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bertareads 's review for:
In The Tall Trees
by Angel Van Atta
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Wow....I did not expect to get so invested.
In the Tall Trees, follows Mella, a young girl who lives in a tiny remote house with her Momma and baby brother, Pete. Sometimes her daddy comes but often brings the bad man with him. She knows she is part of his other family, kept away from the rest of the world.
Quite often I find child narrators quite annoying. It's usually quite gimmicky and can become really repetitive quite quickly. But, this book does it really well, seeing her naive responses to trauma and the situation is more heartbreaking than a third person narrative. She doesn't understand why things are happening and doesn't know anything different. I love how the imagination of Mella is mixed with the real horror of the situation, creating this beautiful blend of sad and scary.
The story is tense throughout but it particularly picks up in about 1/3 of the way through and till the end my heart was racing. I read this all in one sitting pretty much as I could not put it down, it was so tense. For 109 pages (kindle edition), it does a really good job of setting up the mystery, horror and the normality of trauma for Mella as well as deliver a really good plot, which in my opinion is the perfect length.
All in all, I would recommend this to anyone who needs a quick but thrilling read, but please check trigger warnings as a lot of this book has a lot of abuse and trauma related topics.
In the Tall Trees, follows Mella, a young girl who lives in a tiny remote house with her Momma and baby brother, Pete. Sometimes her daddy comes but often brings the bad man with him. She knows she is part of his other family, kept away from the rest of the world.
Quite often I find child narrators quite annoying. It's usually quite gimmicky and can become really repetitive quite quickly. But, this book does it really well, seeing her naive responses to trauma and the situation is more heartbreaking than a third person narrative. She doesn't understand why things are happening and doesn't know anything different. I love how the imagination of Mella is mixed with the real horror of the situation, creating this beautiful blend of sad and scary.
The story is tense throughout but it particularly picks up in about 1/3 of the way through and till the end my heart was racing. I read this all in one sitting pretty much as I could not put it down, it was so tense. For 109 pages (kindle edition), it does a really good job of setting up the mystery, horror and the normality of trauma for Mella as well as deliver a really good plot, which in my opinion is the perfect length.
All in all, I would recommend this to anyone who needs a quick but thrilling read, but please check trigger warnings as a lot of this book has a lot of abuse and trauma related topics.