Sam Beckbessinger & Dale Halvorsen: "Girls of Little Hope" (ARC Review)

Title: Girls of Little Hope [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: None
Author: Sam Beckbessinger & Dale Halvorsen [Sam's site | Sam on Goodreads | Dale's site | Dale on Goodreads]
Genres: Thriller/Mystery, Sci-Fi, Contemporary
Year: 2023
Age: 14+ (please note: this is dark YA - you may want to take a look at the WARNING! section)
Stars: 4.5/5
Pros: Realistic teen characters/relationships. Bold twist on a classic horror trope.

Cons: Requires suspension of disbelief both about the twist and the way a pivotal problem gets fixed.
WARNING! Death (animal death too...sort of). Blood, gore and violence. Body horror. Bug horror. Burns. Self-harm. Domestic abuse. Trans-generational trauma. Underage sex. Pregnancy scare.
Will appeal to: Those who like Nova Ren Suma's brand of female teen protagonists, Stephen King's brand of horror and Christopher Pike's brand of weirdness.

Blurb: Being fifteen is tough, tougher when you live in a boring-ass small town like Little Hope, California (population 8,302) in 1996. Donna, Rae and Kat keep each other sane with the fervour of teen girl friendships, zine-making and some amateur sleuthing into the town’s most enduring mysteries: a lost gold mine, and why little Ronnie Gaskins burned his parents alive a decade ago. Their hunt will lead them to a hidden cave from which only two of them return alive. Donna the troublemaker can’t remember anything. Rae seems to be trying to escape her memories of what happened, while her close-minded religious family presses her for answers. And Kat? Sweet, wannabe writer Kat who rebelled against her mom’s beauty pageant dreams by getting fat? She’s missing. Dead. Or terribly traumatised, out there in the woods, alone. As the police circle and Kat’s frantic mother Marybeth starts doing some investigating of her own, Rae and Donna will have to return to the cave where they discover a secret so shattering that no-one who encounters it will ever be the same. (Amazon)

Review: First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on NetGalley. Thanks to Titan Books for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

PUSHING THE LIMITS

Here's a fact for you: teen horror is on a roll, and has been for a while now. I think the main reason is that YA horror authors have taken to use the genre (and in this particular case, its tropes) to frame and enhance coming-of-age stories with tridimensional and compelling protagonists - an art that (most) YA thriller writers haven't mastered yet, at least in my experience. Girls of Little Hope is an excellent example of this genre-blending attitude: it starts off like a mystery, then adds a strong layer of teen characterisation, and ultimately punches you in the face with a familiar, but nonetheless unsettling horror trope, only to twist it into something that ties in with the characters' arc (call it a rite of passage if you will, though of a brutal and decidedly peculiar sort). [...]

Offbeat Offline: June 2023 (Back, but Nowhere Near OK)

Welcome to Offbeat Offline, where I bring you up-to-date with what went on in my life during the month just gone, give you a sneak peek of my next shenanigans, and share my favourite posts of late!

What happened last month to yours truly? Nothing major, but the heat kicked in and I'm even more tired and achey than ever. A month-and-a-half hiatus didn't do much for me, also because I ended up reading and scheduling reviews for two ARCs, so yeah...return of the review woes LOL. But one of the books was a June release that I got approved for at the last minute, and the other was the second-to-last of my August books (I have a handful) and its sitting there unread so close to pub date was making me stabby. Anyhow, I decided to come back for a couple of months, fulfill all my review obligations, touch base with everybody (what did I miss?), and hopefully go on a REAL hiatus in September, because if I have one to look forward to, I function better...

Offbeat Offline: May 2023 (+ Announcing a One-Month-Long Hiatus)

Welcome to Offbeat Offline, where I bring you up-to-date with what went on in my life during the month just gone, give you a sneak peek of my next shenanigans, and share my favourite posts of late!

What happened last month to yours truly? A piping disaster, more eye trouble, return of the perm woes, usual amount of running around and caregiving. I had planned to take a month off blogging (this one), but as you know, I ended up starting my hiatus earlier than I anticipated, because I was spent. It didn't make a difference for the blog, because I had the whole May content scheduled already, but it caused me to pretty much disappear on you (brief Twitter stints excluded), and for that I'm sorry...but I can't seem to find the time and energy to stay up-to-date with your posts - not to mention, I want to be able to put my heart and soul into my interactions, and that just isn't feasible at the moment. So, after this post, I'll retire into my cave again for the whole month, and I hope to be able to make a proper comeback in July. Bless you for not giving up on me and for showing me support even when I'm M.I.A. 😭 🧡.  

