Name: Mercury Boys
ISBN: 9781641292658

Chandra Prasad

Sixteen-year-old Saskia Brown, an outsider at her new school, discovers that she can use liquid mercury to visit boys in daguerreotypes in her dreams, and soon classmates are doing the same, with terrible consequences.

Mercury Boys

Ariel

Loved the idea. Hated the execution. 
The writing just didn't click with me and was super boring for me to get through. Although, I imagined the Mercury boys to be the draw factor as I was reading, surprisingly I found the turmoils and tribulations of her life more interesting. (Take that with a grain of salt; the pacing dragged and was still boring)

brianna

Alexis 

2/5 Stars 

** I received this as an E-ARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review, Thank you!** 

This is really not the book for me. I have very mixed feelings about the main character Saskia. I didn't mind her perspective but I just couldn't connect with her at all. I didn't like her thought process and the decisions she made for a lot of things. I think the only character I semi enjoyed was Lalia, I felt that out of all the characters she was the most relatable and authentic characters. I kept asking the question, what is the purpose of this book? I feel like I got nothing from it. It even felt a little cult-like for absolutely no reason. Overall this was not the book for me and I did not enjoy it.

Leelynn Brady

Full review 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 Chandra Prasad, Books Forward, and Soho Teen for this free copy. All quotes in this review are taken from the Advanced Reader Copy and may change in final publication.

Yo… this book was a wild ride. I’m still trying to process everything that happened because wow. I don’t know what I was expecting, and I don’t know whether or not it was a good thing, but it was definitely interesting.

Josefina

History and the speculative collide with the modern world when a group of high school girls form a secret society after discovering they can communicate with boys from the past, in this powerful look at female desire, jealousy, and the shifting lines between friendship and rivalry. After her life is upended by divorce and a cross-country move, 16-year-old Saskia Brown feels like an outsider at her new school—not only is she a transplant, but she’s also biracial in a population of mostly white students. One day while visiting her only friend at her part-time library job, Saskia encounters a vial of liquid mercury, then touches an old daguerreotype—the precursor of the modern-day photograph—and makes a startling discovery. She is somehow able to visit the man in the portrait: Robert Cornelius, a brilliant young inventor from the nineteenth century. The hitch: she can see him only in her dreams. Saskia shares her revelation with some classmates, hoping to find connection and friendship among strangers. Under her guidance, the other girls steal portraits of young men from a local college’s daguerreotype collection and try the dangerous experiment for themselves. Soon, they each form a bond with their own “Mercury Boy,” from an injured Union soldier to a charming pickpocket in New York City. At night, the girls visit the boys in their dreams. During the day, they hold clandestine meetings of their new secret society. At first, the Mercury Boys Club is a thrilling diversion from their troubled everyday lives, but it’s not long before jealousy, violence and secrets threaten everything the girls hold dear.

Mercury Boys

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