From afar, the Rys family tree stands tall against the elements. Its vast branches mark the generations that have passed where the scaffold branches unfold with continual growth.
Yet Deena knows how deceiving appearances can be.
She knows the scars on the underside of the branches and can trace the hurtful words her father has inflicted at Deena and her sisters. A family curse courses through the roots of the tree afflicting all the bad apples of the Rys family. Should you stray from the path, the three banshees will scream and circle your life. Like vultures over a carcass, death and disappearances will lay wake to all bad apples.
While most would turn their eyes away from the concealed gnarled bark and fear the screams from the banshees, Deena remains resolute in following each footstep of the past when her sister, Mandy, disappears.
All the Bad Apples by Moïra Fowley-Doyl is a tour-de-force full of raw histories, suppressed voices, and a momentous journey that layers the past and present. Fowley-Doyl pursued a powerful theme that ran its course throughout the novel and reared its head with a lion's roar at the end. More so, Fowley-Doyl demonstrated a profound understanding for literary foundations that enabled readers to traverse alongside Deena. The societal misogyny surrounding 'bad apples' unfolds through each of Fowley-Doyl's crafted chapters.
I was so compelled by Deena's increased connection to the past because it served as a reminder to how we - as a society - should not forget the cornerstones of the past. All the Bad Apples allows us to fall through the cracks of history and experience all the hardships and gut-clenching transgressions women have undergone. Rather than break, like Deena we rise from the cracks and raise our eyes towards a stronger future.
Prepare yourself for a journey that brings forth the spirit of the past which screams louder than any banshee's curse.
See just how far this bad apple rolls.
About the Book
All the Bad Apples
by Moïra Fowley-Doyle Publisher: Penguin Release Date: August 1st 2019
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Mystery
Synopsis:
The day after the funeral all our mourning clothes hung out on the line like sleeping bats. 'This will be really embarrassing,' I kept saying to my family, 'when she shows up at the door in a week or two.'
When Deena's wild and mysterious sister Mandy disappears - presumed dead - her family are heartbroken. But Mandy has always been troubled. It's just another bad thing to happen to Deena's family. Only Deena refuses to believe it's true.
And then the letters start arriving. Letters from Mandy, claiming that their family's blighted history is not just bad luck or bad decisions - but a curse, handed down through the generations. Mandy has gone in search of the curse's roots, and now Deena must find her. What they find will heal their family's rotten past - or rip it apart forever.
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About the Author
Moïra Fowley-Doyle is half-French, half-Irish and made of equal parts feminism, whimsy and Doc Martens. She lives in Dublin where she writes magic realism, reads tarot cards and raises witch babies.
Moïra’s first novel, The Accident Season, was shortlisted for the 2015 Waterstones Children’s Book Prize & the North East Teen Book Awards, nominated for the Carnegie Medal & won the inaugural School Library Association of Ireland Great Reads Award. It received two starred reviews & sold in ten territories. Her second novel, Spellbook of the Lost and Found, was published in summer 2017, received a starred review from School Library Journal and was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards.
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All The Bad Apples
by Moïra Fowley-Doyle
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Stars: 22nd August 2019
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