did I never get around to reviewing this quiet little novel, a favorite ofAnd what could I possibly say to convince anyone to read it amidst the relentless onslaught of newreleases, book after book and many of them fantastically heralded!
I guess one of the aspects of the book that I can speak to is that I still recall it so very well, nearly a year and aboutbooks/,pages later and despite its quietness and lack of a flashy plotline.
There is something about this atmospheric comingofage snapshot in time that just stuck with me,
This book is set in the earlys in the isolated winding rural forest neighborhoods of the historic Valley Forge area of Pennsylvania.
Its verys indeed in that children, including the main characters ofyearold protagonist and narrator Libby and her older and younger siblings, are largely left to fend for and raise themselves in what seems like the classic manner of thes or at least its pop cultural depictions.
There is a very earlyseason “Stranger Things” vibe, but without the supernatural features, Its more like kids trying to make their own fun, largely in the forest, and figure out life preInternet and iPhone while also trying to survive the general haze of confusion and potential menace that hovers around the bend of any adolescence, especially one in which wouldbe caregiving adults are beset and preoccupied and distracted by their own worries and survival concerns.
There are best friendships, secret tree hideouts with hidden packs of cigarettes, bonfires, public bus trips to the mall, babysitting gigs, record albums and stores, tshirts, and ominous boys with motorcycles and ominous men with lowriding sports cars.
Its not really a thriller beyond these elements, But isnt adolescence always a thriller And adolescence is also most certainly a woods, and these particular woods provide the perfect metaphor,
This is largely a novel of beautifully wrought setting and characterization, especially that of Libby, The plot, such as it is, hinges on a few events that again mean more for their suggestion of what could have happened or might yet happen.
Yet all this was enough for me, Again, its a quiet book with gentle sustained narrative tension, not a fullbore thriller by any means: this is definitely coming of age lit fic above all else.
I think I originally read this for a reading challenge goal about books that are rural in setting or take place mostly outside, so those might be ideas for you.
It would also be a good candidate for a book about sister relationships, which are central to the book if not its entire focus.
A Crooked Tree is going to be a best seller! Libby is an awesome narrator and really provides the insights child narrators often provide.
Thes setting was so real! I kept wanting to make my kids read passages so they knew what it was like growing up in thes.
The family dynamics created such a forward flowing plot, The bond between the siblings is gripping, Seeing how Ellen and the others treat Beatrice due to her being a half sister is interesting, The lives of the divorced women in book make the point of financial status so apparent, Ms. Boucher is a great juxtaposition character to Libbys Mom, The twists and turns are as crooked as the tree in the book, I read this in two days and I have three kids because I couldnt wait to see what happened next for the teenagers who were in over their heads.
I hardly ever give outstars, but I would have given A Crooked Treestars, This book will make a great limited series or movie! I would like to see the cover redesigned, The winding road on the cover does fit well with the scenery of their neighborhood, but I feel a picture of the neighborhood in the distance with their overgrown grass as Wilson is mowing the lawn might be better.
Another option would be a picture of the “Kingdom” with the crooked tree,
The other development in the book might be to use more of the comparisons of trees to characters like how Wilson being an allelopathic black walnut tree.
Libby would be a blue spruce, etc, Otro "coming of age" que leí porque creí que iba a ser una historia de suspenso, Ambientado a finales de los, principios de los, esta historia nos
cuenta sobre una familia de clase media/baja en Estados Unidos, Los cinco hijos intentan hacer sentido de la muerte de su padre y tienen una relación poco funcional con la mamá, Una noche, tras una discusión, la mamá pierde los estribos y le dice a Ellen su hija deaños que se baje del auto y que va a tener que caminar sola hasta su casa.
La deja en un tramo muy oscuro de la carretera y la pobre Ellen tiene un encuentro desafortunado con un hombre que intenta abusar de ella.
Este hecho desata una serie de eventos en las vidas de los hermanos que van a complicar mucho el verano, Narrado desde la perspectiva de Libby, la hija de en medio, vemos como los secretos en una familia pueden llegar a hacer tanto daño.
