Our Crooked Hearts

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There is a dark and ominous feel to this book. I couldn't stop reading, every part of the story was so intriguing. My favorite character was Billy. I loved his cheery acceptance of Ivy's magic in his youth and later his hope tinged with sadness. Billy watched me a little longer. He was too tall for it, bent practically in half to see into the car. Told in two timelines, this follows 17 year old Ivy who is experiencing weird things and suspect that her mom holds some dark secrets. It also follows her mom and her group of friends in the 90's as they get into dark and dangerous magic with serious ramifications. (Note that this does include blood magic and animal sacrifice and mutilation involving bunnies) A standalone novel so precise and enthralling that the only possible explanation is that Albert herself is a witch...a novel that will be devoured as well as savored. It takes risks and, magically, succeeds. And whether or not Albert is in fact a witch, one thing is for sure: her words are magic." - Booklist (starred review)

Tell us what year you read or heard about the book. A range of years is fine. You can mention when you think the book was published. Part of why this section worked so well for me was the sense of place. My family is from Chicago, and the author has this incredible talent for describing the city in detail without info- dump. For someone unfamiliar with Chicago, it will create a strong atmosphere. For someone who knows it well, I had moments of “oh, yes, I know this street” and “oh I can almost smell the lake” and “oh I can imagine the food from this vendor.” If you're searching for more than one book (or book series), start a new topic for each book or series. This empowers three girls who have felt powerless up until now. There’s a wonderful scene where they are at the lakefront and a couple of jerks start harassing them. They hex one of them so that whenever a vile thought about women enters his mind, insects fly out of his mouth and bite his face.They continue to study the book, to become more powerful and to get more involved in the occult community. All of this leads to a terrible secret Dana has kept for decades. I felt, suddenly, like I might cry. It was the pain, I told myself. The adrenaline, fizzing away. “No, no. It was a . . . car thing. I’m good.”

Like a puzzle box that somehow contains a more interesting version of The Craft. . . . It all boils down to the roiling cauldron of mother/daughter issues at the core of this story, and the twisting mystery of it all is very satisfying to unravel. All that plus teen witches—what more could you ask for?” — NPR.org (Best New Book of Summer) along with the emotional complexity, the writing style is also terrific—the flow, the descriptions; the "kaz brekker cheekbones," a character "darting toward the fence on Barbie toes," a building that "looked like the sentient dollhouse of a very bad seed," and there are also some keen observations, like this astute description of sharon—an adult woman who assisted the witch-trio in the beforetimes: Ivy has always felt that something about her mother was “off,” and that something was buried deep inside herself. The next night she sees her mother bury something in the yard and digs it up later. It’s a jar containing herbs, paper and blood. She reflects: i fully expected this to be one of those typical YA-allegories about girls fed up with being vulnerable in the world and taking empowerment into their own witchy hands; girlbonding and messing with magic as an outlet for the rage and dissatisfaction that permeates adolescent girlhood. and there is some of that: Okay.” Her unnerving intensity was draining. The corners of her mouth twitched up, conspiratorial. “But Nate was drinking tonight, wasn’t he?”

Haunting and beautiful, full of messy girls drunk on messier magic and told with electric prose brimming with sharp metaphors.” — The Bulletin (starred review, Blue Ribbon title) and as for the girls, especially ivy—they’re more than characters, they feel like people. they are stubborn and headstrong and brave but they are also as flawed and fragile as all of us, despite their magical abilities. and like all difficult things i ever have to do, ever in my life, should, it is my great privilege and thrill to tell you: it paid off.

