Book Review: All the Bad Apples by Moira Fowley-Doyle

What’s the Story?:

The day after the funeral all our mourning clothes hung out on the line like sleeping bats. ‘This will be really embarrassing,’ I kept saying to my family, ‘when she shows up at the door in a week or two.’

When Deena’s wild and mysterious sister Mandy disappears – presumed dead – her family are heartbroken. But Mandy has always been troubled. It’s just another bad thing to happen to Deena’s family. Only Deena refuses to believe it’s true.

And then the letters start arriving. Letters from Mandy, claiming that their family’s blighted history is not just bad luck or bad decisions – but a curse, handed down through the generations. Mandy has gone in search of the curse’s roots, and now Deena must find her. What they find will heal their family’s rotten past – or rip it apart forever.

Review:

**TRIGGER WARNING** – This book contains mentions of rape and abuse.

There are so many things that I could say about this book. It made me cry and touched me in ways that I did not expect. This YA novel has a lot of heart and I will be recommending this one to anyone that is looking for something different. It is a bit historical, a bit contemporary, and has some LGBTQ elements, mixed with some magic.

There were so many times that I wanted to wrap the three sisters in this novel in a big warm hug. They went through so much trauma and their father was the kind of parent you wanted to slap in the face for not seeing the treasures that his little girls were. So much angst. So many intense emotions.

Love is love. Love one another. Those are things that stick out in my mind as themes. You will not be disappointed with this book, but keep an open mind. The character development was deep and the story profound at points. Please don’t let this story fade away.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Leave a Reply