ALA Booklist (Mon Nov 06 00:00:00 CST 2023)

Athan Bakirtzis is about to have a really tough week. The woman whose basement he and his Greek grandmother (Yiayia) occupy keeps taking their things. He gets the feeling something evil is returning his gaze when he looks into mirrors. And when he goes to a penthouse party to relax one evening, the night ends with him running past a pile of dead bodies and escaping through a window. And that's just the start. When he meets a mysterious and cute boy named Dom, the two become entangled in a supernatural plot to release an unspeakable supernatural force into the world. This is a gruesome and heart-wrenching thrill ride featuring ancient magic, secret societies, bizarre deaths, murderous wallpaper, and eyes everywhere. La Sala (The Honeys, 2022) utilizes multiple voices and perspectives to explore family, loss, friendship, and revenge through beautifully grotesque imagery and his signature nuanced complexity, cementing himself as a welcome fixture in the arena of queer horror. Fans of the genre will love getting caught up in this thrilling web of mystery and deception.

Kirkus Reviews

A teen with a dark past uses his unique talent to investigate a series of grim murders in New York City.Athanasios Bakirtzis has avoided mirrors his whole life. He blames it on his paternal grandmother Yiayia's superstitions, but the truth is much more unusual: Through mirrors, he can scry into the past as if rewinding through camera footage. After witnessing a brutal accident at a party, Athan is sought out by a winsome stranger named Dominik Rupasinghe, who convinces him to help investigate a string of murders that he believes are all connected to the party. Athan is charmed and intrigued by Dom, who seems to know more about him than he should, but as they work together, it becomes clear that Dom may have secrets of his own. Their hunt takes them into the corrupt underbelly of art world high society, where Athan's scrying becomes instrumental to their activities. But as he searches mirrors for clues, he finds that, as Yiayia warned, something sinister is looking back at him-something that may have been watching for a very long time. New York City, with all its grime and shine, is a fitting backdrop for this novel, which also weaves in elements of folklore and urban fantasy, giving the story a uniquely ominous and epic feel. Athan's family's Greek immigrant background informs his backstory and motivation.Gritty and imaginative: modern noir that'll leave you wary of your reflection. (content warning) (Horror. 14-18)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

La Sala (The Honeys) balances inventive gruesomeness with thematic depth in this bewitching horror novel, a tale laced with spine-chilling gore. Greek American teenager Athanasios Bakirtzis has lived with his yiayia ever since his parents died in a fire when he was six. Though he pretends otherwise, he knows there’s a dark truth behind his grandmother’s superstitions surrounding mirrors: Athan himself has the Sight, an ability to see back in time when he looks at his reflection. After attending a party from which he’s the only survivor of a massacre, Yiayia disappears, and Athan meets Dom, a brown-skinned artist who sees right through the charm Athan uses to conceal his brewing guilt and anxiety. Dom believes there’s a conspiracy at work that’s connected to Bakirtzis family friend Uhler and the eerie wallpaper he designs. As the boys infiltrate an underground society to investigate, their connection deepens, and Athan learns new truths about the past he’s been fleeing for so long. Athan is a nuanced protagonist whose struggles with grief, intimacy, and his self-destructive nature drive a queer-positive narrative that unflinchingly tackles hard questions about perception and aesthetic obsession. The result is a top-notch horror novel and a tearjerker. Ages 14–up. Agent: Peter Knapp, Park & Fine Literary. (Oct.)

School Library Journal (Sun Oct 01 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Gr 9 Up— When a strange boy in a butterfly bandana abruptly implores him to hide in a bathroom during a dinner party, Athanasios isn't sure why he obeys, but the horrific tangle of bodies awaiting him hours later certainly makes him glad he did. Despite Athan's inherited Sight, which allows him to rewind the events witnessed by any mirror in which he can see himself, he has no idea who is responsible for the carnage, though the police clearly think he is. To make matters worse, his beloved (but perhaps not-all-there) Yiayia has disappeared; Uhler, the family friend who has supported Athan and Yiayia since Athan's parents died, definitely knows more than he should about everything that's going wrong in Athan's life; and Dom, the boy who saved Athan's life, clearly knows more than he's letting on about not only these deaths but also others. Readers will easily immerse themselves in La Sala's writing style, at once outlining a grand and epic plot in immediate, tangible settings. The voice that seems to follow Athan without quite belonging to him offers companionship to readers' darker natures, poignant commentary on intrusive thoughts and the space between reality and reflection. Athan is a complex and charismatic character, often as confused as readers about how the pieces of the puzzle connect. Where The Honeys was cloying, summer-heat-sticky, this title darts quickly from shadow to shadow, picking at a distorted reality. VERDICT La Sala spins a devastatingly unsettling web with razor-sharp insight.— Allie Stevens