Reminiscent of 1996’s The Craft meets Grady Hendrix’s My Best Friend’s Exorcism, Six of Sorrow will resonate with anyone who’s lost a friend group and misses that connection. Once part of a group of six best friends, Six of Sorrow follows Isabeau and her remaining best friend Reuel, who celebrate their shared sixteenth birthday together. Reuel disappears later that night, a tragedy which brings the rest of the young women back together. One by one they disappear and come back sick, plagued by wasting illnesses and ripped fingernails. Their mothers are clearly hiding a secret, but the girls know it’s up to them to stop the supernatural entity stalking them.

This is a story of female friendships, a metaphor for inherited trauma, and a look at navigating romantic relationships in high school. Readers will connect with Isabeau’s pain over losing her friend group as well as her moments of self-doubt. Linsmeier expertly describes Isabeau’s feelings of isolation and her insecurities coming from a low-income home. Isabeau learns that keeping a friendship requires work, but that a broken one can still be fixed. Occasionally the clunky descriptors of clothing and house decor are awkwardly shoehorned in and can take the reader out of the moment. The stuttering plot struggles to keep pace throughout the story, flipping between Isabeau discovering the source of their curse to days of attending school and worrying about art class projects.

Despite its flaws, this book is a great pick for teenagers, especially those interested in “witchy” vibes or stories that have an urban legend flare to them. There is positive LGBTQ representation and the core friendship teaches the reader the importance of found family. The fantastical elements in the story make it a fun novel that will personally resonate with many readers.

Reviewed by Raechel Moore, Maine State Library, Augusta