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jeckehecke 's review for:
Tell the Wolves I'm Home
by Carol Rifka Brunt
That was really beautiful and heart-breaking. June's uncle and godfather is HIV positive and dying. He's also a renowned painter and his last painting shows 14yo June and her 16yo sister Greta. It's the 80s, so the AIDS hysteria is peaking.
After Uncle Finn's death, secrets emerge. Of her uncle's lover who supposedly gave Finn AIDS and thus killed him. While her parents are stuck in their offices because of tax season (they're both accountants), June starts to meet the mysterious murderer of her uncle, Toby. She also has to deal with her estranged and cruel sister, while keeping her meetings with Tony secret.
This was a very fine YA book which nevertheless suffered from the same issues as others: the protagonists are too young. Why couldn't Greta be 18 and June at least 16? Yes, one can be 14 and sort of mature, but not like that. It felt off. And some of the scenes with Tony felt very...weird. I know they were supposed to be weird, but they also made me uncomfortable. And I also hated the ending.
Yet the novel showed how grief works and how deep childish or teenage infatuation can run. How children / young adults can see things differently than their parents, how they are more open minded, more forgiving, braver. I also liked June as a protagonist, she's not the usual protagonist, she also shuns away from the expected teenage romance. All the topics in this novel are very adult, heavy and hard. I am lucky that I was able to read that novel, thanks to a student from one of my classes who gave it to me. This is one of the books that shows where literature can go. How deeply it can affect us.
Five Stars.
After Uncle Finn's death, secrets emerge. Of her uncle's lover who supposedly gave Finn AIDS and thus killed him. While her parents are stuck in their offices because of tax season (they're both accountants), June starts to meet the mysterious murderer of her uncle, Toby. She also has to deal with her estranged and cruel sister, while keeping her meetings with Tony secret.
This was a very fine YA book which nevertheless suffered from the same issues as others: the protagonists are too young. Why couldn't Greta be 18 and June at least 16? Yes, one can be 14 and sort of mature, but not like that. It felt off. And some of the scenes with Tony felt very...weird. I know they were supposed to be weird, but they also made me uncomfortable. And I also hated the ending.
Yet the novel showed how grief works and how deep childish or teenage infatuation can run. How children / young adults can see things differently than their parents, how they are more open minded, more forgiving, braver. I also liked June as a protagonist, she's not the usual protagonist, she also shuns away from the expected teenage romance. All the topics in this novel are very adult, heavy and hard. I am lucky that I was able to read that novel, thanks to a student from one of my classes who gave it to me. This is one of the books that shows where literature can go. How deeply it can affect us.
Five Stars.