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elainea's review
5.0
Holy Cow! This is a remarkable gem of a book.
I was a Stephen King acolyte for years, and though I moved away from reading "horror" quite a long time ago, I still appreciate a beautifully wrought example of the craft. This is one, made special by the pitch-perfect Southern Gothic element and a focus on turning the psychological screws. The language, the pace and the dialogue are all spot-on for that specialty. A.G. has the ear and "eye" for detail that drops the reader right in the thick of a rural southern town. Not by explaining, but by evoking the perfect feel. I could almost touch the thick air of the deep south before a storm breaks, that sense of suffocation that added a layer of foreboding to an already tight-spun tale.
Del (Delaney) Green has The Touch. We learn early she's not a typical girl, but we only understand the specifics of what and how as the story unspools. Some we learn through beautifully understated secondary characters (Sheriff Mains, for one), some we learn from Delaney herself. She's remarkably constrained and self-aware. The small details of her character--her penchant for a particular sweater, her love of poetry--make her deeply human, though she has what we'd consider a supernatural gift. Or curse, depending on the point of view.
I hesitate to say anything about the plot. A.G. spins it out at such the perfect pace, it needs to be read without prior spoilers, large or small, to let it wind around you. This isn't a long read, but the psychological unease may make you (like me) put the book down more than a few times to make sure you're actually at home, and not in some vine-hung forest in rural Mississippi with The Salesman right on the other side of that oak.
If you enjoy a little fearful reading, I highly recommend Of Lips and Tongue.
I was a Stephen King acolyte for years, and though I moved away from reading "horror" quite a long time ago, I still appreciate a beautifully wrought example of the craft. This is one, made special by the pitch-perfect Southern Gothic element and a focus on turning the psychological screws. The language, the pace and the dialogue are all spot-on for that specialty. A.G. has the ear and "eye" for detail that drops the reader right in the thick of a rural southern town. Not by explaining, but by evoking the perfect feel. I could almost touch the thick air of the deep south before a storm breaks, that sense of suffocation that added a layer of foreboding to an already tight-spun tale.
Del (Delaney) Green has The Touch. We learn early she's not a typical girl, but we only understand the specifics of what and how as the story unspools. Some we learn through beautifully understated secondary characters (Sheriff Mains, for one), some we learn from Delaney herself. She's remarkably constrained and self-aware. The small details of her character--her penchant for a particular sweater, her love of poetry--make her deeply human, though she has what we'd consider a supernatural gift. Or curse, depending on the point of view.
I hesitate to say anything about the plot. A.G. spins it out at such the perfect pace, it needs to be read without prior spoilers, large or small, to let it wind around you. This isn't a long read, but the psychological unease may make you (like me) put the book down more than a few times to make sure you're actually at home, and not in some vine-hung forest in rural Mississippi with The Salesman right on the other side of that oak.
If you enjoy a little fearful reading, I highly recommend Of Lips and Tongue.
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