This book will be published on April 2, 2019. I read the advance reader's copy, and undoubtedly there will be differences between the version I read and the published version.
Alright, so long story short, I saw an advertisement for this book that was like, For Fans of Riverdale and I was like, "HMMMM" because I watch Riverdale... and then I thought it was kind of strange that a book was advertised to be similar to a TV show. So, I got my hands on a copy. I can see why they tried to relate it to Riverdale, but I think there are other shows it more closely resembles. I digress.
An amazon summary, "After the death of her sister, seventeen-year-old Violet Saunders finds herself dragged to Four Paths, New York. Violet may be a newcomer, but she soon learns her mother isn't: They belong to one of the revered founding families of the town, where stone bells hang above every doorway and danger lurks in the depths of the woods.
Justin Hawthorne's bloodline has protected Four Paths for generations from the Gray-a lifeless dimension that imprisons a brutal monster. After Justin fails to inherit his family's powers, his mother is determined to keep this humiliation a secret. But Justin can't let go of the future he was promised and the town he swore to protect.
Ever since Harper Carlisle lost her hand to an accident that left her stranded in the Gray for days, she has vowed revenge on the person who abandoned her: Justin Hawthorne. There are ripples of dissent in Four Paths, and Harper seizes an opportunity to take down the Hawthornes and change her destiny-to what extent, even she doesn't yet know.
The Gray is growing stronger every day, and its victims are piling up. When Violet accidentally unleashes the monster, all three must band together with the other Founders to unearth the dark truths behind their families' abilities... before the Gray devours them all." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE
Ever since Harper Carlisle lost her hand to an accident that left her stranded in the Gray for days, she has vowed revenge on the person who abandoned her: Justin Hawthorne. There are ripples of dissent in Four Paths, and Harper seizes an opportunity to take down the Hawthornes and change her destiny-to what extent, even she doesn't yet know.
The Gray is growing stronger every day, and its victims are piling up. When Violet accidentally unleashes the monster, all three must band together with the other Founders to unearth the dark truths behind their families' abilities... before the Gray devours them all." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE
This story is told as third person omniscient and follows a few narrators around. So I'm going to break the summary down by what each of the narrators thinks in the beginning.
Violet moves to a quirky little town where her mother grew up after the death of her sister. She hasn't really ever been close to her mother due to her mother's personality, and her father is also gone. Violet doesn't really know much about either side of her family, and it has kind of always been her sister and her to survive the world. But now her sister is dead, and her mother's sister has early onset dementia, so Violet's mother moves them to a little town called Four Paths.
...which come on, that is a weird name for a town. Fight me.
Anyways, Violet is a little wary of the locals who all seems to kind of stare at her as if they simply don't know what to make of her.
On the flip side, Justin Hawthorne is the golden child...that really isn't. So Four Paths is apparently a town founded by four different families that each come with their own powers. These families have a ritual to perform to unlock their powers/gain control of their powers, and Justin did NOT complete his. The town is used to looking to the four families for protection since they have the power to protect the town from "the Gray" where the monster lives.
...seriously, the Gray. These feels like an old 1920s comic book. ...maybe that's why they related it to Riverdale... Hmm...
Anyways, so Justin is constantly trying to live up to the expectations of his mother, the mayor, and not be crazy jealous of his sister who does possess the Hawthorne power. Since Justin is part of the four founding families, he gets treated with a weird amount of respect and reverence wherever he goes, almost as if he's the mayor of the town. Weird town for like adult to look to a teenager for leadership. ...also no one knows except for his mother and sister that he failed his ritual. The town is also looking closely at the four families as well due to the bodies that start appearing that clearly the monster has destroyed.
But I digress.
Then there's Harper. Harper also comes from a founding family, but lost part of her arm when she performed her ritual. This came across a little weirdly since at one point it mentions her hand is gone, but at another point, it kind of seems like the elbow and down is gone. However, I'm also a bit miffed that they didn't go through any of the steps to show how things might have to be tailored to Harper's situation in order for her to fully do everything. ...but... no seriously, that would have been nice, but I digress. Harper doesn't have any power, but she does have a lot of anger. Before she failed her ritual, she used to be BFFs with Justin, but after she failed her ritual, Justin basically will have nothing to do with her. The whole town has essentially ostracized her. Her family's line of power has also diminished, in the sense that her Dad doesn't really have as much power as his mom had, and for Harper not to have any, is well, bad.
ANYWAYS.
Justin and Harper both try to make friends with Violet for various reasons. They suspect Violet may have inherited her family's powers, but Violet has no clue about any of this deeper The Gray business about Four Paths. Her mother doesn't remember much from her childhood in Four Paths, and it's whispered that it's amazing that she was able to successfully leave Four Paths. ...Violet accidentally visits the Gray and manages to escape. She's bewildered and kind of things she dreamed all of it, but then she has moments where she blacks out and wakes up somewhere else. She has a moment where she finds her aunt's cat dead in the woods, goes to pick it up, and the cat starts moving again. She somehow brought it back to life. Freaked out, Violet starts trying to figure out what's going on, and conveniently, she's got Harper and Justin to ask.
That is enough summary.
The story telling in this book was different since sometimes it got a little tedious. How the story started to unfold in the second half of the book was interesting, but I really wish the fourth family had a narrator. We got to see plenty of the fourth family's character, but like, a narrator would have been choice. Anyways, I think there will be a sequel, and I would be curious as to how it turns out, but this isn't on my list of top books to watch out for. I did enjoy reading it overall, but I thought some of the setting got a little weird. I know I stressed it's a little town, but I had no idea what the layout of the town was like at all. It was almost as if the story was told in the way that you would tell a childhood friend who grew up in the same town as you did. Like, you don't need to tell them that the gas station is next to that one bar, next to that one grocery store, on the corner of when avenue and what street. You just say the gas station and they know what you're talking about. A lot of the story kind of felt like that. It was also weird to me that it kept emphasizing it was a small town but then the founding families would have massive houses, and the town hall was also massive. ...it kind of made me wonder about the rest of the families. Like, if you're not in a founding family, why would you stay in a town so close to the Gray that people would randomly get sucked into by a monster, then returned as a mangled corpse!? There literally seems to be no incentive for anyone NOT in a founding family to stay in Four Paths. They have no powers, they may have a day job (there's only one diner so I'm very skeptical about this), and the best they can do to protect themselves is to wear stone amulets...but Justin reveals early on that they do nothing. So like, WHY. WHY. There doesn't seem to be anything remarkable about the town except for a high chance of being murdered by a monster.
I did like how the storytelling concentrated on knowing more about the town (Violet) so they could discover what their powers/ritual is (Violet) and I also liked the quips from the other character (founding family characters) that peppered in random trivia and illustrated some of the 'bad blood' kind of vibes. It's still weird to me that they snuck in a line about how if two members of different founding families had a kid, that kid would have no powers. ....like why would you spell that out in a teenage drama book. Like.....WHY. Are we also going to deal with teen pregnancy?! C'mon.
Even though it was a bit of a hot mess, I probably will read the sequel, but again, it's not a top priority for me to read.
Happy reading!
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