Name: All the Bad Apples
ISBN: 9780241333969

Moïra Fowley-Doyle

The stunning new novel about silenced female voices, family secrets and dangerous truths from the author of The Accident Season. 'Astonishingly potent' Booklist 'Uncompromising, raw, devastating' Publishers Weekly 'I am in absolute awe of it' Melinda Salisbury On Deena's seventeenth birthday, the day she finally comes out to her family, her wild and mysterious sister Mandy is seen leaping from a cliff. The family is heartbroken, but not surprised. The women of the Rys family have always been troubled - 'bad apples', their father calls them - and Mandy is the baddest of them all. But then Deena starts to receive the letters. Letters from Mandy, claiming that their family's blighted history is not just bad luck or bad decisions, but a curse, handed down to the Rys women through the generations. Mandy has gone in search of the curse's roots, and now Deena must begin a desperate cross-country hunt for her sister, guided only by the letters that mysteriously appear in each new place. What Deena finds will heal their family's rotten past - or rip it apart forever.

All the Bad Apples

"Deena starts receiving letters from her older sister Mandy, whom everyone thinks is dead, claiming that their family's blighted history is actually a curse and leading Deena on a cross-country hunt to find her sister and heal their family's rotten past--or rip it apart forever"--

Judy Hutchins 

This book was exceptionally easy to read, and hit on some many important issues without being preachy. I loved it.

Grace O'Callaghan

Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to read anymore of Moira Fowley- Doyle’s work. I just think it’s a bad sign that the more she writes the worse I’m writing her books so I’m going to quit while I’m ahead.

After Deena’s sister, Mandy, disappears her family are left grief stricken. But Deena doesn’t think her sister is dead like they do. She thinks Mandy has gone to break a curse that has seemingly haunted their family for generations. Flitting between the past and present the secrets of the Rys family are revealed as Deena searches for her sister.

I have always said that Moira is great at creating atmosphere. You’re able to feel the salt from the sea, the wind kissing your face, the grass underneath your feet. This book unlike her others felt very gothic.

However, the characters were so bland. I can sometimes forgive bland side characters because they’re not the focus of the story. But even Deena, our main character, had no personality. She just had this frenzy to find her sister and she’s also gay. That’s all I know about her. The rest of her friends were also very flat and just felt like pawns to serve the plot than real people. There was also such a forced romance that had my eyes rolling. Not every YA book needs a romance.

My favourite part of the book were the historical stories. The characters of those had more life to them than the present day ones.

I really wanted to love this book because the premise sounds so good. The execution was all over the place. It was part mystery, part ghost story, part giving a voice to the voiceless, part feminist manifesto. It just wanted to be everything and therefore felt rushed, underdeveloped and confusing. That along with the cheap plot twists had me rolling my eyes. It also felt similar to Spellbook of the Lost and Found, but just not as good.

I think that highlighting the atrocities of the Magdalene laundries is so important. I already knew about them but I can see how beneficial it would be for someone who isn’t into history to have them brought up in fiction.

The heavy handed messaging is probably my biggest gripe with this book. Especially towards the end everything is so quick and then it turns into a preachy monologue about women and their stories and abortion. Regardless of how you feel on the subject, it just felt to me like the author was pushing an agenda rather than telling a compelling story. I think stories are such valuable tools to express ourselves and our opinions, but when you sacrifice story for a message, you lose me.

Elizabeth Garza

I love this writer and she just made me love her all the more with this book! Such a great blend of LGBTQ+ coming out story, family history, magical realism, and Irish history.

Grace Emilia Machon

** spoiler alert **
           Okay so I just finished this book and I am so bloody mad. Like how absolutely dare you ( I’m looking at you all of recorded history) keep standing on women and then just being well maybe don’t stand right there you obviously want to get stood on. 

I want to start by saying this book is so weird. There are really unbelievable things that happen and you just have to get down with it because that’s how it is okay. Sometimes bulls talk and sometimes people are actually banshees and sometimes teenagers are suddenly all best mates and have enough money to go all over Ireland on a reliable bus service that takes just one day without eating. 

This book contains all the triggers because terrible things have been happening to women and queer folk forever. 
I really liked it, I felt at times moments and particularly friendships where rushed so I didn’t get to connect to any characters well enough. I also didn’t care at all about the romance subplot, I just didn’t need it.



