The Scratch Daughters

Easy 4.5 stars, rounded up. I loved Scapegracers with all my queer, witchy wretched heart and I waited for its sequel to walk into my life again and finally succeeded. I adored this story. A perfect sequel for that odd little book about a teeny witch called Sideways, finding a coven of beautiful, brilliant and magic girls to hex abusive and hateful boys together with.

In the second part of the book Sideways Pike has had her soul stolen by Madeline, the girl that almost became her girlfriend, and tries to get it back while being kept alive by her covens book devil Mr. Scratch. Mr. Scratch before that, was book devil to the Honeyeaters, a coven hunted down and killed by Witch finders.

And yeah, the witch finders are still on scene, show more involved in that entire mess.

The relationship between Mr. Scratch and Sideways is beautifully detailed and a little horror in a good way. Sideways dissociates heavily and often, due to having lost her soul and Clarke manages to write these scenes horrifyingly beautiful.

While the first book wrote an ode to female friendship and to the beauty of girlhood in all its facets and how its okay to be all pink and glittery and popular and how it is okay not to be the second book brings in a component of generational relationships. The Scrapegracers are connected to the Honeyeaters through Mr.Scratch and inherit part of their spells but also their pain.

Genderqueerness comes into play as well in this book. Being strong and weak and magical, being vengeful and ragefilled and wanting blood. This book has it all.

The Scratch Daughters is witchy and beautiful and snatches your breath right fron your throat. Absolutely recommend

Also side note: I love Julia and Boris and I adore Shiloh and also they need a hug. show less

The last book ended with our teenage lesbian heroine Eloise 'Sideways' Pike having her witch-soul stolen by the girl she was dating so aforementioned girl could wreak revenge on the creepy racist, ultra-Christian witchfinders, the Chantry family. To keep her alive, Mr Scratch, a demon who is the living embodiment of a coven's spellbook possessed Sideways. The Scratch Daughters starts with Sideways and her coven - Jing, Daisy and Yates - hexing teenage boys with magical collars that prevent them from even thinking about hurting women.

If you enjoyed the first book, you'll enjoy this one as it's more of the queer witchy shit we all love. Sideways is still the main character, and her internal dialogue with Mr Scratch is a large part of the show more story. I quite liked this conceit because a sassy demon possessing your main character is just a fun trope, but it also allowed Sideways (as well as us as readers) more insight into the world of magic and the witches that came before.

One thing I really like about The Scratch Daughters, as well as its precursor, [b:The Scapegracers|51885014|The Scapegracers (Scapegracers, #1)|H.A. Clarke|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1664552553l/51885014._SY75_.jpg|71298415], is that the language feels very real and teenage, without sounding cringey. The teenage characters talk like kids on the cusp of adulthood, they act foolishly but not without reason, their personalities are well-developed but they're still working on their senses of self. show less