Wasps in the Ice Cream by Tim McGregor | Book Review
Drop everything. THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD! If you like coming-of-age horror you must read it.
Wasps in the Ice Cream by Tim McGregor
Released February 2023
Source: Received for Review Consideration
What happens when you fall for the girl everyone hates?
Summer 1987: Mark Prewitt's only priority is to avoid his dad's new wife and waste time with his friends, but idle nights are the devil's handiwork. When his friends decide to pull a cruel prank on the reclusive and strange Farrow sisters, Mark regrets caving in to peer pressure.
Wanting to make amends, Mark is drawn into the mysterious world of the Farrow girls, finding a kindred spirit in the middle sister, George. She is unlike anyone he's ever known; a practicing witch who uses folk magic to protect her family. They bond over books, loneliness, and homemade spells. She even invites Mark to join a séance to contact her dead sister, who died under mysterious circumstances.
Keeping their relationship secret, Mark learns that living a double life in a town this small is impossible. When the secret is exposed, and his friends plot to punish the witch sisters for stealing one of their own, Mark is forced to choose between these two worlds.
My 2 Cents for Free!
Wasps in the Ice Cream was such a fantastic reading experience and I think it will appeal to anyone who likes a retro coming-of-age tale with a dash of the supernatural that will put you through an emotional wringer. I love that the author managed to create such fully realized, emotionally complex characters in so few pages. That’s something so many 300+ page books I read (or attempt to) aren’t able to achieve.
“Being destructive or cruel is like a fever that takes over.”
It’s the summer of 1987 and Mark and his two friends are bored. And boredom always seems to spell trouble for this trio. Mark isn’t even sure he likes his friends anymore but usually goes along with whatever new disaster they’re planning. It beats boredom or sitting at home and interacting with his father and new stepmom. When his friends target one of the Farrow sisters, a strange, reclusive family who’ve hidden themselves away in their moldering mansion after a tragedy, Mark comes down with a terrible case of the guilts and attempts to make things right with George (Georgia) Farrow and it changes everything.
“Everything this girl says is like a grenade meant to knock me off balance. It’s not necessarily unpleasant.”
There’s just this divine balance here of characterization, suspense, dread, first love and action. Being a teenager is hard. These characters have all sorts of messy feelings simmering just under the surface and it doesn’t take much to set them free with usually disastrous consequences. And though I might not have liked all of the decisions they made, I 100% understood why they made them. That’s a serious skill and I adore a book that gets it right. This one is deserving of every single one of my stingy stars and I’m very glad I took the time to read it!
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Why does coming-of-age and horror always seem to go so well together? And you rating this one 5 stars makes me want to read this one even more. :D
ReplyDeleteI think I read a review for this before - maybe by you on another platform?? It sounds awesome!
ReplyDeleteKaren @For What It's Worth
Oh my gosh a waffle cone will never be the same again :)
ReplyDeleteI love the sound of the push and pull between his friends and the girl. Plus 80's
So the cover is horrifying since I really hate wasps. So I'm hoping that there are no wasps in this story because that would just be a complete ick for me. But it does sound like a pretty good story.
ReplyDelete