Book audience:  18+ due to sexual content and the characters’  rather poor lifestyle choices.

31565981I’m not going to lie- this book was a shitstorm from beginning to end. So much drama, so many mental health issues, so much agony, bullying, and freaking demons.

Sex: many times

Self-harm: a number of times

Suicide attempts: 1 direct plus continuous indirect suicidal behavior

Drama: non-stop

Dead people: 4 + demons. Demons are dead, right?

“I will find true love and everything will be okay. I will find true love and everything will be okay…” she chanted.

They say be careful what you read. Something is wrong. Something is very wrong. It can happen to anyone. This is just four teenagers’ story. Aubrey Golding hates her face, her body, and is devastated after Nathan Silva leaves her. Alone, suicidal, and desperate for love, she discovers a book called Something and unknowingly links others to a dark and terrifying curse that is beginning to consume her.

Nathan is glad to be moving on with someone new and can hardly believe what is happening now.

Wild child and amateur porn star, Bella Broadhurst, loves bullying that “emo whore” Aubrey with the other girls, but mostly she loves partying, hookups, and plain ol’ drama when terror arises.

And Kendra Coke is just a new teen mother working on a delicate relationship when things start becoming utterly bizarre.

Chilling sleep disturbances and figures hiding in the corners of their rooms are just warnings of what is to come. Be careful what you read, they say. Tread carefully.

Aubrey, Aubrey, Aubrey…  a girl with no self respect. None. Not a single ounce. Her family torn apart Aubrey lives (part-time) and works at a group care home where things are a bit dodgy. She cleans the rooms, takes care of people’s personal needs and gives daily reminders to a younger female resident to dress up because the men are staring. And this caretaking bit was what created a different side to Aubrey. While she is such a broken girl, she doesn’t shy away from helping others.

During the weekends Aubrey spends time at the grandparents house and she also has a bedroom at the Christian college where everybody bullies her and even the roommate is just no good. Aubrey is a very needy person. The most important thing for her is to be accepted and loved and loved thoroughly. So when Nathan breaks up with her because of her emotional instability, she just goes and starts harassing Nathan with like 20 text messages daily to the tune of: “Naaaaathhhaaaaan!” or “I love you, don’t leave me, you’ll see nobody else will like you like I do. Naaaathhhhaaaan!” While I was thinking “Blimey, get a grip girl!” I can see she just really has some deep running issues and she needs help from a professional. She helps herself though… by shagging some random lads and having an immense stash of hidden alcohol everywhere. That stash was impressive and every teenager’s fantasy.  But the self-harm with mentions of scarred wrists… I’m not going to psychoanalyse any of that mental health side. This book simply shouldn’t be read by a younger audience because the poor lifestyle choices just made me gag.

Aubrey’s nemesis is Bella… a girl with no self respect. None. Not a single ounce. Although… She has her reasons as well. But Bella… well… she has a boyfriend and she likes to fuck, although it seems her BF isn’t her first choice. She beds her friend’s BF instead and aspires to become the next Jenna Jameson. Oh FFS! Jenna Jameson… that tells me all… I watched a season of Big Brother some while back when Jenna was a participant and I did not like her at all. And while Bella seems to have her underlying confidence issues and a reason to her behavior, it still doesn’t give her the right to be a total and utter bitch.

Kendra is your typical 15 y/o teen-mom scenario. She and Aubrey befriend each other through Instagram because they both upload photos of self harm and such. Kendra isn’t a main character but she does become a part of the story due to Aubrey emailing her some texts from the book ‘Something’.

Nathan Silva- overall a nice guy. Typical teenager, works at his parents hotel establishment. He does, and this is not a spoiler really, start a relationship with Aubrey’s friend and that turns into a case of backstabbing and one person from the triangle getting a beating up!

Told you, drama galore!

Basically, if you want to read a book about totally messed up 18 year olds, then ding-ding-ding, you have a winner.

So… how do all these teenagers tie in with the whole demon stuff? It’s the book, called ‘Something’… apparently who ever reads the book, even indirectly, will be cursed. They start seeing monsters and gruesome hallucinations. In some cases the effects are physical.

Enter demon! Tyler James… every girl’s wet dream,  at least in cases where he glamors his appearance. Living in the ‘House on a Hill’ with his mother the book doesn’t really introduce us to Tyler until the end. You’re probably thinking.. OK, the book, the curse, the demons… how does this all work? It’s for you to find out 🙂

What you’ll read in this book is a lot of partying, a lot of boozing, a lot of drama, sex and bullying while the demon aspect is slowly building in the background. Emotionally drained yet? OK, well, there are mentions of rape and a look into the porn industry as well. There! I think I’ve covered everything…

My rating: 4 stars even though I’m a bit on the fence with Book #1. Obviously the intent was to create a book with highly dysfunctional characters and then add another layer of ‘as if this isn’t enough’ to it via the demonolib curse. While I enjoyed the good pace, I was uncomfortable with  all self-harm, suicidal bit. It’s such a gentle area which needs to be addressed with caution. ‘Something’ does, however,  deliver on the horror, fantasy and mystery areas and the writing is really rather good.

Unfortunately the book is not currently available on Amazon as of yet, but as soon as it becomes available I will add the links here. If ‘Something’ has sparked your interest, let me know and I will organise contact in between you and Shelby or contact her directly through Goodreads (cover image linked to Goodreads book page).

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Shelby Lamb is an author who loves exploring the weird and unsettling. She writes fiction from her own personal life experiences and from the darkness of her imagination and the inspiration around her. Something (Wisteria 1) is her debut work. She currently lives with both parents, a grandmother, and her sister in Toronto, Canada, where she hopes to adopt two cats and finish her second novel.