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A review by sipsandspines
Shadows of Pecan Hollow by Caroline Frost
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
Wow. What a debut.
This book hit me hard with the emotions. I was hooked to this book like a magnet. The writing was so perfectly descriptive and I loved that the author came full circle with some of the details woven into the story.
The characters were so real to me. I felt everything that Kit felt. Her pain, her anger, her numbness… all of it was so well written. Manny was charming. He was a slimy, despicable human being but even as the reader I was charmed by him. I found myself feeling bad for him in certain situations and had to remind myself “WHAT NO HE IS A TERRIBLE PERSON”.
Same thing with the setting. The author really captured that small town Texas feeling. Kit coming to town and being othered. Her daughter being othered as an extension. The whole town was one big clique that they weren’t a part of and the author captured that lonely feeling so well.
Kit struggled so much with her identity. From having a made up name to not knowing what race she was, she never fit in anywhere and eventually closed herself off to everyone and her daughter suffered due to that. There was a scene where Kit remembered being in labor with Charlie and she said that when she gave birth to her daughter she also gave birth to herself. Kit never had a place in the world until she became a mother and finally had someone to love and someone to love her back, unconditionally.
This book comes with some content warnings: grooming behavior, domestic abuse, sexual assault, and animal death to name a few. But this is such a phenomenal debut and I look forward to reading more from this author in the future.
This book hit me hard with the emotions. I was hooked to this book like a magnet. The writing was so perfectly descriptive and I loved that the author came full circle with some of the details woven into the story.
The characters were so real to me. I felt everything that Kit felt. Her pain, her anger, her numbness… all of it was so well written. Manny was charming. He was a slimy, despicable human being but even as the reader I was charmed by him. I found myself feeling bad for him in certain situations and had to remind myself “WHAT NO HE IS A TERRIBLE PERSON”.
Same thing with the setting. The author really captured that small town Texas feeling. Kit coming to town and being othered. Her daughter being othered as an extension. The whole town was one big clique that they weren’t a part of and the author captured that lonely feeling so well.
Kit struggled so much with her identity. From having a made up name to not knowing what race she was, she never fit in anywhere and eventually closed herself off to everyone and her daughter suffered due to that. There was a scene where Kit remembered being in labor with Charlie and she said that when she gave birth to her daughter she also gave birth to herself. Kit never had a place in the world until she became a mother and finally had someone to love and someone to love her back, unconditionally.
This book comes with some content warnings: grooming behavior, domestic abuse, sexual assault, and animal death to name a few. But this is such a phenomenal debut and I look forward to reading more from this author in the future.