Secrets Of Skin And Stone, by Wendy Laine ~ 4.5 Stars

Tags

Gargoyles, Self-harm, Supernatural, YA Fiction

Thanks to NetGalley and Entangled Teen for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: Available Now

290 Pages

Synopsis: Something is wrong in Hidden Creek. The sleepy Alabama town is more haunted than any place fiend hunter Grisham Caso has ever seen. Unearthed graves, curse bags, and spilled blood all point to an evil that could destroy his gargoyle birthright. The town isn’t safe for anyone, and everyone say fiery Piper Devon knows why.

Piper wants to leave Hidden Creek behind. She’s had enough of secrets–they hide in the shadows of her room and tell her terrible things are coming. Too-charming city boy Grisham might be her only chance to save herself. 

To survive, Piper and Grisham have to shed their secrets and depend only on each other. But what lurks in Hidden Creek still might take everything away from them, including each other.

I have to be honest and admit the main reason why I requested Secrets of Skin and Stone was the mention of gargoyles. I have a fondness for them and personally feel there aren’t enough books featuring them. The premise was intriguing, but I didn’t expect to be so completely charmed by the story and Piper and Gris. Piper is a cutter and has OCD so please be aware of this trigger. A week or so ago I gave another YA novel, The Suffering Tree, a poor review primarily because of a main character who also self-harmed, and not only was there no advance trigger warning, but I felt the issue was poorly handled in the story itself. This was definitely not the case here. On the page directly before the beginning of the first chapter, there’s this warning:

Trigger Warning: 

This book contains fictional descriptions of self-harm. All attempts were made by the author, who has a personal history of self-harm, to portray cutting as realistic, but not gratuitous. These scenes are crucial to the characterization of the mental disorder represented.

Yes! That is what I want to see when an issue like this is a major part of the story. And true to this warning, the reasons for Piper’s cutting herself are thoroughly explored and her actions are not ignored, at least by Gris who understands the stress and despair behind her cutting and helps her discover that she doesn’t need to do this to herself in order to gain relief. Her OCD is also addressed although in a somewhat more limited fashion. While you would think these two issues would make Piper seem weak and vulnerable, let me assure you she’s anything but. She’s feisty, determined, and ignores the cruel words thrown at her by many of the other residents of Hidden Creek. What does haunt her is that she believes there’s a hidden darkness in her. This is heartbreakingly illustrated when after her dog is brutally killed, she decides to make a list of possible suspects and puts her own name on it. This is just one of the many times I wanted to reach in and hug her. And then there’s Gris. He is without a doubt Piper’s soulmate. As a gargoyle, or “Watcher” he’s in a perfect position to help her given that a mysterious villain is sending fiends after her. While his feelings of love for her develop pretty quickly, Piper is extremely distrustful of him in the beginning and it takes a little while for her to warm up to him. Once she does though, they’re the type of couple that give you the warm fuzzies. The secondary characters are okay, but because I was so invested in Piper and Gris, they didn’t really stand out as much to me. The identity of the villain wasn’t a huge shock, but that didn’t take anything away from the climax. The other thing I wanted to be sure to mention was how much I loved the setting. Although this story is contemporary, the description of Hidden Creek almost reads like a Southern Gothic. The dialogue between the characters that features that deep southern drawl helps bring this to life. Overall, while Secrets of Skin and Stone isn’t action-packed from beginning to end, I was still completely captivated. Starting with two main characters that I think readers will fall in love with and an original and creative mythology featuring gargoyles, this book should have wide appeal for fans of YA supernatural fiction. While this may be a standalone novel, I’m hoping it’s not because I’d love to see more of Piper and Gris.

 

The Suffering Tree, by Elle Cosimano ~ 2.0 Stars

Tags

Historical Fiction, Mental Illness, Mystery, Self-harm, Supernatural, YA Fiction

Thanks to NetGalley and Disney-Hyperion for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: June 13th, 2017

368 Pages

Synopsis: Tori Burns and her family left D.C. for claustrophobic Chaptico, Maryland, after suddenly inheriting a house under mysterious circumstances. That inheritance puts her at odds with the entire town, especially Jesse Slaughter and his family–it’s their generations-old land that the Burns have “stolen”. But none of that seems to matter after Tori witnesses a young man claw his way out of a grand v e under the gnarled oak in her new backyard.

Nathaniel Bishop may not understand what brought him back, but it’s clear to Tori t h at he hates the Slaughters for what they did to him centuries ago. Wary yet drawn to him by a shared sense of loss, she gives him shelter. But in the wake of his arrival comes a string of troubling events–including the disappearance of Jesse Slaughter’s cousin–that seem to point to back to Nathaniel.

As Tori digs for the truth–and slowly begins to fall for Nathaniel–she uncovers something much darker in the tangled branches of the Slaughter family tree. In order to break the centuries-old curse that binds Nathaniel there and discover the true nature of her inheritance, Tori must unravel the Slaughter family’s oldest and most guarded secrets. But the Slaughters want to keep them buried…at any cost.

The Suffering Tree is a tough book to review. There are some good things about it, but it also has many weaknesses. First, it should definitely come with a trigger warning concerning self-harm. Tori is a cutter, and this is brought up repeatedly, yet there’s nothing in the book’s summary about this. Making matters worse is the way in which Cosimano uses Tori’s illness as the way Nathaniel is brought back to life. So, right from the beginning I was frankly appalled. In addition, no one in Tori’s life ever makes a serious effort to stop her harmful behavior. There’s no resolution and it seems to me that the only reason why it’s included in the story is to bring in Nathaniel. The book is told from three perspectives: the present, the past through Tori’s visions, and the past from Nathaniel’s POV and it was jarring to move back and forth between them. While I found Nathaniel and his historical ties to the Slaughters to be the most interesting part of the story, the rest of the characters including Tori, come across as being generally under-developed which makes it difficult to become emotionally invested in them. The mystery is interesting, and the writing itself is beautiful and at times almost poetic but these aren’t enough to save the story. To be honest, even without the issue of cutting being magically glorified, The Suffering Tree would have been just an okay read for me, but the cavalier way Cosimano treats the issue of depression, anxiety and self-harm has left me concerned for the teens that will be reading this.