Sarah O'Connor

I received this book from Simon and Schuster Influencer Program in exchange for an honest review.

“That was the thing about families. They knew even the things you wanted to keep secret,” (Sambury).

Grieving her mother’s sudden death, Sunny Behre knows she has what it takes to take up her role as leader of her family, as her mother wanted. But at the will reading there is no declaration of Sunny being the new leader of the Behre family, just a sticky note that says, “Take care of Dom.” Sunny has four siblings, and the youngest, Dom, has always been the black sheep of them, even before he was accused of murdering his girlfriend the year before. Dom swears he’s innocent, but when one of their classmates is found brutally murdered, and then another, Sunny can’t be so sure. What she does know is that she’s going to take care of Dom, and her other siblings who seem to have secrets of their own. It’s what her mother would have wanted.

I adored Delicious Monsters and was beyond excited to learn that I was given the ARC of Tender Beasts (THANK YOU SIMON AND SCHUSTER!), but I have mixed feelings. It has it’s strengths. I think Sambury is a brilliant horror author, not only does she know how to perfectly scare her readers but she knows how to add heart as well. The major theme of Tender Beasts is generational trauma and Sambury does an excellent job in showing this through Sunny’s perspective and Ainsley’s (the Behre matriarch) teenage journal entries. There are some fantastic parallels between the past and present to show how Ainsley’s trauma effected Sunny and her siblings lives. I did prefer Ainsley’s journal entries a little more than Sunny’s perspective only because Sambury created such an eerie, folk horror type of mood that I loved being enmeshed in. I also loved the footnotes, but my one criticism with that is reading it on my tablet it was a pain having to scroll back to my spot after reading one footnote and basically doing that over and over with each journal entry.

I thought Sunny was a relatable character to follow and I loved reading from her perspective and seeing her go through the realization of her and her siblings trauma. I felt so badly for Dom and how he was treated by his parents and siblings. I do feel that with such a big family (five kids is so many) it was hard to care for each of the Behre’s the same, though maybe that was the point. There was some great gore, and again, the horror scenes in journal entries were incredibly eerie. I think my biggest issue with it is that there were just too many characters. I understand that for character purposes Sunny needed a group of friends, but her boyfriend Craig really fell flat and was overall just not relevant to the plot. There were also a couple of characters like Andy and Detective Carter who were mentioned before disappearing, I forgot about the detective until she showed up again near the end honestly. There is a lot that Tender Beasts is trying to do, and while I think it succeeds in many areas there’s just too many cooks in the kitchen.

But I did love the nod to Delicious Monsters near the end! And I love that Sambury, a Canadian author, also set this book in Canada. I love reading about places I know!

Tender Beasts is a creative and horrifying look at generational trauma that will keep reader’s guessing as they try to solve the mystery presented to them. Sambury is such a talented writer and I can’t wait to see what horrifying thing she comes up with next!

Publication: February 27 2024
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Pages: 316 (NetGalley eArc)
Source: Simon and Schuster
Genre: Fiction, Young Adult, Horror, Mystery, Canadian
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤.75
Summary:

Sunny Behre has four siblings, but only one is a murderer.
With the death of Sunny’s mother, matriarch of the wealthy Behre family, Sunny’s once picture-perfect life is thrown into turmoil. Her mother had groomed her to be the family’s next leader, so Sunny is confused when the only instructions her mother leaves is a mysterious note: “Take care of Dom.”
The problem is, her youngest brother, Dom, has always been a near-stranger to Sunny…and seemingly a dangerous one, if found guilty of his second-degree murder charge. Still, Sunny is determined to fulfill her mother’s dying wish. But when a classmate is gruesomely murdered, and Sunny finds her brother with blood on his hands, her mother’s simple request becomes a lot more complicated. Dom swears he’s innocent, and although Sunny isn’t sure she believes him, she takes it upon herself to look into the murder—made all the more urgent by the discovery of another body. And another.
As Sunny and Dom work together to track down the culprit, Sunny realizes her other siblings have their own dark secrets. Soon she may have to choose: preserve the family she’s always loved or protect the brother she barely knows—and risk losing everything her mother worked so hard to build.