A Guide for Murdered Children – Sarah Sparrow

Happy belated publication day!

Thanks to Blue Rider Press for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

A GUIDE FOR MURDERED CHILDREN – Sarah Sparrow (out now!)

My Thoughts: 3.5/5 stars!

I think that we can all agree that this combination of title and cover will have a lot of people curious and wanting to pick up a copy. Don’t let this pretty pink unicorn cover fool you, this is not a happy-feel good story. A GUIDE FOR MURDERED CHILDREN by Sarah Sparrow covers some topics that are not for everyone – this story depicts rape, abuse, and murder towards children.

This book has a truly unique premise that I haven’t seen before. I can see this being a tad confusing for some readers in that there are a lot of characters to keep straight. I think that part of the synopsis sums up what the book has in store very well:

“We all say there is no justice in this world. But what if there really was? What if the souls of murdered children were able to return briefly to this world, inhabit adult bodies and wreak ultimate revenge on the monsters who had killed them, stolen their lives?”

This is a story about revenge. There is some police procedural mixed in and some elements of fantasy thrown in. If the synopsis has any YA vibes, it definitely doesn’t fall into that category. This is a genre bending/mixing that might not sit well with some readers and it’s really hard to pinpoint exactly who this book would be for (if that makes sense).

My main issues stemmed from some of the errors within the galley copy. I’m sure these got fixed and corrected in the finished copy, so that shouldn’t be a problem other readers experience. It just affected my reading experience and threw off the flow of the book in places.

Overall, I’d say that if the synopsis intrigues you and you go into it knowing that there are some harder topics covered, then I would recommend it. I appreciate the uniqueness of the plot and if you want a good revenge story, then this will be for you.

I’ve seen lots of mixed reviews for this one, and I’m curious what you thought of it!

–Jess