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This is a quality piece of speculative southern gothic weirdness. The story ping pongs back and forth between a young girl's coming of age in the 1930s within a bizarre paranormal end-times cult and her life after she thinks that she's escaped. The format is cleverly crafted around a number of little mysteries that unfold both for our hero in her later years, and for us in her time communing with their God in the Mountain.
I feel that the book was mistakenly marketed as a horror book. I really loved it at a piece of dark speculative historical fiction, but I fear that it's not only going to satisfy anyone looking for horror thills, and frankly is missing a whole audience of readers that might have avoided this thinking it was horror.
Mostly this is a solid character study, an examination of life in the holler in Tennessee in the 30s and 40s, and a spotlight of misogynistic power grabs in evangelism. Because so much time was spent on building the characters' stories, I quickly found myself putting aside my expectations and resolved to just enjoy the writing and characters' stories. Despite leaning to the slow side for the first two acts, I still screamed through the book. And the rather incendiary ending felt entirely rewarding for me as I was was heavily invested in the mystery and the reveals and I got some surprising action to boot.
All in all, I highly recommend it to those who love weird literature. I'm totally going to check out this author's other work.
I feel that the book was mistakenly marketed as a horror book. I really loved it at a piece of dark speculative historical fiction, but I fear that it's not only going to satisfy anyone looking for horror thills, and frankly is missing a whole audience of readers that might have avoided this thinking it was horror.
Mostly this is a solid character study, an examination of life in the holler in Tennessee in the 30s and 40s, and a spotlight of misogynistic power grabs in evangelism. Because so much time was spent on building the characters' stories, I quickly found myself putting aside my expectations and resolved to just enjoy the writing and characters' stories. Despite leaning to the slow side for the first two acts, I still screamed through the book. And the rather incendiary ending felt entirely rewarding for me as I was was heavily invested in the mystery and the reveals and I got some surprising action to boot.
All in all, I highly recommend it to those who love weird literature. I'm totally going to check out this author's other work.