TURNS OUT MAGIC IS REAL AND IT IS OTHER WOMEN. 
TURNS OUT THE PATRIARCHY WAS THE CURSE ALL ALONG. 
Well fuck. Like I knew but right now I feel like I really KNOW

I highly recommend sticking around for the authors note at the end of this book, it’s so powerful and informative.

Anastaciya

2.5 ⭐
Message is great. The execution, not to my taste.

Alexia Cambaling

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to Edelweiss.

Trigger warning/s: Rape, Abuse, Homophobia, Suicide, Incest

 This review contains mild spoilers.

This was one of the best books I’ve read in 2019. I read it while waiting for one of my classes to start and finished it in about two hours. I devoured this book, it kept me hooked and reading. It was that good. It was powerful and devastating, an incredibly feminist book that touches upon generations of women being subjected to abuse at the hands of men and a society hostile to women considered “different”.

All the Bad Apples is an incredibly powerful and gripping story about the three Rhys sisters, three sisters haunted by a family curse involving the women in their family. Deena’s sister Rachel had been the one to raise her, trying to make Deena a prim and proper lady so that she wouldn’t be a “bad apple” like her sister Mandy. So that she wouldn’t hear the banshees screaming. Then one day, Deena comes out, she is bullied at her all-girls Catholic school, and Mandy disappears.

Reading this book made me feel so many emotions, mostly sadness and rage. Sadness because it was very hard to read. Compelling, yes but quite difficult because of the subject matter. I felt rage too, because the things this book touches upon continues to happen to this day. It sometimes feels like a reflection, a meditation on the things that women have faced in the past, and the challenges they continue to face today.

Most of the issues touched upon this book pertain to women’s sexuality. Over the centuries, women’s sexualities have been subject to much scrutiny and disdain. Women get abandoned by their lovers and thrown away as though they are trash. Women get slut-shamed and blamed for their own abuse, for their rape, and stigmatized. Instead of the rapist being brought to justice, the women are made to suffer. If they get pregnant, they get sent away to a laundry where they were made to endure involuntary solitude and their babies ripped away after. It was hard to keep my tears at bay as I read. Reading the historical accounts of the Magdalene laundries was worse. These women didn’t deserve the horrible things that happened to them and knowing that this happens in many places around the world was even worse.

The book was told alternating between the past and present as Deena and her friends uncover the secrets of her family’s past. It’s an incredibly effective way of telling the story and it made me fly through the chapters to see what happens next. The magical realism style of the book also works, as until the last third or so, it was very low-key and easy to miss. The way the book was written was very powerful and gripping and the fast pace of the story makes it easy to get through the pages in an afternoon or so.

The characters are also incredibly well-written. Deena and her group of friends are now my favorites and I liked how queer this group is. Some of them, like Deena, clearly grapple with it as a result of the homophobia she faced, but I’m glad to see her slowly become more comfortable with it as time goes on. Also, I did like that one of her ancestors was a queer woman, but I cried when I read what happened to her after. It was so unfair that it happened but this book wasn’t shy when it comes to suffering.

The story of Deena’s “sisters” was also shown here and it was just so unfortunate and unfair that so many women from the same family had to experience so much pain and hardship. I gained so much more appreciation for Rachel and Mandy once I learned about their backstories and it makes you really see how strong women are and can be. These women weren’t strong because of their trauma- they were already strong to begin with.

Ultimately, this is a story of generations of women bound by blood and the circumstances they found themselves in. This is the story of a family of women who suffered often at the hands of the people they loved- whether it be their own parents or their significant others. It was also a story about the strength of these women and their determination to ensure that the things that were portrayed here wouldn’t have to happen again. It’s an incredibly powerful story about love, loss, and being able to rise up from their pain. I don’t know if I can recommend this book to everyone. I don’t think it would be for everyone as it can be very triggering to a lot of people. The content is harsh and bad things happen a lot. However, if you can get past the triggers in this book, then I can definitely recommend it.

Leelynn Brady

See the full blog post complete with a playlist and dreamcast and a way nicer setup on my blog Sometimes Leelynn Reads

Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to Netgalley, Fantastic Flying Book Club, and Penguin for this free copy. All quotes in this review are taken from the Advanced Reader Copy and may change in final publication.

