingettes like I imagined they might. Then I started reading the poems like poetry, looking at individual lines, and found a lot of value in the craft. The story is beautiful, sometimes shocking, and is much more a coming-of-age than I was expecting. Very sweet and I would recommend it.

I want to preface this with the fact that I don't do prose or poetry. I don't get it, I don't know how to read it and focus too much on that, and I probably wouldn't have requested this if I realized it was prose (I don't know how I missed that).

All that said, I'm glad I missed it because I really enjoyed this! I get really hung up on how to read prose, should it rhyme or have some kind of rhythm? I don't know, but I liked this a lot anyway once I got past that. I do wish it was written in a non-prose way so it could have been more fleshed out but I loved this anyway and the premise is very interesting: a girl finding out her father was a serial killer and having to deal with that. It's intriguing and I'm so glad I read this one. It's a nice quick read and even if prose isn't your thing, it's worth giving it a shot.

Thank you to NetGalley and West 44 Books for my DRC in exchange for an honest review.

Everything You Left Me is fast paced, told in verse and will make your heart ache. Each poem is interconnected to the ones before and after it. Over all this book had me turning pages quickly to see where the story went. I enjoyed that the verses allowed you to fill in some of the emotion and setting on your own. For so little words this book told a big story.

I liked this, it was a quick read but still engaging and conveyed emotions well. Writing in verse was very interesting for the subject matter, very unique, but I thought it worked well. I really enjoyed maybeths friendships, her complicated parental relationships, and how it was a coming of age story. Not a huge fan of the chapter titles, I felt like they were redundant but perhaps that’s just a personal preference. I was impressed how well the author conveyed so many different characters with different emotions and motivations with such few words.

Thank you NetGalley and West 44 Books!

Everything You Left Me is written in verse which makes this a super quick read. This being such a clean and simple mystery it really is the perfect pallet cleanser!

Everything You Left Me – Paige Classey – (2023)
This is a courageously written short story debut written in poetry verse. In the opening of this startling collection readers are introduced to Marybeth Morris who lives with her single mother in the small town of Jolene in an unnamed state. The police arrive at their door, searching for the whereabouts of her father Edward Leroy Morris. The police officers seem very cautious and decline to say what “crime” her father is involved in. Marybeth hasn’t seen her absent father since she was eight years old—and obviously something terrible has happened. As her mother lights a cigarette, she muses it must be related to a theft, maybe check fraud. But the truth is far beyond anything they could fathom or comprehend.
Marybeth remembers her father well and treasures the memories of riding in the cab of his eighteen-wheeler, the wonderful pink bicycle he gave her for Christmas. He told her how smart she was, and she would go to college with a “C”. Marybeth was in high school now, graduating at the top of her class. There was the keepsake box, under her bed, where she had kept all the postcards her father had sent her from the road. It was all she had left of him.
“But my heart cries:/donuts/the bike/college with a capital “C” baby girl/He called you/He loves you/He needs your help.”
In these searing articulate verses, Marybeth eventually realized that she would never be defined by the trauma and horror contained in her keepsake box. Not recommended for children, only YA readers (plus) due to the sensitive subject matter. ** With thanks to west44books via NetGalley for the DDC for the purpose of review.

One of my favorite elements of reading is the opportunity to live a variety of lives, without changing a single thing about who I am. I can put on a disguise and play the role of the main character, feeling what they feel, seeing what they see, knowing what they know. Recently I had the pleasure of stepping into the shoes and mind of Maybeth, a college bound teenager living a mostly normal life with her single mother, until they receive a strange visit from the police. This small town mayhem is Paige Classey's "Everything You Left Me".

Written entirely in verse, "Everything You Left Me" is a poetic juggernaut that lulls its readers into wondering how well they know the people deemed by society as "close to us", while simultaneously giving the gentle reminder that not all of those people come from our present circumstances. As Maybeth learns, the past doesn't always stay there. While Classey sews together a story packed with suspense and paranoia, main character Maybeth allows us a glimpse into her memories hidden away classically, in a shoe box. The story progresses, detailing each momento, but then the dots start.....connecting. What could possibly be in Maybeth's box?!

I absolutely loved this book. It was a quick and easy read which only added to the insurmountable, fast paced dread created by Classey's twist. This little debut that could, is a full blown champion.

Thanks again to Paige Classey, West 44 Books, and Netgalley for this arc. It was a ride well worth taking!

I really liked this. The way we could feel the main characters emotions because of what was going on in her life and the wanting to believe that what was happening was a lie, made of this a book everyone should read. Because, most people won't relate to what she is going through exactly, but we have all been there, in a place where we know that what other people are saying might be true but we will move mountains to try and prove them wrong so our life doesn't change drastically..

This copy was sent to me by NetGalley in exchange for a honest review.

The book is absolutely breathtaking, I finished reading this one in one sitting though. One of my favorite books at this moment.

Maybeth’s father hd been gone for years, so when the police show up to question her and her mother on his whereabouts, Maybeth can’t bring herself to believe her father could be the lead suspect in a string of murders. If her father is a murderer, what does that make her?

What a great first read of the new year. Quick, simple, quality characters and a plot that showed up. Maybeth was a well developed MC and was like any child trying to only think positively of her father. The whole time you could feel the weight of the question to stick by your family, or do the right thing. The book was written in a beautiful verse style and had a wonderful flow to it.

Everything You Left Me book review

⭐⭐⭐⭐✨

Rate : 9/10
Publisher : West 44 Books
Author : Paige Classey
Genre : Young Adult, Peom, HI/LO

Pub Date : 1st February 2023

Everything You Left Me, written by Paige Classey and published by West 44 Books, is a brilliant book that tells the story of a successful students dilemmas amd confessions on being a possible murderers daughter.

