Our Crooked Hearts is a fantasy book about seventeen year old Ivy and the mystery surrounding her life. The book is a split POV between Ivy and her mother, Dana, when Dana was Ivy’s age. After almost being in a car accident and meeting a strange naked girl in the woods, Ivy starts to notice more and more strange occurrences. She finds a dead rabbit in her yard and starts seeing and hearing things that Ivy thinks are connected to the naked girl from the woods. As Ivy tries to figure out what is going on, she starts asking her mom questions. But Dana is acting very dodgy and refuses to give Ivy the answers that she wants. The more Ivy searches, the more she finds that she doesn’t understand.
In the back of her parents closet, she finds and opens a safe that holds some of her old belongings, one of which being an old cigar box. Inside the box she finds a picture of the boy next door, Billy. But she doesn’t ever remember drawing it. She hardly even knows much about Billy. Ivy is now hit more and more with the urge to know what’s going on but suddenly her mother and Aunt Fee are nowhere to be found and are unreachable by phone. Soon, she is approached by the mystery girl from the woods. This mystery girl claims to be able to find her mother and help Ivy uncover what exactly has been going on. But can Ivy truly trust her?
I loved this book. It was a really interesting mix between fantasy and mystery. Each chapter brought you closer to finding out the truth and it was done in such a way that I couldn’t wait to finish it just so I could find out. A huge part of the book is about the magic and I found that the magic was incorporated really well. Sometimes books don’t always explain how magic comes to be but I found that Melissa Albert did that really nicely. I also really enjoyed how the magic was presented. It wasn’t like a high fantasy book with dragons and wizards shooting magic off like nothing. It was treated with a reverence and an understanding of its danger. I was also a big fan of how romance was not a focus in this story. I’ve picked up many fantasy books that seem like they’re going to be about an adventure but then a romantic subplot pops up and is suddenly a huge focus of the story.
I really enjoyed how the book moved. I didn’t always enjoy when the POVs shifted to Dana but I found after a little while that the shifted POV helped reveal more to the story that contextualized certain things that were happening with Ivy. I found that Dana’s POV really just provided backstory to Ivy’s life. Some of the side characters felt really flat and didn’t totally add much to the story except for a reason for other characters to interact. For example, Nate, Ivy’s ex, had very little to his character and I really think he just served as a way for Billy and Ivy to start meeting more. I also thought that the dad was not portrayed very well. He isn’t important to the story until towards the end and even then his scenes just felt like stalling a little bit.
I would recommend this for anyone 12 or 13 and up. I feel as though some of the elements in the story, like the several dead rabbits, aren’t fully appropriate for anyone younger. I would also recommend this to people who are looking for a little bit of a dark fantasy. It’s on the creepier side when it comes to fantasy and is not for anyone who’s looking for a light adventure story like many other fantasy books. This is also a good book for anyone who is looking for a story without romance. There is one kiss in the story and it does not go anywhere after that.