Scookie Reviews

THE RAVENS by Kass Morgan & Danielle Paige 5 Stars Verdict: Is it too early to call my favourite book of the year? When Vivi joins Westerly College, she discovers the sorority known as the Ravens are actually a secret coven of witches. In her pledge to join, she quickly gets on the wrong side of Scarlett, a legacy Raven, who desperately wants to be voted president to meet her mother's unreasonable expectations. Although the dark events of last year are catching up with Scarlett, putting the whole sorority in danger.  For me, this will go down as one of my favourites of all time. It has everything I loved about 90s Charmed combined with everything I adore in YA fiction. It's fast paced, full of complex family history and teen drama, and had enough magic and mystery to keep me enthralled throughout. It has a darker edge to it too, like the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina , plus a couple of lines of humour, and tons of mystery.  The story is told through third person dual POV,

WILDER GIRLS by Rory Power 5 Stars Verdict: Dark, gritty, beautiful.  An infection has taken over the Raxter School for Girls, and the survivors are each damaged in different, gruesome ways. Quarantined on the island, all they can do is wait for the outside world to find a cure. When Hetty's friend goes missing, she breaks the rules to find her.  I listened to the audiobook, and the voice actor was superb. It's also a fairly short listen, too, and well suited to the format.   There's a content warning for body horror. The book generally has a spooky, apocalyptic feel to it, but I wouldn't personally call it scary. A little gruesome in places, but not too gross, which is how I like it. It's also not the happiest story, so I wouldn't call it a book for everyone.   That said, I really loved it.  The pace is gradual and steady, and the POV flips a couple of times to give a better overview of what's going on inside Raxter. The plot leans towards predictable, so

SCYTHE by Neil Shusterman  4  stars Verdict: I had an existential crisis, but loved it in the end. Based on a world where death is cured, Scythes are ordained in order to choose which people should be gleaned in order to maintain the population levels. Citra and Rowan are chosen to be Scythes. Neither want the honour, and only one will be chosen.  I went on quite the journey with this one. I started out with the paperback and loved the quirky, dark tone...but didn't feel that 'pull' which I need to keep going. So I didn't. I switched to the audiobook and found it much easier to get through.  The book is world led, not character led, and I think this was my problem. The main leads, Citra and Rowan aren't really too interesting to start out with. Once I worked out why I wasn't completely connecting with it, I actually started to like it a lot more. I loved the quirky tone and dark humour. The snippets of journal entries from past scythes was also a interesting wa