~~Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the ARC!~~

Not gonna lie, I didn't really have any expectations going in to this. The awesome cover got to me. Although I finished it with some problems, I'd still say this was a good read.

This book has a strong voice. Faolan has so much personality, and the western tang in her voice led to some pretty creative similes that she'd throw out nearly every page. Some of them didn't make sense (She compared a guy breathing on her lips to feeling like a bubble? Is that her saying she was gonna pop? I honestly have no idea), but most of them still create very clear images in the mind, as well as some funny ones. I also liked her character arc, going from hyper independent to learning to rely on others. I'm always fond of stories like that.

The world is kinda of a weird one. It's western, but not of our world. Apparently there were old gods, but now everyone worships this one specific one called the Shining God, and the settlement Faolan is sent to uses this god as justification for punishment and total obedience from their orphaned charges. The paranormal aspect is only foreshadowed heavily until the last five chapters or so when a creature related to the one killing kids off is revealed (Which kind of threw me, because I was expecting one of the adults to be a werewolf or something. Let me say it now: it's not werewolves, guys). It's not really explained all that well. When the paranormal happens, people only question it for a second before accepting it. It's very atypical, but I sorta respect it for doing that? I dunno, I might feel different if this was more historical fiction-y, but I do wish I got a better sense of the world outside of Faolan's hometown, the Settlement, and another bit of land belonging to another group of characters (I think they're the fictional equivalent of Native Americans, but I could be wrong) called the Rovers.

One thing that really bothered me was the pacing. It was so slow. Like I said, the paranormal aspect didn't appear til the last part of the book, so most of it was Faolan getting spooked by sounds or getting so severely injured she had to be tended to by two different characters with medical knowledge. It's so funny how often the main character spends recovering from an injury. She's just recovering from her fourth or fifth one of the book before getting her worse one right when the paranormal starts, and it takes her three chapters to recover enough for the big finale. It's funny when I think about it, but I was extremely bored in the moment.

There's also a romance that kinda comes out of nowhere. It's with a guy from the Rover group, the patient soul against Faolan's stubbornness. I do like that pairing in theory, but here it happens way too fast.

All in all, there are some things in this book I liked, like the character's voice and some of the worldbuilding, but the pacing and romance really hindered it for me. I dunno if I'll try to read McBride's other works; maybe I'll consider it another day.

Well this was extremely disappointing if someone could point me in the direction of where the Horror was that would be great, because it was absolutely non existent in this. This was more western with some random magic then it was horror. There was no atmosphere, not once did I ever feel like these characters were going through or dealing with something potentially scary. Sure there was a few scenes of "something howling in the night" but they literally lived in a settlement in the forest, were wolves, and coyotes and such live too, so the howling wasn't exactly out of the norm.

Faolan was one of those characters where initially she seemed interesting but as the book progressed became more frustrating and by the time I got to the end I hated her. Now this is most likely due to the story doing what every YA book does and that's adding in an unnecessary romance! Please who greenlight the romance in this and why did we think it would have added anything to the story, because it didn't, it actually made the story worse. She talked to the love interest twice before she decided he was the love of her life, oh and let's also not forget that on the first meeting HE is the one she reveals her whole backstory to about why she dresses like a boy (which was such a dumb reason by the way) not the boy and girl back at the settlement she has been becoming friends with, not the gunslinger who is also slowly becoming someone she can depend on, the random boy she just met is the one who gets to learn it first, makes total sense!!!!!

The plot was predictable, along with who will live and who will die, the mastermind behind this poor excuse of a cult, because let's be real there was zero exploration into that. None of the scenes were scary, oh and so you know the "horror" didnt pop up until roughly 260ish pages and it was broken into two scenes, the other not happening until 63 pages were left in the story. The whole last half of the story just completely fizzled out and frankly felt like a different story. Also one of the quotes talks about this being bloody, it's really not, there is like 2 maybe 3 scenes it's honestly extremely disappointing how the horror elements in this was so bad.

Also why was it never explained why and how Faolan woke up in the forest?? Why was this never addressed?? Was it just put in so she could have reason to be with her love interest and make out??? Because thats what it seems to be, unless I missed the explanation.