Content Warnings: Adultery, Implied & Confirmed Suicide, Teen Pregnancy, Bullying, Violence, Rape, Child Deaths, Depiction of Childbirth

Diversity Rep: Black Character, Queer Characters, Disabled Character

You’re in for a wild ride, okay? I really couldn’t get enough of reading this book when I started, and the concept of family curses seems to intrigue me the more I read about it. Although, can we please stop punishing the females in our family line because they aren’t goody two-shoes?

-The Characters-

Deena Rhys (pronounced like RICE and not REESE, mind you) is our main character. She’s gay, and she accidentally outed herself to her sister Rachel and her piece of crap father. She is the only one that believes that Mandy isn’t truly dead, and when she starts to receive letters from her sister out of nowhere, she’s even more determined to find her. She was bullied out of school for being gay (NOT COOL), and that day was the last day that she saw Mandy. It just so happened to be on her 17th birthday too. Those all-girl school bitches.

Mandy is Deena’s older sister, the wild twin compared to Rachel. She is the sister that is missing after a note was left in her apartment saying she was going to find out the truth for her daughter. Only problem is, Deena has never heard of Mandy having a daughter.

Ida is Mandy’s long lost daughter. Apparently, Mandy left Ida on the doorstep of the biological father with her birth certificate. It’s unfortunate that Mandy seemed to have abandoned her only daughter, but was it to protect her from the curse? Deena ends up finding Ida when one of the letters tells her to go to her school, and they set off on this journey together to find Mandy and find how to break this curse.

Rachel is Deena’s other older sister. The one that’s in control, the responsible one. She is the one that has been taking care of Deena since their mother died giving birth to her, while Mandy was living on her own to get away from their father. Rachel had a lot of growing up to do in order to take care of her baby sister, especially since their dad left to the other side of the country without them. Talk about abandonment issues.

Finn is Deena’s best friend and is also bisexual and surprisingly not white. I say that because this story takes place in Dublin and whenever I end up reading a novel, for some reason my brain defaults all characters to be white until they tell me otherwise. Is that bad? Yeah, probably. Also, the only reason I knew Finn wasn’t white was because Deena clearly says it. I wouldn’t have known otherwise. Shame, shame on me.

Cale (no relation to the vegetable) ends up joining the merry band of adventurers when Deena, Ida and Finn find out that her great-great-great grandmother was the same woman that took the Rhys matriarch in all those years ago. She also remembers seeing Mandy a week before the three meet her. She’s also a lesbian, and may or may not be attracted to Deena – and vice versa.

-The Plot-

There seems to be some sort of family curse that surrounds the “bad apples” of the Rhys family. When Mandy is considered dead due to suicide – her body was never found, but her car was – Deena is sure that her big sister isn’t dead. There’s just no way. So when Deena starts to see the three banshees that Mandy warned her about, and starts to receive letters about the origin of the Rhys family curse, the one that only affects the bad apples in the family (the bad girls in the family), she is off to find her sister and figure out a way to break the curse.

If the banshees don’t get her first.

Be prepared to travel through the Irish countryside as well. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

-My Likes-

Deena is not ashamed for being gay, and she does not want to be changed or fixed by anyone.

"Ida was clearly somebody whose father had taught her from the moment she showed up on his doorstep that she deserved respect. Someone who could speak out, speak her truth without repercussions." ~ Deena about Ida

Despite being left on her father’s doorstep, she grew up in a family that truly cared for her and taught her that being a woman does not mean that she is less than a man. I loved this so much. Just that one paragraph included in this book really made me happy that Ida grew up with her father and that he loved and cared for her in the best way possible.

-My Dislikes-

The Rhys dad is a dick.

But also, I don’t like that these families will just completely shut out their kin because of a mistake. Like, aren’t families supposed to love you and support you no matter what? I know that’s the premise of the book, and this does not take away from my thoughts on the quality of the book at all. It just hurt to know that this happens, you know?