Libby se aferra a la memoria totalmente idealizada de su papá y a intentar que nada a su alrededor cambie, Sin embargo, sus hermanos y ella están creciendo por lo que cada quien tiene que hacer su propia vida y dejar atrás el pasado.
Lo que más me gustó fue como Libby recuerda las historias y supersticiones que su padre irlandés le contaba, y, por supuesto, las historias de fantasmas que los chicos cuentan alrededor de la fogata en el verano.
Puntos extra por los ecos a Rebeca de Daphne du Maurier: no sólo la mención del libro, sino también los rododendros y la vegetación.
Estas claves conectan al fantasma del ausente papá de Libby con esa presencia espectral de Rebeca, This debut coming of age novel set in rural Pennsylvania in thes features a broken family of young people whose mother is incapable of coping with responsibility.
The relationships, parental, siblings, and friends are complicated by a secret they keep after the mother, in a fit of desperate anger, kicks her preteen daughter out of the car to walk home.
The novel's protagonist,yearold Libby, narrates the story and learns how pride and fear work to undermine a family that loves one another in spite of everything.
Una, you got me with the first sentence: "The night we left Ellen on the road, we were driving north upnear where it meetsand then crosses the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
" I knew instantly this was going to be a page turner and would be about either a dog or a girl, Either way, I was ready, Oh, and it probably would be taking place in the mountains, and it would take place outdoors, Una Mannion, how can this be your debut novel It's got so much depth to it, yet it's like an old familiar story.
Suspenseful, yes. Empathetic, yes that too. Admiration for nature, totally. Spending time with this small community of young people who are witness to family dysfunctions based on fears and deep needs for privacy is like reading about any neighborhood, USA.
The bonds and the bitterness, the grief and anger, the secrets, . . all these emotions are so tenderly expressed in the voice of comingofage teenagers who could have been me or my brothers or my friends.
Well done Una. sitelinkblog sitelinkthestorygraph sitelinkletterboxd sitelink tumblr sitelinkkofi
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“That summer when I so desperately tried to reel us all in, I didn't understand the forces spinning us apart.
”
The opening of A Crooked Tree is certainly chilling, Libby, our fifteenyearold narrator, is in the car with her siblings, When their squabbling gets too much their mother dumps twelveyearold Ellen on the side of the road, Hours pass, and to Libby's increasing concern Ellen has yet to arrive, When Ellen finally makes an appearance, something has clearly happened to her,
Sadly, the suspenseful atmosphere that is so palpable at the start of this novel gives way to a slightly more predictable comingofage.
The premise made me think that A Crooked Tree would be something in the realms of Winter's Bone we have the rural setting, the dysfunctional family, the bond between the siblings.
But A Crooked Tree tells a far more conventional story: a summer of revelations from the realizations that the adults around you have their own secrets to having to say goodbye to the innocence of childhood.
While what happened to Ellen certainly has an impact on the storyline, A Crooked Tree is not a mystery or thriller.
We follow Libby as she fights and makes peace with her best friend and siblings, we learn of her less than stellar homelife, and, most of all, of her dislike of the neighborhoods' bad boy this last tread was pretty annoying.
I did appreciate how vivid the setting was, from the references tos culture to Libby's environment she is particularly attuned to nature.
I also really enjoyed the family dynamics and the unease that permeated many of the scenes, The author succeeds particularly in capturing that period of transition, from childhood to adolescence, without being sentimental,
What ultimately did not work for me was Libby herself, She's very bland. Love for trees aside there was little to her character, While her siblings, bff, and adults around her were fully fleshed out, Libby's personality remains largely unexplored, Her obsession with the 'bad boy' was also really grating and her refusal to see him as anything but bad news didn't ring entirely true.
A lot of the observations she makes about the people around her seemed to originate from someone far more mature and insightful than she was as in, they did not really seem to stem from the mind of a particularly naiveyear old girl.
Elle, although younger, would have made for a more convincing and interesting narrator, Libby is painfully vanilla.
Still, Libby aside, I did find this novel to be engaging, occasionally unsettling, and exceedingly nostalgic,
ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, .