What’s Done In Darkness, By Laura McHugh ~ 4.5 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Assault, Implied Rape, Kidnapping, Mystery, Ozarks, Religious Fanaticism, Suspense

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: June 22nd, 2021

256 Pages

Synopsis: Seventeen-year-old Sarabeth has become increasingly rebellious since her parents found God and moved their family to a remote Arkansas farmstead where she’s forced to wear long dresses, follow strict rules, and grow her hair down to her waist. She’s all but given up on escaping the farm when a masked man appears one stifling summer morning and snatches her out of the cornfield.

A week after her abduction, she’s found alongside a highway in a bloodstained dress—alive—but her family treats her like she’s tainted, and there’s little hope of finding her captor who kept Sarabeth blindfolded in the dark the entire time, never uttering a word. One good thing arises from the horrific ordeal: a chance to leave the Ozarks and start a new life.

Five years later, Sarabeth is struggling to keep her past buried, when investigator Nick Farrow calls. Convinced that her case is connected to the strikingly similar disappearance of another young girl, Farrow wants Sarabeth’s help and he’ll do whatever it takes to get it, even if that means dragging her back to the last place she wants to go—the hills and hollers of home, to face her estranged family, and all her deepest fears.

In this riveting new novel from Laura McHugh, blood ties and buried secrets draw a young woman back into the nightmare of her past to save a missing girl, unaware of what awaits her in the darkness. (Goodreads)

What’s Done In Darkness is an unsettling thriller that illustrates how much can be packed into a relatively short book in the hands of a talented author. The book alternates between the years leading up to Sarabeth’s abduction and the ordeal itself, to five years later in the present day, when Sara is now trying to make a normal life for herself, away from her family and strict religious community that she was trapped in for a good portion of her childhood. McHugh created a wonderful character in Sara, with both her past and present selves. She comes across as not only relatable, but as a real flesh and blood person. The other characters are equally well written, and so realistic that this could have been a documentary. The setting of the story in the Ozarks was a brilliant decision and added to the claustrophobic atmosphere of this religious cultish community. The mystery as to who abducted Sara was in part predictable, but there were some nuances that still surprised me. In summation, What’s Done In Darkness is an emotional, evocative, and mesmerizing read that I guarantee you won’t be able to put down. This is the first book I’ve read by Laura McHugh, but I liked it so much I’m determined to go back and read her three previous books. 

Surrender Your Sons, by Adam Sass ~ 4.5 Stars

Tags

Conversion Therapy, Homophobia, Humor, LGBTQ, Physical & Emotional Abuse, Religious Fanaticism, Romance, Suicide, Violence, YA Fiction

Thanks to NetGalley and Flux for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: September 15th, 2020

392 Pages

Synopsis: Connor Major’s summer break is turning into a nightmare.

His SAT scores bombed, the old man he delivers meals to died, and when he came out to his religious zealot mother, she had him kidnapped and shipped off to a secluded island. His final destination: Nightlight Ministries, a conversion therapy camp that will be his new home until he “changes.”

But Connor’s troubles are only beginning. At Nightlight everyone has something to hide from the campers to the “converted” staff and the cagey camp director, and it quickly becomes clear that no one is safe. Connor plans to escape and bring the other kidnapped teens with him. But first he’s exposing the camp’s horrible truths for what they are—and taking this place down.

Before I review Adam Sass’s excellent Surrender Your Sons, I have first share my complete and utter revulsion that conversion/reparative therapy is still allowed in the majority of states in this country. As of July 1, 2020, there will be only 20 states banning this reprehensible and THOROUGHLY DEBUNKED practice. The majority (including my state of Alabama), still allow parents to approve this “treatment” for their minor children. The Human Rights Campaign has a lot of information if you want to check it out here:

https://hrc.org/resources/the-lies-and-dangers-of-reparative-therapy

And there’s more at The Trevor Project at:

https://thetrevorproject.org/get-involved/trevor-advocacy/50-bills-50-states/about-conversion-therapy/ and https://thetrevorproject.org/category/advocacy/conversion-therapy/

Surrender Your Sons is a story you should go into as blind as possible so I’m going to go even out of my way not to include any spoilers than I usually do. Adam Sass states in his Author’s Note (which you should definitely read), “I want to acknowledge that you’ll find queer pain in this book. However, it’s not about queer pain. It’s about what queers do with pain. This is what drives the entire novel. The plot itself is dark, issue-driven, yet has moments of levity to lighten things up. There are a few themes that could pose a problem for some readers so here are my trigger warnings: Severe homophobia, physical & emotional abuse, graphic violence, sexual content, and suicide. The characters, beginning with Connor are so well written they seem to jump off the pages, and I feel as though I know them all personally, both the ones I liked and the ones I wanted to strangle with my bare hands. The mystery was interesting and kept me guessing right up until the end, but to be honest, I really kept reading because I became so emotionally invested in Connor and his friends. There are a couple of sections around the middle of the book where things slowed down a bit, and I think this could have been trimmed. Otherwise, Surrender Your Sons is a noteworthy addition to LGBTQ+ fiction that I unhesitatingly recommend for anyone 15 and up. It’s dark and brutal at times and will elicit some strong emotions, but it also leaves you with hope at the end. 

