The Scapegracers

Scapegracers, Book 1

By: Hannah Abigail Clarke, Liz Gorinsky - editor

Narrated by: Eileen Stevens

An outcast teenage lesbian witch finds her coven hidden amongst the popular girls in her school, and performs some seriously badass magic in the process.

Skulking near the bottom of West High’s social pyramid, Sideways Pike lurks under the bleachers doing magic tricks for Coke bottles. As a witch, lesbian, and lifelong outsider, she’s had a hard time making friends. But when the three most popular girls pay her $40 to cast a spell at their Halloween party, Sideways gets swept into a new clique. The unholy trinity are dangerous angels, sugar-coated rattlesnakes, and now - unbelievably - Sideways’ best friends.

Together, the four bond to form a ferocious and powerful coven. They plan parties, cast curses on dudebros, try to find Sideways a girlfriend, and elude the fundamentalist witch hunters hellbent on stealing their magic. But for Sideways, the hardest part is the whole "having friends" thing. Who knew that balancing human interaction with supernatural peril could be so complicated?

Rich with the urgency of feral youth, The Scapegracers explores growing up and complex female friendship with all the rage of a teenage girl. It subverts the trope of competitive mean girls and instead portrays a mercilessly supportive clique of diverse and vivid characters. It is an atmospheric, voice-driven novel of the occult, and the first of a three-book series.

Cover art by Anka Lavriv
Cover design by Dana Li
First published by Erewhon Books in 2020

©2020 Hannah Abigail Clarke (P)2020 Audible, Inc.

Great book !

Such a great read (listen) I can’t wait for the 2nd book to come out!!!!

Everything I hoped it would be

I found this book because I read a book review of the last unicorn on torr, and even in that format I knew I wanted to read more of this author. I loved the style of Hannah right away. I'm so glad Hannah brought this book into existence, it's just what I needed. The prose is delightful and poetic, drawing scenes with slashes and then the fine tips of fingernails, the story is unapologetically free and perfect. I hope one day I can speak with Hannah in the real world and thank them personally.

Not bad but not great

I like most of the characters in the book. The characters felt like real life people. People you could meet on the street. However, there wasn’t a lot of conflict in the story. And whenever there was the solution was ridiculously easy. The main character managed to escape from the bad guys house because one of the bad guys left a window open. I thought the author was going to do something clever with that, like the bad guys let her escape so they could track her. But no, it goes nowhere. Another time the bad guys father shows up as a cop, pulls the girls over and then just lets them go. Like why even have that scene at all. To summarize the author is great at creating likable/believable characters but needs to work on creating tension and conflict.

Keep coming back

I literally have listened to this 3 times if not more! Love the whole series

Must read

Currently my favorite book!! Was a little hard to get into at the start. Once I got use to the writing I was unable to put the book down. Highly recommend picking it up!

immaculate teenage lesbian witch vibes

Sideways (a moniker too cool to be their wallet name) is a transmasculine butch lesbian, a social pariah at their high school in a conservative little town in rural America with the usual local features: an epidemic of drug use and homophobia, and a Christofascist white supremacist cult on the outskirts of town that's definitely A Problem. Sideways is also a witch, a real witch, with real magic. Their life changes, dramatically for the better, when the school's trio of pretty, cool (and maybe a little bit mean) girls invite them to a Halloween party to do actual magic. One act of magic leads to another and suddenly Sideways is head of a coven, the trio of cool girls now a quad of witches.

I love Sideways with my whole heart. They're the duality of the queer high school experience: either you were a goth loner that everyone was convinced would be the next school shooter, or you found your place among a bunch of fellow queers figuring themselves out, or both in Sideway's case. They are an immensely relatable useless lesbian, utterly convinced that their new friends are a bunch of straight girls, even as the coven trio make increasingly obvious passes at them. Equally, Sideways is an utterly relatable disaster, making the incorrect choices that any thirsty highschool lesbian would make. Who can say no when a hot chick asks you to paint a magic sigil of ownership on her skin, even if she's clearly sketchy and probably asking you to do dark magic? Like, that's better than sex, consequences be damned.

This book is mostly set up for the next two books in the trilogy, but it's the best example of a setup book I have ever seen. The queer in rural small town America feeling is true to life. You might not have had a Jing, Yates, and Daisy as your besties in high school, but if you managed the trick of finding queer friends, they were probably some permutation of these personality traits: at least one sapphic mean girl, probably two (teens tend to be little monsters), and if you're lucky a cinnamon role with better social skills added as glue to the mix.

The author, August Clarke (probably best to ignore the dead name on the cover), understands lesbians. Really, really understands lesbians, in all their disastrous, girl loving, messy glory. Sideway's transmasculine inclinations honestly only made this book more relatable for me. I'm transfeminine, opposite gender direction, but the experience of being genderfucked is the experience of being genderfucked, transmasc and transfemme rhyme more than they differ.

The best thing about this book is the voice. I don't mean Eilene Stevens' narration—though she fucking knocked it out of the park—but the colourful first person narration puts me so deep in Sideway's head that I know this lesbian, inside and out. And Sideway's is just so dryly funny and relatable that it's a joy to read every chapter. This book ends in a cliff hanger, so obviously I'm currently reading the sequel. The third book isn't out yet (as of late 2023) and so I guess I'm just going to pine for a while waiting for the conclusion. Easy 5 stars across the board. My only complaint is no trans girl witch in the coven but I got good news about book 2. Are you a lesbian? Read this read this read this.

Sorry was cool in concept but

Felt fragmented. Like an early draft before an editor looked it over. Narration was hard to understand in places and overall basic. Everything felt kind of random. Things just happened to the characters and they talked about being mad about it. They didn’t seem to have much choice in their life and the choices they did make didn’t seem to affect much. Narration was hard to understand in places and overall basic. And then it would be a new scene without any transition until they did the next random thing, and there was another random transition.

Supremely goofy

It’s hard to articulate why I kept listening to this. The writing is weirdly off and the reading is emotionally off kilter. But the world and plot were interesting enough for me to keep going. What’s more, I’ll probably also listen ti the next one! No accounting for (my own) taste, I guess.