What We Harvest was an absolutely fantastic book that had elements of family and friendship, magic, and creepy horror. It was the exact amount of horror I can handle too! 🤣 This was an outstanding debut from Ann Fraistat!
Wren lives in Hollow’s End, an old town set in the backdrop of present day. The town has four farms run by four founding families, and each one has its own special element that helps drive revenue and tourism for the town and families. Something has gone wrong in Hollow’s End though. A blight is taking over the crops, sucking the life right out of them, but it’s more than just the crops. People and animals have begun to go missing, and now they are showing up again, but they are shells of the humans they once were, and they are dangerous.
This was a fast-paced story that dropped the reader right into the action. It had a great balance of backstory and present-day story that had me furiously turning the pages to see what happened. I enjoyed the creepy-crawly aspect of the blight and the way it controls the humans and animals. One outstanding thing for me in this story though, was the character relationships. I really enjoyed the personalities and the interactions with each of them. Even Wren and her pet dog have a beautiful relationship.
Overall, I loved this book, and I found myself completely immersed in the story. I would highly recommend this for readers that enjoy a little bit of magic, a creepy setting in a YA story, and a whole lot of great writing!
Where to Find This Book:
For fans of Wilder Girls comes a nightmarish debut guaranteed to keep you up through the night, about an idyllic small town poisoned by its past, and one girl who must fight the strange disease that’s slowly claiming everyone she loves.
Wren owes everything she has to her home, Hollow’s End, a centuries-old, picture perfect American town. Tourists travel miles to marvel at its miracle crops, including the shimmering, iridescent wheat of Wren’s family farm. Until five months ago.
That’s when the quicksilver mercury blight first surfaced, poisoning the farms of Hollow’s End one by one. It began by consuming the crops–thick, silver sludge bleeding from the earth. Next were the animals. Infected livestock and wild creatures alike staggered off into the woods by day—only to return at night, their eyes, fogged white, leering from the trees.
Then, the blight came for the neighbors.
Wren is among the last locals standing. And the blight has finally come for her, too. Now, the only one she can turn to is the last person she wants to call: her ex, Derek. They haven’t spoken in months, but Wren and Derek still have one thing in common—Hollow’s End means everything to them. Only there’s much they don’t know about their hometown and its renowned miracle crops. And they’re about to discover that miracles aren’t free.
Their ancestors have an awful lot to pay for, and Wren and Derek are the only ones left to settle old debts.
Just the Facts:
What We Harvest by Ann Fraistat
Genre: YA Horror
Publisher: Delacorte
Pub Date: March 22, 2022
I was provided a gifted copy of this book for free. I am leaving my honest review voluntarily.
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