Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Categories
Children’s, Teenage & Educational

CHARM & STRANGE

Stephanie Kuehn

A dark and disturbing, but also a readable and compelling novel that is in the end an enthusiastic embrace of life.

It’s been years since sixteen-year-old Andrew Winston Winters backed out of the suicide pact that took the lives of his older brother and younger sister. Now stuck at a remote boarding school, Win knows it’s only a matter of time until he turns into a monster like his father. Until he, too, becomes a violent, vicious wolf. The last time he got really mad, a kid wound up with a broken jaw. To do the least amount of damage to those around him, he masters the art of shutting people out. But when fellow cross-country runner Jordan Herrera starts breaking down his defenses, Win finds himself accompanying her to an all-night party deep in the woods. He wants to believe he’s not dangerous, that he could never hurt someone he cares for. But as he leads Jordan into the wilderness with his father’s blood running through his veins, he knows this isn’t true. Stephanie Kuehn’s debut novel CHARM & STRANGE tells the story of Win’s final summer with his siblings and his current struggles to control his mind, weaving a portrait of grief, madness, and ultimate resilience.

Available products
Book Published 2013-06-11 by St. Martin's Press

Comments

Debut author Kuehn comes out swinging with this confident, unnerving look at a damaged teen struggling with something violent inside of him. The book alternates two time frames. In the first, 16-year-old Win is a withdrawn boarding school student tortured by the “eviscerated,” “partly consumed” body of a townie in the woods just off-campus. The second story line follows Win as an anxious 10-year-old first dealing with the suffocating feral feelings that tell him he is harboring a beast. “My wolf is in me,” he says, and readers will turn each page warily, expecting a grisly transformation scene. But Kuehn is up to something far more ambitious here. Her prose butts up against important events time and again without granting us an unobstructed view. Until the end, that is, which is more shattering than most readers will be prepared for. