Review: Delicate Monsters by Stephanie Kuehn

I received this book for free from St. Martin's Press in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

From the Morris-Award winning author of Charm & Strange, comes a twisted and haunting tale about three teens uncovering dark secrets and even darker truths about themselves.

When nearly killing a classmate gets seventeen-year-old Sadie Su kicked out of her third boarding school in four years, she returns to her family’s California vineyard estate. Here, she’s meant to stay out of trouble. Here, she’s meant to do a lot of things. But it’s hard. She’s bored. And when Sadie’s bored, the only thing she likes is trouble.

Emerson Tate’s a poor boy living in a rich town, with his widowed mother and strange, haunted little brother. All he wants his senior year is to play basketball and make something happen with the girl of his dreams. That’s why Emerson’s not happy Sadie’s back. An old childhood friend, she knows his worst secrets. The things he longs to forget. The things she won’t ever let him.

Haunted is a good word for fifteen-year-old Miles Tate. Miles can see the future, after all. And he knows his vision of tragic violence at his school will come true, because his visions always do. That’s what he tells the new girl in town. The one who listens to him. The one who recognizes the darkness in his past.

But can Miles stop the violence? Or has the future already been written? Maybe tragedy is his destiny. Maybe it’s all of theirs.

This book left me wondering what the hell I just read, but in a good way. Told in a few different POV’s you get a lot of what is going on. You get to see things from each person directly involved. This is one messed up and weird story that kept me going page after page. The characters have some major issues and I loved seeing what would happen next. This book definitely messes with your head and at the end you are left going WTF did I just read, but it was also really good!!

Sadie has some major issues. She really needs help. She loves to cause trouble. Cause pain. Mess with people’s heads. She has been thrown out of the school she was in because she almost killed some poor kid. She never led him on, he just was drawn to her and would listen to her no matter what. Now she is back home, but she is getting messages from this guy. She isn’t sure what to think or how to respond. She also finds that she is drawn to helping Miles, Emerson’s little brother. She likes to mess with Emerson though. She is manipulative, sneaky, and mean in a subtle way.

Emerson seems like a great guy, but underneath he has some major stuff going on too. He is disturbed. He has this thing for dead things, or things that appear dead. It’s pretty sick and creepy actually. He has hidden this part of him well, but with Sadie back, he is worried that this will change things. She could ruin him. He also has to take care of his family. His father is dead, and his mom has been through hell. His little brother is also sick. It makes things really hard. He needs to stay under the radar, but it is harder with Sadie being back.

Miles is a bit different. He has visions of the future. Of horrible things that will happen. He gets bullied and he tries to stay invisible. He also has some medical issues so he is sick a lot. I had a huge soft spot for him. Sadie did too. He’s a good kid who is smart, but since he is different from other people he doesn’t fit in. Not that he wants to, but it would be nice to not be picked on and beat up when all he wants to do is get through his days.

I really can’t say much about the story at all without ruining the experience of this. It will mess with your head. You will feel sorry for some of the characters. You will rage at others. This had me almost holding my breath at times, not for anticipation, but because my feelings and emotions didn’t know which way to go or what to do. This was the first book I have read from this author, though I have two others. I have to pick them up and read them ASAP. The writing is fantastic and I was totally sucked into the story. As messed up as it was I couldn’t stop. I highly recommend this book!!

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Amy

I'm no good at this, but I'm a mom of one little girl who really thinks she is a princess. I love reading all sorts of books (horror being a favorite genre of mine), love meeting new people, drinking lots of coffee, and eating chocolate. If you want to know anything else about me, just ask.

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