Sawkill Girls (Review)

I heard so many praises about this book that I thought I was sure to love it. It seemed to be in so many reviewers’ top anticipated books.

But honestly, I didn’t really enjoy it. 

I chalk some of this up to the fact that I was not in the best reading mood when I picked this up. (So, spare me, die-hard Sawkill fans, that’s my excuse.) I was in the throes of National Novel Writing Month, working tirelessly at my own spooky book, and picking up Sawkill ended up feeling like a chore. 

That being said, this book isn’t bad. It just failed to catch and keep my interest.

“Girls hunger. And we’re taught, from the moment our brains can take it, that there isn’t enough food for us all.”

The story follows several girls on the island of Sawkill Rock, where for years girls have gone missing, never to be found again. But when the disappearances become closer together and things start getting stranger, there may be no choice but to act…no matter the cost.

There are several perspectives in this story, one for each of the main girls in this story. And although I found all of them interesting, I never felt particularly connected to any of them. Part of this, I think, is that events began before I felt like I had gotten a real grasp on who they were before they change.  

“Hope, she thought, breathing with the tide, was a choice that only those with resolute hearts dared to make.”

Overall, I thought there could have been more time spent on getting to know each of them and explaining the ‘magic system.’ This book is already relatively long, but I honestly felt like it could have been turned into a duology in order to give all of the topics their due time.

Usually, I would love to see multiple perspectives but I think they ended up working against the story and sapped out some of the tension. Because we get everyone’s view, we know what’s happening before the other characters do, so that, much later in the book, when those things are revealed, we’re not surprised even though the other characters are. For example, we know from the beginning that one of the girls is working with the villainous figure, and so, by the time that the other girls find this out and are shocked and coming to terms with it, we’re already over it and have just accepted it as a part of her character. There were a lot of moments that could have been surprising at the climax if not for these types of scenarios and I missed the sense of surprise. Because of this setup, we know a lot from early on and all the time the girls spend explaining it to one another, which would usually serve to explain it to the reader as well, becomes repetitive and unnecessary. 

“Screw that book,” said Val. “It was written by men.” She held out her free hand to Marion. “We’re rewriting it.”

That being said, I thought that the story overall was interesting and original. I loved the inclusion of lgtbq+ characters and relationships, and above all, I really liked how dark and gritty this got. Sawkill Girls definitely gave me a mix of Stranger Things and IT vibes, and, even though it fell short for me, I would highly recommend it to fans of either. I rated Sawkill Girls 3.5 out of 5 stars.