A review by rprkrshearer
Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt

emotional reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

I feel bad because this book seems so universally beloved, but my first impressions of this book were mild, and devolved to fully annoyed, before I realized I was too far in to bail. June’s love for her uncle, and infatuation of sorts that she develops for his grieving partner, seem both believable in the context of being a young person trying to figure out who they are, and still manages to be off putting amid her internal monologue and her actions, that tentatively but somewhat consistently try to invoke the possibility of a sexual place. Despite seeming to be more of a romantic than a sexual person, she manages to interject a desire for or an undertone for the fantasy of a physically romantic relationship with her uncle, and then with his partner, despite not fully seeming to know what that means. She knows what the act of sex is, but doesn’t seem to understand its relationship to intimacy, which makes sense because she’s a literal kid. She knows she wants something, as a means to be known, understood, and cherished, she’s just not sure how to realize that want or what it looks like; she does know enough to recognize that it’s taboo to want it from her uncle, or another adult gay man. I fully get the awkwardness, uncertainty, and anxiety that accompanies this age, and June oscillates between shame and self flagellation, or commitment to these feelings with equal gusto. June relates her experiences with Finn and Toby to the reader either as self deprecatingly or self pityingly as possible, or with romantic whimsy, as if their actions toward her indicate pursuit of her in small, intimate ways. The external narrative also contributes to this off-key note, with random moments in which people suggest a fourteen year old girl and an adult man were maybe a couple, which feels unnerving, even as the narrative provides a contrast of June’s pursuit by a boy her own age (who shares a lot of her interests, accepts her for her interests and quirks, for whom she comparatively has no interest in as a person). Also slightly unbelievable is that Toby is fully aware that June is fourteen, but will get drunk and smoke cigarettes with her, both actions she didn’t partake in, but emulates with Toby; the same actions that she disdains in her sister, Greta, at the parties she forces June to go to.

The other characters just seem so transparent; the girls’ mother’s rant about forgoing opportunities and then waking up at your kitchen table wondering if you’ve wasted your life every day was just painful. I also know this is the late 80s, and that open hostility towards people of color, immigrants, and the queer community was largely socially condoned, which June seems to be acutely aware of as being dehumanizing and unjust, and tries not to participate in it. This seems uncharacteristically sharp of her amid her inability to discern why her sister is so cruel to her, or to sit with her jealousy of Finn’s relationship with Toby, that intermingles with her desire to be loved uniquely and specifically by each of them.
My favorite part, genuinely, was the reconciliation between Greta and June. It was the first time they were both fully transparent, and was the most believable, and touching, part of the book. Genuinely, the last 50 pages were the most engaging, authentic, and gripping of the novel as a whole; I wished the whole thing had been like this.

I know she’s a kid, and I get how being a kid is genuinely hard; I just found June continuously unlikable, which is not something I often feel about kids. It’s hard to become who you are. But it’s a lot harder when so much of your identity seems cobbled together by its relationship to role models you wish to both embody and be consumed by. Where is the person under that impulse? What, or who, is left once they’re gone? 
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