"Mary Ellen stayed behind. She was seventeen, unmarried, pregnant; this was clearly all her fault. Her family did not expect her to join them. She was no longer one of them." ~ Mandy’s second letter to Deena, explaining the origins of the curse

I’m also tired of men not being punished for their part in a pregnancy. Like… he was the one that cheated on his wife with Mary Ellen, and then he condemns her and her family to suffer. Not cool, dude.

Clearly being a “witch” is a scapegoat for saying your daughter is a lesbian and apparently that’s a sin.

“They didn’t burn them for being witches,” I said, watching Cale standing, like me, in the place her ancestor died. An ancestor with more in common than just a name. “They burned them because they were lovers.” “I guess back then it amounted to the same thing,” said Finn.

-Final Thoughts-

Didn’t I tell you it was a wild ride? Definitely a four flower read for me! Also I changed my rating graphics so it’s a little bigger and custom. Thank you so much to Lena for making these and my mermaid icons for me! Seriously amazing.

Jessica Nottingham

Oh my goodness, this book. I barely had an inkling of what All The Bad Apples had in store for me, and I’m actually glad for that. It made discovering this book all the more bittersweet. See, there is a deep message under all the beautiful, lyrical writing. By the time I reached the ending of this story, I was in tears. I’d honestly be surprised if you aren’t as well.

Deena lives in a world where being a “nice, normal girl” is what is expected. Raised by her older sister, judged from afar by her absent father, attending a strict Catholic school, Deena feels hemmed in. She notes the girls around her who are brave enough to stand tall, to show their true colors, but she doesn’t know how to be one of them. This is why I loved Deena, and why I’m so glad that she was our main character. She wasn’t immediately fierce, but instead her bravery grew as she went on the journey to find her missing sister. A hero’s journey, if you will. Each piece of the puzzle that fell into place, each lesson learned from her ancestors, brought her closer and closer to the person that she wanted to be. It was a beautiful, brutally honest journey, and it was just perfect.

I loved how Fowley-Doyle was able to bring in so much rich, albeit damning, history into this story. Deena’s journey is told in alternating chapters between current day Ireland, and historical Ireland. Within these chapters, the author starkly lays out the similarities between people who lived hundereds of years ago, and the girls who are involved in the modern day story. It’s terrifying how much similarity there is between the two of them. There’s a definite focus on the people considered to be on the fringes of society, or the bad apples if you will. People who dared to love outside of the “norm”. People who looked different, or acted different, or merely wanted something more than what society told them they should have. I can’t express enough how poignant all of that is. I don’t want to spoil anything, since this is something to discover, but reading the author’s note at the end broke my heart in two. I had no idea of this history before this book, and I’m so glad that it was all laid out for me in such a spectacular way.

Admittedly, you’ll need to suspend disbelief to really appreciate this story. It reads much like the fairy tales of old, where good things happen to good people and true villains are as human as the rest of us. It reads in an almost magical mannner, blurring that line between the real world and the fairy tale one that lurks underneath. I thought it was a perfect way to tell this sometimes tragic and sometimes hopeful tale. I ended with a full heart, and that’s pretty much the best explanation I can give you as to why you need to read this book.

If you’re looking for something historically based, that will enchant you and make you cry, this is your book.

Destini Baylis Adams

I have been listening to the audiobook for months now. Doyle has definitely gotten a stronger grasp on storytelling and of course it is a great companion to her beautiful writing! I thought that the concept of the novel was interesting though it did take me a bit to get invested in the novel. I had started reading it physically, but I switched over to the audiobook to try to get more invested- I eventually did. 
I found the stories structure rather odd, but I got used to it. I found Deena interesting and most of the side characters captivating; but I did not feel connected to any of them. I do like the commentary on abortion and LGBTQ issues but I wish they were explored more deeply.

Ana Couto

Stefie 

TW: mention of suicide, abortion, rape, abuse.

Wow. What a book.
It’s a gothic/mystery/historical fiction book that really quickly took my attention right at the start. 
It’s very atmospheric and vivid which makes the whole experience great!

The reason I didn’t give it 5 stars is because there are parts that I am confused about. I guess because it’s a story inside a story. So you kind of need to grasp them well to be able to move forward and understand the story as whole. It’s a bit tricky but I managed to understand the whole story at the end. 

The Author’s note is so worth reading.

All the Bad Apples

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