I love the way author writes - verse format. And the author did a great job on giving the emotions with her poetic sentences. Even if I'm new to this genre -HI/LO format-, I enjoyed reading it!

I highly recommend you to read Everything You Left Me if you're a HI/LO - which simply means high interest, low ability- reader.

(Thanks to @west44books & @netgalley for the ARC)

I love a collection that is a novella. The story these pieces share is incredible, I couldn’t stop reading.

Thank you #NetGalley for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

I got into this book very quickly but by the end I was left wanting more. I understand this is Maybeth's story but I really wanted more depth and detail especially as things began to unfold It has a solid message and would make a good introduction to books in verse.

A fast paced short story told in verse that will it tugging at your heart strings as you follow along with are who are parents really who we are and how do we determine that for ourselves?

“Her eyes say, ‘Remember me.’”
👩🏻‍🎓
It’s Maybeth’s senior year and she’s doing well. She’s on track to be the valedictorian and is working a part-time job. She absolutely refuses to end up like her mom: pregnant at 19 and working a dead end job after your ex-husband leaves. But when the police show up on her doorstep saying her father is wanted for investigation, Maybeth falls down a rabbit hole wondering what he’s wanted for and could that evil be inside her.
👩🏻‍🎓
I was asked by the author to read and review this honestly and I could not have better things to say about it. @paigeclassey has written a gut-wrenching YA novel in verse that held my attention from beginning to end. I teared up several times and my only complaint is that I wish I was longer! Fans of #book Sadie and the show Big Sky will love this one. This title releases by @west44books TODAY! Happy book birthday Paige! Thank you @netgalley for this ARC.

CW: murder, asphyxiation, death, serial killer

Thank you to West44 for the ARC! This verse story was a quick read but it packed a punch. The author gets you invested right from the beginning, getting you in Maybeth's head and allowing you to experience events unfolding right alongside her.

| This book was really surprising for me! With a first-person narrative and written in verse, Paige Classy showed that each line of this book was not written in vain.
| In his magnificent work, we meet Maybeth, a high school student who is currently lives only with her mother, receiving a visit from two police officers in her house, wanting to question them some information about Ed. Morris - her father. Faced with the fact that they suspect about her dad being a possible serial killer, Maybeth finds herself in a complicated situation, where she will have to weigh her love for his dad and the and justice for the truth.
| Being written in verses, the reading was really quick and the content was approached in a very interesting way to keep the reader curious and entertained. It is important to emphasize that the book addresses topics that It can be triggers for some people, so the need to check it before reading is crucial.
| I particularly felt that this book had a very positive impact for me, several phrases captivated me and were a reason for me to stop reading just to highlight them. The book conveys a very intense and extremely important message for all of us.

It was definitely worth every minute of reading!

I rec'd a free E-ARC from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

So ... Honestly ... This was great! The story is short, yet compelling. I feel like every page was purposefully written, and drove the plot forward.

I was actually quite surprised by the ending, but I like a bit of a twist!

Overall, this story was well-paced, had a good balance of information and action, and I would definitely read from this author again!

"I am in charge of who I am. I get to shape my own narrative."

One incredibly powerful and impactful novel in verse I have read in awhile. Families aren't always perfect. We truly do not know what goes on behind closed doors. Evil isn't inherently genetic. You have the choice to make yourself into whatever you choose, regardless of your environment. Bravo to my fellow School Librarian @paigeclassey for her debut YA Novel in Verse. This is one that will stay with me for a while. @west44books Thanks @netgalley for the Arc!

I loved this book. What a surprise.
Highly recommend it to everyone who loves a good mystery book with so dense characters.

Such a great story !
A quick read but page turner. I was surprised to love it so much because it’s written in verse and I was expecting to not like it but I did.
We feel every emotion from the character.

Paige Classey’s Everything You Left Me is an extraordinary and gripping novel that delves into the complexities of family, identity, and justice. From the moment the police arrive at Maybeth’s door, the tension is palpable, and the story unfolds with a compelling blend of suspense and emotional depth.

Maybeth’s life is turned upside down when she learns that her estranged father, who has been absent for years, is now a suspect in a series of unsolved murders. The way Classey intricately weaves Maybeth’s scientific mindset with her profound emotional struggle creates a narrative that is both intellectually stimulating and deeply moving. Maybeth is faced with a heart-wrenching dilemma: to reconcile the image of the father she cherished with the horrifying reality that he might be a criminal.

The novel excels in its character development, especially in portraying Maybeth’s internal conflict. Her struggle to balance her logical, scientific perspective with her emotional attachment to her father is portrayed with great nuance and sensitivity. This duality not only drives the plot forward but also provides a profound exploration of personal identity and moral ambiguity.

Classey’s writing is both evocative and incisive, capturing the emotional weight of Maybeth’s journey and the suspenseful twists of the mystery. The narrative’s pacing is well-balanced, ensuring that the suspense builds steadily while allowing for deep, reflective moments.

The supporting characters, though secondary, are also well-developed and add additional layers to the story. Their interactions with Maybeth enhance the narrative, providing further insight into her character and the challenges she faces.

Overall, Everything You Left Me is a masterfully crafted novel that combines psychological depth with a gripping plot. Paige Classey has delivered a powerful story that is both thought-provoking and emotionally resonant. With its intricate exploration of family dynamics, identity, and justice, it’s a book that leaves a lasting impact. I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone looking for a captivating and deeply satisfying read.