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bonnieg 's review for:
Tell the Wolves I'm Home
by Carol Rifka Brunt
This was an enjoyable enough read, but no more than that. Sometimes I read a YA book and wonder why it was designated as such. Tell the Wolves I'm Home was not one of those books. This is standard YA, differing only in that the requisite life-altering event is not a family member or classmate suicide, parental abandonment, eating disorder/cutting, teen pregnancy, or a cancer diagnosis but rather the loss of a beloved uncle to AIDS.
I was drawn to this book by Brunt's choice to set this book in New York in the 80's in the AIDS killing fields. New York was the center of so much wasted potential. I was fewer than 10 years older than June when I buried 2 dear friends and many many acquaintances (most in their 20's) all lost to a disease the President did not think was important enough to mention or to try to cure. I can tell you Brunt missed the real story here. This story would have worked so much better if someone had struggled to get treatment, had been refused service at restaurants and had cashiers refuse to take money from them at the Duane Reed, had walked down the street and had people cross to avoid them. That experience would have helped the central narrative and made Finn and Toby more human. It would have also provided context for June's family's reactions for those younger readers who cannot begin to imagine what it would have been like to have a modern day leper in your family. Without that context I imagine June's mother and sister just look like assholes.
My other major problem here was that I did not much like June or Toby, and I am pretty sure I was supposed to adore them both. I generally don't need to like a character to find them interesting but neither one of these characters was interesting or complex so a little affection would have been good. Toby was sort of creepy. Regardless of the circumstances, even if one is a known and trusted family member, grown men do not lure out 14 year olds without their parents' knowledge, teach them to smoke and drink, and embroil them in the business of dying. Also, 14 year olds are sort of a mess, but that moment of having one foot firmly planted in childhood and the other in adulthood, where the pull of both is equal, happens well before 14. I try to imagine my own teen putting on costumes and prancing through the forest pretending to be in the middle ages and all I can do is laugh. Also, June is selfish and nasty to nearly everyone. She is downright unpleasant and insensitive to her sister, to the boy who appears to like her, to Toby, to Finn's memory, and certainly to her parents (though that seems pretty typical.)
All in all, if you are looking for typical YA this is fine though superficial and flawed. I should mention the prose is quite good, and Brunt might write a really good book some day.
I was drawn to this book by Brunt's choice to set this book in New York in the 80's in the AIDS killing fields. New York was the center of so much wasted potential. I was fewer than 10 years older than June when I buried 2 dear friends and many many acquaintances (most in their 20's) all lost to a disease the President did not think was important enough to mention or to try to cure. I can tell you Brunt missed the real story here. This story would have worked so much better if someone had struggled to get treatment, had been refused service at restaurants and had cashiers refuse to take money from them at the Duane Reed, had walked down the street and had people cross to avoid them. That experience would have helped the central narrative and made Finn and Toby more human. It would have also provided context for June's family's reactions for those younger readers who cannot begin to imagine what it would have been like to have a modern day leper in your family. Without that context I imagine June's mother and sister just look like assholes.
My other major problem here was that I did not much like June or Toby, and I am pretty sure I was supposed to adore them both. I generally don't need to like a character to find them interesting but neither one of these characters was interesting or complex so a little affection would have been good. Toby was sort of creepy. Regardless of the circumstances, even if one is a known and trusted family member, grown men do not lure out 14 year olds without their parents' knowledge, teach them to smoke and drink, and embroil them in the business of dying. Also, 14 year olds are sort of a mess, but that moment of having one foot firmly planted in childhood and the other in adulthood, where the pull of both is equal, happens well before 14. I try to imagine my own teen putting on costumes and prancing through the forest pretending to be in the middle ages and all I can do is laugh. Also, June is selfish and nasty to nearly everyone. She is downright unpleasant and insensitive to her sister, to the boy who appears to like her, to Toby, to Finn's memory, and certainly to her parents (though that seems pretty typical.)
All in all, if you are looking for typical YA this is fine though superficial and flawed. I should mention the prose is quite good, and Brunt might write a really good book some day.