El tema de la magia siempre me ha atraído mucho y al ver este libro quise leerlo inmediatamente, porque no es solo un libro de brujas sino que se compagina con buenas dosis de mentiras y secretos, algo oscuro que se acerca y nos habla de la amistad y la familia, con un pequeño toque de romance y mucho de encontrarse a uno mismo, vamos una mezcla que a cualquiera le dan ganas de devorar. the mother daughter aspect was heart wrenching. i felt so bad for ivy the entire time but she’s such a bad bitch! literally the best girl.Come out.” Her voice was low, smudged and hardened by some unplaceable accent. It rose into a singsong. “Come out, come out, whoever you are.” Ivy Chase, 17, is on her way home from a party when the car in which she’s riding nearly hits a naked young woman standing in the road. A bizarre encounter ensues, and unsettling events follow: a decapitated rabbit appears in Ivy’s suburban driveway, and someone else’s face flashes in her mirror. After Ivy discovers inexplicable inconsistencies in her childhood memories, she decides to confront her mother, Dana, and honorary aunt, Fee, both of whom seem capable of “unnatural things.” Upon arriving at the women’s herbal remedies shop, however, Ivy finds the business closed and a surface bloody. Albert ( The Hazel Wood) skillfully interweaves Ivy’s increasingly urgent search EVERY LINE READS LIKE AN INCANTATION, and the result is a book pulsing with magic, one that holds the reader firmly under its spell. V.E. Schwab, author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue Melissa Albert’s signature storytelling is once again pure sorcery. This book has everything I love: girls with tremendous power at their fingertips, mothers with unforgivable secrets, horrors left on the doorstep, and writing that sings and stuns." — Nova Ren Suma, author of A Room Away from the Wolves

year-old Ivy is heading home from a party with her boyfriend Nate in the middle of the night when a strange woman appears nude, on the road. What follows is a summer that will change life as she knows it forever. A heavy Dad sigh. “I’m getting a little tired of your go-to response. Do you have any idea how much worse this could’ve gone?” SECRETS. LIES. SUPER-BAD CHOICES. WITCHCRAFT. This is Our Crooked Hearts - a gripping mystery crossed with a pitch-dark fantasy from Melissa Albert, global bestselling author of The Hazel Wood. this book was so well thought out & the way it came full circle was So satisfying - i was literally jaw dropping when i realized what was going on. i honestly would read a whole series based on the characters in this book. La trama se desarrolla muy bien y con esmero, van poco a poco entrecruzándose las historias del pasado de la madre (Dana) y del presente con su hija (Ivy), así que vamos despejando dudas y descubriendo los secretos para llegar un momento en el que todo explota y cobra sentido, creo que la autora lo maneja muy bien y nos da buenas dosis de tensión, misterio y sorpresas para llegar a un final muy bueno que cumple a la perfección.In a time of typewriters and steam engines, Iris Winnow awaits word from her older brother, who has enlisted on the side of Enva the Skyward goddess. Alcohol abuse led to her mother’s losing her job, and Iris has dropped out of school and found work utilizing her writing skills at the Oath Gazette. Hiding the stress of her home issues behind a brave face, Iris competes for valuable assignments that may one day earn her the coveted columnist position. Her rival for the job is handsome and wealthy Roman Kitt, whose prose entrances her so much she avoids reading his articles. At home, she writes cathartic letters to her brother, never posting them but instead placing them in her wardrobe, where they vanish overnight. One day Iris receives a reply, which, along with other events, pushes her to make dramatic life decisions. Magic plays a quiet role in this story, and readers may for a time forget there is anything supernatural going on. This is more of a wartime tale of broken families, inspired youths, and higher powers using people as pawns. It flirts with clichéd tropes but also takes some startling turns. Main characters are assumed White; same-sex marriages and gender equality at the warfront appear to be the norm in this world. I was breathing too fast. My vision sizzled, my head felt helium-light. Not because I was scared of what I’d dug up from the garden, but because I wasn’t. The discovery should have felt alien, appalling. It didn’t. It chimed in grim accord with the feeling I got when [my mother] arranged her hands just so, and the certainty I had glimpsed the rabbit’s tooth in her palm. Marion handed Fee a CD and we lay on the uneven floor of her bedroom to listen, heads close and the music loud enough that we could feel it vibrating through the boards. Witches, dark magic, parental secrets, a fraught mother/daughter relationship....all are central to Our Crooked Hearts. This could probably be compared to The Craft, as a witchy teen story that leans dark. Every line reads like an incantation, and the result is a book pulsing with magic, one that holds the reader firmly under its spell.” — V. E. Schwab, author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue