Review: Down with the Shine by Kate Karyus Quinn

Down with the Shine by Kate Karyus Quinn

Published April 26th 2016

Lennie always thought her uncles’ “important family legacy” was good old-fashioned bootlegging. Then she takes some of her uncles’ moonshine to Michaela Gordon’s annual house party, and finds out just how wrong she was.

At the party, Lennie has everyone make a wish before drinking the shine—it’s tradition. She toasts to wishes for bat wings, for balls of steel, for the party to go on forever. Lennie even makes a wish of her own: to bring back her best friend, Dylan, who was murdered six months ago.

The next morning gives Lennie a whole new understanding of the phrase be careful what you wish for—or in her case, be careful what wishes you grant. Because all those wishes Lennie raised a jar of shine to last night? They came true. Most of them came out bad. And once granted, a wish can’t be unmade…

This is probably one of the weirdest and most fun books that I’ve read this year. I’m not really a big fan of magical-realism but I actually enjoyed the bit of magic in Down with the Shine.
I think this book’s biggest strength is the characters. Lennie is snarky, funny, and well developed. I liked a lot of the side characters as well. I did think that at times Lennie kind of turned into a love sick puppy around Smith because she did tend to over look the awful things that he had said to her.
I loved the plot! It was really original and different from anything I’ve read before. It hooked me right away and made this book hard to put down.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It had a great plot and awesome characters. I’m definitely going to be checking out the author’s other books.