 

Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe, by Preston Norton ~ 4.5 Stars

Tags

Bullying, Child Abuse, Contemporary Fiction, Drug Abuse, High School, Homophobia, Humor, Religious Fanaticism, Suicide, YA Fiction

Thanks to NetGalley and Disney-Hyperion for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: June 5th, 2018

400 Pages

Synopsis: Cliff Hubbard is a huge loser. Literally. His nickname at Happy Valley High School is Neanderthal because he’s so enormous—-6’6” and 250 pounds to be exact. He has no one at school and life at his trailer park home has gone from bad to worse since his older brother’s suicide.

There’s no one Cliff hates more than the nauseatingly cool quarterback, Aaron Zimmerman. Then Aaron returns to school after a near-death experience with a bizarre claim: while he was unconscious he saw God, who gave him a list of things to do to make Happy Valley High suck less. And God said there’s only one person who can help: Neanderthal.

To his own surprise, Cliff says he’s in. As he and Aaron make their way through the List, which involves a vindictive English teacher, a mysterious computer hacker, a decidedly unchristian cult of Jesus Teens, the local drug dealers, and the meanest bully at HVHS—-Cliff feels like he’s part of something for the first time since losing his brother. But fixing a broken school isn’t as simple as it seems, and just when Cliff thinks they’ve completed the List, he realizes their mission hits closer to home than he ever imagined.

Neanderthal Opens the Door To The Universe is one of those books that took me by surprise in regards to how much I liked it. While some of the dialogue is a little awkward and it’s intentionally filled with high school cliches, because of the well-rounded and relatable characters, interesting plot, and positive message, it has a certain charm to it that I think will appeal to a wide audience. The story tackles many social issues: suicide, drug abuse, religious fanaticism, homophobia, bullying, and child abuse. But it never devolves into an annoying after school special/soap opera. This is partly due to the dry humor that pervades the story, but also because the darker themes are balanced by the inspiring responses from the teenage characters.

In the end, Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe is quite uplifting and it’s a story I won’t forget anytime soon. Because of the colorful language involved and dark topics, I wouldn’t recommend this for older teens. I think it’s a wonderful choice for high school classrooms, forthcoming summer reading lists, and book discussion groups.

The Cresswell Plot ~ By Eliza Wass – 4.0 Stars

Tags

Abuse, Coming-of-age stories, Contemporary Fiction, Cults, Incest, Poverty, Religious Fanaticism, YA Fiction

Thank you NetGalley and Disney-Hyperion for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: June 7th, 2016

Synopsis: Castella Cresswell and her five siblings–Hannan, Caspar, Mortimer, Delvive, and Jerusalem–know what it’s like to be different. For years, their world has been confined to their ramshackle family home deep in the woods of upstate New York. They abide by the strict word of God, whose messages come directly from their father.

Slowly, Castley and her siblings start to test the boundaries of the laws that bind them. But, at school, they’re still the freaks they’ve always been to the outside world. Marked by their plain clothing. Unexplained bruising. Utter isolation from their classmates. That is, until Castley is forced to partner with the totally irritating, totally normal George Gray, who offers her a glimpse of a life filled with freedom and choice.

Castley’s world rapidly expands beyond the woods she knows so well and the beliefs she once thought were only truths. There is a future waiting for her if she can escape her father’s grasp, but Castley refuses to leave her siblings behind. Just as she begins to form a plan, her father makes a chilling announcement: the Cresswells will soon return to their home in heaven. With time running out on all their lives, Castley must expose the depth of her father’s lies. The forest has buried the truth in darkness for far too long. Castley might be their last hope for salvation.

The Cresswell Plot is a book that has no supernatural monsters  that go bump in the night, yet it’s extremely unsettling nonetheless. First of all, the writing is gorgeous and almost lyrical in its complexity. Eliza Wass does a wonderful job adding layer after layer to this story. While I wouldn’t call this a thriller, the tension kept builds in such a way that I was actually anxious toward the end. This is partly because I wound up getting so emotionally attached to Castley. Growing up in a dysfunctional family myself (although not a cult), I completely related to her coming to terms with what her father is, and her yearning to be free and live a normal life. Add to that her loyalty and love for her brothers and sisters, and she makes for an extremely empathetic teen. In spite of her upbringing she has a strength of character that I really admired. Her siblings have a much more difficult time breaking free from their father’s teachings, but their struggles are explored in a realistic way, you can’t help but feel sympathy for them. I do wish that the reasons for the parents’ religious fanaticism had been explored a little more fully. There’s a part in the book where Castley discovers that once upon a time her parents were regular teens, but this is just touched upon and quickly dropped. I also thought the end was a little abrupt and wrapped things up a too neatly. Overall though, The Cresswell Plot is a twisted and compelling story that takes an insightful and compassionate look into a family dealing with poverty, mental illness, and abuse. Because of these themes as well as the topic of incest being briefly brought up, I would recommend this for older teens. I also think it would be a great selection for book discussion groups. This is the debut novel by Eliza Wass, but I’ve already added her to my list of authors to watch.