Thank you to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for providing me with a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
This book follows Magda who, after a scandal breaks out in her New York City private school, finds herself shipped off to her grandparents’ house for the summer. She is over-medicated, out of her comfort zone and incredibly uninspired to do anything. She spends her days helping her grandmother in the garden, volunteering at the local woman’s shelter for recovering addicts before hiking the woods behind their house.
However, that all changes when wild boy Bo literally falls into her lap, leaving Magda to start believing that she may be able to move on from the secrets that haunt her. She finds herself wanting to be in his presence, learning how to survive in the woods rather then spending time with the rich kids in town who she spent time with as a child.
When a body is found in the woods near Bo’s encampment, Magda finds herself torn between who to trust. The stories from the towns people believe that it’s the work of a mysterious Dr Goodnight who lives in the woods but after meeting Bo’s family she no longer knows who she can trust.
This thriller will have you on the edge of your seat and second guessing yourself constantly. I really enjoyed this book and loved the twist Josephine Angelini created. The book has two sides to it, you have the present day Magda at her grandparents’ house and then you have snippets of Magda’s past and what secrets led to her breakdown. Magda’s history is told through flashbacks which slowly begins to show you how fragmented her mind has become.
This book had a lot of heavy topics from the mentions of drug abuse and mental illness. I felt like Angelini portrayed Magda’s mental illness in a way that many books haven’t. She focuses and recognises the stigma attached to being diagnosed as mentally ill. Her parents were incredibly negligent when it came to Magda’s health and well-being and are quick to disown her. Her grandparents don’t know how to deal with it so simply ignore it and let Magda deal with it all on her own. As someone who suffers from a mental illness I really appreciated the way that this was explored and written.
The reason I didn’t give this book a five star rating is mainly down to how quickly parts of the plot fell into place and the reason behind Magda being forced to live with her grandparents. It felt really off for me and it made me feel uncomfortable for me to read at times.
Overall I did enjoy this book and found it to be a good YA thriller book.
Rating: 4/5*
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