Review Detail

Lehua and her twin Ohia had been shuffled in foster homes in Arizona after the death of their grandparents. Never did Lehua think she'd visit the ancestral home in Hawai'i. Then, after a fight, Ohia is missing. Lehua's search leads her to the exclusive resort of Kopa'a. Once there, she encounters a Hawaiian girl, Melia, who was hired to help with the persimmon groves. Things turn dark fast with many unanswered questions and nightly ghosts that seem to be warning Lehua. Quickly, Lehua finds that it's not all it seems. In order to find Ohia, Lehua learns of Kopa'a's bloody past. A past that refuses to be silenced.

What worked: Atmospheric contemporary horror meets Hawaiian teens with deadly consequences. I love a good, diverse horror story that weaves in cultural urban legends. That Which Feeds Us doesn't disappoint! I also think this is the first YA horror that uses Hawaiian urban legends. I want more!!! You can tell the author did her research on how vivid the island and the ghosts were.

Readers first meet Lehua at an Arizona mortuary where she helps prepare the dead for burials. Little does she know how that skill will help her later in the story.

Lehua is determined to find her missing twin. After their grandparents' death, they now only have each other. They also have the stories their grandmother shares of their ancestral home in Hawai'i. A home that they were priced out of. Lehua encounters firsthand how the legends were, in fact, based on truth.

Once on Kopa'a Lehua sees ghosts of plantation workers who tell her to leave. There is a psychological horror that builds to outright grisly reveals. Even then, Lehua won't leave until she finds her twin.

There's hints of a possible romance between Melia and Lehua that is bittersweet.

The planters are wealthy white people who are creepy. That includes the older man, Horace, who has a twisted obsession with the islanders.

Woven throughout is how early colonization exploited native Hawaiians and how, even now, that continues with pricing Hawaiians out of their homes.

MEXICAN GOTHIC meets Hawaiian teens and those who exploit islanders to their own wicked purposes.