Tell Me Something Tuesday: Which Books Are You Looking Forward to Reading This Summer? (June-August)

Tell Me Something Tuesday is a weekly meme created by Heidi at Rainy Day Ramblings in order to discuss a wide range of topics from books to blogging (and some slightly more personal matters throw in for good measure). After Heidi stopped blogging (apparently for good), five of us took over as hosts while providing new questions. The current team is composed of Berls at Because Reading Is Better Than Real Life, Jen at That's What I'm Talking About, Karen at For What It's Worth, Linda at Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell and Roberta at Offbeat YA. This week's question is...

WHICH BOOKS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO READING THIS SUMMER? (JUNE-AUGUST)

I don't know if I'll ever get around to buying all these books or when, since 1) early reviews and excerpts might cause me to change my mind in the future, and 2) given my current situation (see: unemployment status), book money is scarce...(BUT! this is a lucky season for me, since I got access to 7 out of 10 of these books! I was approved for The Infinite Miles by Hannah Fergesen, The Wonder State by Sara Flannery Murphy, The Museum of Human History by Rebekah Bergman, The Dark Place by Britney S. Lewis, The Girls from Hush Cabin by Marie Hoy Kenny, and A Second Chance for Yesterday by R.A. Sinn, while The Never-Ending End of the World by Ann Christy was free to download both on NG and EW). Anyhow, I wanted to give a bit of exposure to all the summer books that caught my eye, so here's my list (complete with pub dates)...

Hannah Fergesen: "The Infinite Miles" (ARC Review)

Title: The Infinite Miles [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: None
Author: Hannah Fergesen [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Sci-Fi
Year: 2023
Age: 16+ (technically an adult book, but it can be read by mature and even younger teens)
Stars: 4.5/5
Pros: Inventive, heartfelt twist on the time-travel trope. Ode to the power of friendship and hope.
Cons: You have to buy into a specific branch of time travel in order to suspend your disbelief (click on the link at your own risk - it will spoil part of the fun...).
WARNING! Contains some violence and a dose of dark imagery (face scars, black blood, stabbing).
Will appeal to: Fans of Doctor Who (especially the Matt Smith era). People who know how to love ardently (and fight for what they love).

Blurb: Three years after her best friend Peggy went missing, Harper Starling is lost. All she has are regrets and reruns of her favorite science fiction show, Infinite Odyssey. Then Peggy returns and demands to be taken to the Argonaut, the fictional main character of Infinite Odyssey. But the Argonaut is just that...fictional. Until the TV hero himself appears and spirits Harper away from her former best friend. Traveling through time, he explains that Peggy used to travel with him but is now under the thrall of an alien enemy known as the Incarnate. Then he leaves Harper in 1971. Stranded in the past, Harper must find a way to end the Incarnate’s thrall...without the help of the Argonaut. And if Harper can’t find it in herself to believe - in the Argonaut, in Peggy, and most of all, in herself - she’ll be the Incarnate’s next casualty, along with the rest of the universe. (Amazon excerpt)

Review: First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on Edelweiss. Thanks to Blackstone Publishing for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

A DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE

Let's address the elephant in the room first: if the synopsis gives you strong Doctor Who vibes, it's intentional. Ferguson does pay homage to the iconic British show and its titular character in the form of the Argonaut, a time traveler who trades the Doctor's space vessel masquerading as a blue police box for his own spaceship disguised as a black muscle car (and occasionally a lime-green VW bus). However, despite taking its cue from the long-lived TV series, The Infinite Miles isn't anything like fan fiction made novel. The disillusioned and bitter Argonaut couldn't be more different from whatever incarnation of the Doctor (even troubled time-war-survivor Nine and grumpy post-regeneration Twelve) if he tried. And for all their parallels and (often clever and oblique) similarities, the novel puts a number of spins on its source material and creates its own independent mythology, while ultimately conveying the same message of hope and love (self-love, too) being the biggest weapons. Let's put it this way: if you're a Doctor Who aficionado, you'll gobble this book up. If you've never seen the show, but you like time-travel stories that span both the Earth and the stars, and sci-fi with a heart, you'll love The Infinite Miles nevertheless - and maybe pick up Doctor Who because of it. [...]