The Hanging Woods by Scott Loring Sanders
My rating: 4/5 cats
i have no idea why no one has read this book.
it is amazing. i wasn’t sure it was YA at first because i bought it used, and the writing is so wonderful: dark and literary. not that YA can’t be dark and literary, but this just seems particularly well-crafted for an audience that usually swoons over sparkly vampires where the word “beautiful” is used 14,000 times per volume.
this book has a more “classic” appeal to it, and of course the comparisons between it and to kill a mockingbird are obvious, but not undeserved. it really does an amazing job setting up the mood of the book, and the feel of a typical coming-of-age in alabama novel, with some decidedly fresh and striking twists.
whenever i find a book like this, i want to wrangle the reluctant-to-read YA peeps and force them to read what i have found.
it opens with the killing of a fox—for greg to enjoy—and then it follows three boys through their complicated friendship largely based on physical abuse and humiliation. ah, youth.
and on a thanksgiving note—here is also a turkey, kept alive without the benefit of his head, for the sake of a guinness book of world records attempt. it is such a great image—a fat turkey waddling around on a leash behind this boy, with a little black executioner’s hood on him, for hygiene purposes. the book is worth it for that alone, really.
so it makes me sad that the ending went the way it did. not the big reveal, which was easily seen (well, all of the reveals were pretty obvious, but only if you are paying attention to details, which i am very good at, when i read), but the mechanism of the big reveal. this is where i am not surprised it is YA. it stays dark until the end, and that is hard to do, but the drip drip dripping of clues becomes a flood becomes a bit of foolishness that is perfectly in keeping with the character, but makes the (adult) reader somewhat disappointed.
but details of this book keep ricocheting around in my brain, so that alone is proof that it was successful. i strongly encourage people to read this book, because almost all of it is meticulous and authentic-feeling.
and that’s what the kids want, right?
authenticity and meticulous prose?
yup.
read my book reviews on goodreads
