The Invocations

good but gruesome, reminiscent of Bardugo's Ninth House with more murder mystery and less secret society.

This YA witch book has a lot going for it. The magic system is interesting and also grotesque. There is a real cost to obtaining power, especially if done poorly. The intertwining characters' stories were good, but a little one-dimensional. My main criticism is that each character had their one motivation and stuck with it. That was their main focus, so they came across a little flat. Also, Jude's schtick, being a rich girl with an attitude, got old really quick, especially the way she kept hitting on the cop. It grated on my nerves. But, the overall atmosphere was also great. The book was incredibly dark, moody, and violent, with plenty of gore and vomit to satisfy any horror fan. There were some very disgusting moments here. The story ended up being a bit predictable, but I enjoyed the way it unfolded nonetheless. It is a good feminist YA story about 3 girls trying to survive against the odds.

Literally just closed the book so please forgive the chaotic energy overflowing from my brain.

After reading House of Hallow, I added this one to my TBR list without even reading the description. I preordered it and after some issues getting it to route to the correct address, WORTH EVERY SECOND OF THE WAIT.

Spooky London, serial killer stalking modern witches, queer rep, demons, eerie body horror that had me squirming in my seat, AND badass femmes motivated by rage? This was absolutely everything I wanted out of this story and more. Krystal Sutherland absolutely knocked it out of the park with this one.

A witch ("cursewriter"), a cursed girl (also a witch, by the way magic works in this world), and a girl in search of a witch all wind up with a common goal: find the person using magic to kill the witches who are using spells written by the first girl. Jude, the second girl is along for the ride because Emer, the first girl, is pretty much the only person who might be able to help uncurse her; Zara, the third girl, needed a witch to resurrect her dead sister, who just happened to be one of those witches who was killed by the mysterious witch-murderer. This book, obviously, had a lot of twisty turns on its way to the moment when everything comes together and all is revealed, but it all worked quite well.

I took off half a star because despite Jude's constant thirst through the book, it still felt a little abrupt when she and Emer finally got together in the epilogue. Maybe it's that Emer was decidedly un-thirsty for most of the book, to the point where I wondered whether she was ace-aro coded. Guess not!

Since I loved Sutherland's previous book, "House of Hollow," so much, I really tried not to go into this one with my expectations too high. I don't think it would've mattered if I did though, because "The Invocations" was even better. This book has everything that I loved about "House of Hollow," including the author's absolutely gorgeous, evocative, skillful writing style that brings the world to life. It's creepy, it's even more gruesome, and the mystery at the heart of the story is even more engaging and thrilling, as it's about a serial killer going after witches.

One thing about HoH I was a bit let down by was the ending, but "The Invocations" completely delivers. I also ended up more invested in the characters.

I'm blown away. Love this book; love the body horror, the queerness, the witchiness, everything. I can't wait to see what Sutherland writes next, and I want the Illumicrate/Evernight edition SO much now.

This was excellent! I really liked all of the main characters and was fully invested in the outcome of this story. Jude, Zara, and Emer each had a lot at stake and I thought that they made a great team. The magic of the story was unique and I loved the fact that I never knew which direction things would go. There were a few twists and turns that caught me completely by surprise, which is always fun. I found this book to be incredibly entertaining and almost impossible to put down.

Jude, Zara, and Emer don’t know each other at the start of this story but are drawn together by circumstance. Jude is the estranged daughter of a very wealthy man. She made a deal with a demon but she didn’t do it correctly. If she can’t find a witch to help her fix the situation, she may not have much longer to live. Zara’s sister was killed by a serial killer and she would do anything to get her back. Zara intends to find someone who can help her do exactly that and she fears that she is running out of time. Emer has the skills that both girls need but it seems that her former clients are being killed, and the invocations on their skin are being stolen. The trio must work together to achieve all of their goals and to stop a killer.

I listened to the audiobook and thought that Kit Griffiths did a wonderful job of bringing this story to life. I liked the voices that she used for the various characters in the story and thought that she was able to add just the right amount of emotion to her reading. I found her voice to be very pleasant and I thought that it suited the story perfectly. I am certain that her performance added to my overall enjoyment of this story. I will definitely be recommending this one to others. This was a wonderfully exciting story with characters that I cared about. I hope to read more of this author’s work very soon.

I received a review copy of this book from Penguin Random House and Penguin Random House Audio.

THE INVOCATIONS by Krystal Sutherland is on many a reader's list of anticipated reads for 2024, and I understand why. With the synopsis describing a story filled with witches, curses, and the occult, it's difficult to ignore. Unfortunately, I wish I had ignored the hype and left it alone. If I had, maybe then my last book of the year wouldn't have been so disappointing.

To me, falling asleep while reading is the number one indicator that I am not enjoying a story, so I knew I was in trouble when I was falling asleep while trying to read THE INVOCATIONS. It doesn't matter how awake I was when I picked up the book, my eyes got heavy after only twenty minutes.

There are several reasons why I struggled. For one thing, even though we have three different narrators, there was almost no difference in their voices. I struggled to keep the three girls separate in my mind and often had to flip back to remind myself who was telling the story. Even now, I still find it challenging to identify any major differences. All three are young, damaged, and in toxic situations. Sure, one has a leg rotting from the inside out, one is almost feral, and one is in the throes of grief, but there isn't much else to differentiate them. They are, for all intents and purposes, the same.

Then, I didn't find the murder mystery very compelling. The big reveal is less a surprise and more an inevitability. The fact that only the girls could solve the mystery is laughable. If anything, it feels like a plot point for a novel written in the early 2000s. Young adult fiction, in general, has come a long way from when all the adults were worthless or nonexistent and only the teens could resolve issues. Unfortunately, THE INVOCATIONS resurrects that particular plot device. I feel it does the story a disservice too.

Much like most of 2023, my last book of the year was not very good. THE INVOCATIONS is a forgettable story in which the demons aren't scary, the mystery is anticlimactic, and the main characters are so similar as to be interchangeable. I can see it being more popular than it warrants because of the buzz it is already receiving. But for me, THE INVOCATIONS is a book I will gladly set aside as the calendar turns to a new year, and I hope the books I read next year will be much better.