When this book came around for tour, I literally screeched. I am a CAR GIRL ™ through and through. I grew up on the dirt tracks of Texas Thunder Speedway and graduated to IMCA as my family grew in race experience. My grandmother was 78 and still driving dirt track race cars – she even FLIPPED her car and crushed it when she was 80, but still crawled out and got back out there! This book brought up so many memories that I just couldn’t help but enjoy it.
Let’s take a look at five reasons I loved it!
First, check out how awesome the book is!
Author: Jill Baguchinsky
Genre: YA Contemporary
Reps: Sapphic, Bisexual,
Content Warning: Sexual Assault, Grief, Trauma, Violence
Format/Source: physical
From Goodreads:
If boys will be boys, girls will fight back.
For high school senior Nell and her friends, a vacation house on a private Florida island sounds like the makings of a dream spring break. But Nell brings secrets with her—secrets that fuse with the island’s tragic history, trapping them all with a curse that surrounds the island in a toxic, vengeful mist and the surrounding waters with an unseen, devouring beast.
Getting out alive means risking her friendships, her sanity, and even her own life. In order to save herself and her friends, Nell will have to face memories she’d rather leave behind, reveal the horrific truth behind the encounter that changed her life one year ago, and face the shadow that’s haunted her since childhood.
Easier said than done.
But when Nell’s friends reveal that they each brought secrets of their own, a solution even more dangerous than the curse begins to take shape.
So Witches We Became is a diverse, queer horror about female friendship, the emotional aftermath of surviving assault, and how to find power in the shadows of your past.
…Queer Rep…
I mean, who doesn’t love a book that immediately screams QUEER AND HERE!
….enchanting horror…
The horror elements in this book are stunningly terrifying and at the same time beautifully well done.
….THE MIST…
I don’t know about you but I love a good ‘mist’ novel. The idea that a malicious moving mist entity just sends chills down my spine!
….Feminine Rage (not the musical)..
I think the biggest pull for me was the pure Feminine Rage that radiated through the entire book. It was so viceral and all consuming for me. I forgot who I was and just immersed myself into the rage of each character.
….Mystery…
As always, the mysterious aspect of horror is what keeps me coming back. This book was no exception. The clues were intertwined through out the novel and were (imo) very easy to pick up on.
This book does justice for so many of us who never felt the justice we needed.
Grab the book!
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
IndieBound
About the Author:
Jill Baguchinsky grew up fluent in darkness and Disney. She spent much of her life on a barrier island just off the coast of Southwest Florida, where she read way too much Stephen King and dodged more hurricanes than she could count.
Jill’s queer YA horror novel, SO WITCHES WE BECAME, will launch in summer 2024 from Little, Brown and Company. Inspired by Jill’s experience with Hurricane Irma in 2017, SWWB is a story about storm surge, female rage, and toxic bro culture. If boys will be boys, girls will fight back.
Jill still lives in Florida, but after one hurricane too many, she and her mini menagerie of rescue animals moved inland. Aside from the manatees she used to watch in her backyard canal, she doesn’t miss much about island life.
