The Girls by Emma Cline | Rating: ★★★★★

That was our mistake, I think. One of many mistakes. To believe that boys were acting with a logic that we could someday understand. To believe that their actions had any meaning beyond thoughtless impulse. We were like conspiracy theorists, seeing portent and intention in every detail, wishing desperately that we mattered enough to be the object of planning and speculation. But they were just boys. Silly and young and straightforward; they weren't hiding anything.

You know that feeling when you've read a book and you're completely engulfed in it, you don't notice the passage of time? There could be a literal storm pouring outside and you would barely notice it, because you couldn't stop flipping the pages. Someone could walk past you, playing the theme to Star Wars on a tuba, while wearing a tie-dyed gnome costume with reindeer antlers firmly on their head and you wouldn't have the slightest idea because, holy shit, I can't put this book down!? I know you guys know what I'm talking about and The Girls is that book for me.

Impossible to put down. Excellent pace. Phenomenal writing. Complex characters. Thrills. Quotable to the highest degree. A quality I noticed about The Girls right away was that it was otherworldly. It takes your breath away. Something about it causes your heart to speed up and down and go all over the place in the most deliciously maddening of ways. It can chill you to the bone just as much as it could warm you up. The Girls is haunting, it is everything. It is familiar and incredibly put together.

The Steep and Thorny Way by Cat Winters | Rating: ★★★★☆ (4.5)

As a note, a printed galley of this novel was sent to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not effect my opinions in any way.

Although Cat Winters has a steady flow of historical fiction under her belt, her newest release coming out this year, The Steep and Thorny Way is my first experience with her writing. And what a wonderful first dive it was! As a so-called retelling of the much beloved classic Hamlet, the story has a lot to live up and it did beautifully.

Electric, thoroughly mysterious and thrilling, The Steep and Thorny Way lives up to all you’d expect it to. Winters pens a tale that grips you from the first pages and refuses to let go. It’s a story about danger in historic time, prejudice that roots itself in a community and turns it sour. It’s a story of the friendship and the love and loyalty between family and friends.

In a time, the 1920s, where racial tensions are high and one mixed race girl is coming of age, one could expect a hitch or two in the way a story unfolds. There are many authors out there who could attempt such a tale but fail miserably in terms of accuracy. The Steep and Thorny Way is not one of those stories. Once it captures your attention, it keeps you in place and grips onto your soul with an inevitable twist.