Fiction Friday (138)

 

I recently picked up a new(ish) YA novel to read, one that seemed to have some positive buzz, and one that had a premise that intrigued me. It was also a debut novel, and I've been trying to read a few more of those these days, attempting to see what this new generation of writers has to say. 

Some Kind of Animal by Maria Romasco-Moore

(Delecorte, 2020)

Fifteen old Jolene lives in a dead mining town in the southern Ohio mountains, just waiting for the day she can escape with her twin sister, a sister nobody knows exists except for her. It turns out there are a lot of things that people in this nowhere town don't know, though it doesn't stop them from believing they do. One night, Jo's sister makes herself known, unraveling the threads of Jo's double life and shattering both of their worlds. 

This debut novel's strength is the ability to pull the reader into the world of it's woods, making something that is very real feel very fantastical. Because the setting and constant threat of danger, the reader is pulled into to the story which, when you step back, is completely implausible. 

I enjoyed reading this, and the imagination of it certainly occupied my thoughts, but I did have problems with it. There was a tendency for the main character to consistently repeat her thoughts on a number of subjects, thoughts that never changed and therefore did not bear repeating. The characters were also pretty unlikable, with the exception of the wild child. There was also no attempt to disguise the hatred of males that weaves throughout the book, which I'm sort of okay with because men are generally horrible. One of the male characters (one who actually does nothing wrong) is actually murdered, a murder that is totally brushed aside. 

This is one of those books that I think the author did their job, but the editor did not.