This book was nothing special. Pretty much just The Lost Boys just not as good. Not a bad read, just nothing great.

I really wanted to like this more. If it had been longer - characters and situations more fleshed out - it would have been better. For example, Callie just believed in vampires for no reason… ugh.

Mouth Full of Ashes by Briana Morgan is a love letter to The Lost Boys. It's a quick read (or maybe that's just because i couldn't seem to put it down.) Vampire fiction can be tricky, and can easily come across as cheesy or unbelievable. This book is neither of those things.

It opens up with a horrific accident, so I was immediately drawn in. I love when books and movies do this. I'm looking at you, Midsommar. The relationships felt genuine and messy, as most are. Morgan's characters have a depth to them that is extremely realistic.

Spoiler

I do feel like Briana missed a great opportunity to show the vampires doing what they do best - maiming and killing, of course. And as a mother myself, I did find it odd that the mom would choose to move back to that place. The ending felt rushed and a little too "neatly tied up in a bow". I would have loved to see the action scenes drawn out (we didn't get to see the "big bad" die at all).

Overall, this is an enjoyable read, and I will definitely check out more from Briana Morgan.

First off, I would say that this book was a lot of fun to read. I’m really glad that I bought a copy a few days ago because I’ve been having a blast annotating it; narrating my own thoughts and also adding snarky comments I think the lost boys would make had they read this book.

The Lost Boys is my all time favorite movie. It has been since I first watched it in elementary school, and here I am in the middle of college still watching and enjoying it.

This novella has a lot of charm and nostalgia tied to it. But I will say, that this story is at least 100 pages too short. I wanted more. I wanted to get a more in depth and intimate look into our main character heads. I think the story would also have been better served had we also gotten chapters in Ramsay’s perspective. At the start he acts normally, then suddenly snaps at Callie, then he’s fine again. I imagine some form of deep seated grief is playing into his odd behavior along with his new boyfriend, but still, I would have liked to see this fleshed out instead of glossed over.

Our main character, Callie finds out about the existence of the vampires very early on. One of the reasons I hold The Lost Boys in such high regard is because we spend time getting to know the lost boys, seeing them as human, seeing them laugh and have fun before that all gets ripped away and we see their more monstrous sides. This story needed room to breathe, and unfortunately, given the short page length it wasn’t able to do that.

All in all, I think this story was a lot of fun. I liked the representation of Callie being Bi and having a romantic relationship with a woman and with Ramsay being gay and having a relationship with a person of color.

I would love to see a re-release of this novella as a full length book. It’s characters and story have a lot of potential, although Tahlia was not fully utilized, I feel she should have been given a bigger role to play. She only got about two lines, so I guess she is the Dwayne of the book. But I digress.

Look for my review in an upcoming issue of SCREAM magazine!

cute fall read

If you want to have a soft spook for Halloween, this is the one. There are some minor flaws in the story gaps. Like details missing that would have been nice. But overall the characters were good and likeable. I don’t like how Maeve spoke but I understood why she liked the FMC. I didn’t like the FMC whole name. But it was overall a good read and story!