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A review by wrenreads2025
Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
5.0
Brunt takes the readers back to the mid 1980s when people were struggling with how to respond to the AIDS epidemic, and they were doing so primarily through fear, bigotry and urban myth. It is within this environment that 14-year-old June must learn how to embrace her uncle as he dies from AIDS and then mourn him actively when many around her either want to forget him or malign him. And then everything is complicated when she forms an uneasy friendship with her uncle's lover. And adolescence is a difficult challenge for anyone without all these extra complications.
Oh, this was a weirdly timed book for me. My beloved uncle passed away on Saturday, February 2nd, and on Sunday February 3rd I plucked this book off the "new releases" shelf at my local library because I'd seen it on several "best fiction of 2012" lists. It didn't really hit me that this was about a girl trying to process her uncle's death until I was 75 pages in--even though this is stated clearly on the book jacket, which I read. I chose it because it was well received.
From the cover art and the book jacket, I thought this novel would be edgey, hip, dark and twisted. But it's not. It reveals the heart of a young woman doing the best she can to forge a path for herself. June is sweet, earnest, complex, intelligent, awkward, solitary, quirky, and idealistic. I found myself cheering for her and aching for her as she does her best to negotiate through thorny family dynamics in her attempts to mourn her uncle. But the book doesn't paint June's family members as fiends. As the novel progresses, everyone's layers get peeled back until you see from all characters' points of view, making everyone a lot more sympathetic than at first blush.
Oh, why are relationships so difficult?! But there are moments of real intimacy and joy along the way, too--giving us all a little hope that we can rise above our mortal flaws and work together to transcend our limits.
And I am shocked that NONE of my friends have read this novel. C'mon people. What's the matter with us? Let's give this debut novelist a bit of our time. I read it over 2.5 days. I even dreamed about it the night before I finished. I tried staying up, but my heavy eyelids betrayed me. But it was so engaging, that I dreamed of several possible denouements before dawn came and I grabbed the book off my nightstand and finished it before putting my feet on the floor.
Oh, this was a weirdly timed book for me. My beloved uncle passed away on Saturday, February 2nd, and on Sunday February 3rd I plucked this book off the "new releases" shelf at my local library because I'd seen it on several "best fiction of 2012" lists. It didn't really hit me that this was about a girl trying to process her uncle's death until I was 75 pages in--even though this is stated clearly on the book jacket, which I read. I chose it because it was well received.
From the cover art and the book jacket, I thought this novel would be edgey, hip, dark and twisted. But it's not. It reveals the heart of a young woman doing the best she can to forge a path for herself. June is sweet, earnest, complex, intelligent, awkward, solitary, quirky, and idealistic. I found myself cheering for her and aching for her as she does her best to negotiate through thorny family dynamics in her attempts to mourn her uncle. But the book doesn't paint June's family members as fiends. As the novel progresses, everyone's layers get peeled back until you see from all characters' points of view, making everyone a lot more sympathetic than at first blush.
Oh, why are relationships so difficult?! But there are moments of real intimacy and joy along the way, too--giving us all a little hope that we can rise above our mortal flaws and work together to transcend our limits.
And I am shocked that NONE of my friends have read this novel. C'mon people. What's the matter with us? Let's give this debut novelist a bit of our time. I read it over 2.5 days. I even dreamed about it the night before I finished. I tried staying up, but my heavy eyelids betrayed me. But it was so engaging, that I dreamed of several possible denouements before dawn came and I grabbed the book off my nightstand and finished it before putting my feet on the floor.