Hello friends, happy Monday! I hope you’re all doing well. Today I’m posting my review of Quan Barry’s novel, We Ride Upon Sticks.

We Ride Upon Sticks by: Quan Barry: Set in the town of Danvers, Massachusetts, where in 1692 the Salem witch trials began, we follow the Danvers High School Falcons girls field hockey team from 1989. The team have been on a losing streak, but they are willing to do anything to reach the state finals, even tapping into darker magical powers. It’s not long before things start happening to them and they begin to start winning. This novel really surprised the reader in the end because it didn’t start off easy to follow or easy to read. The prose was very dense and the way it was told, in a passive voice, left the reader very confused and disoriented. Once the chapters started to break out into the individual girls on the team, it got easier to read and the plot began to make more sense. The plot was so interesting, captivating and different. The way Barry weaved in and out of the different girls’ lives and was able to tell individual stories within the bigger story was really well done. It was complex, yet it was made simple as she broke down the different stories in each chapter. The magic and the folklore around the Salem witch trials was so exciting and empowering to read because it fueled our characters. Barry really dug deep into femininity and breaking down society’s ideas of what it means to be a woman or female; the struggle to identify and to find your true self. These characters were richly developed that they felt so real and it was a joy to get to know them; watch them grow throughout the novel and get to know themselves better. This was a fantastic read that had so many riveting elements that had the reader flipping the pages wanting to know how it all went down in the end. This was a unique and highly recommended read.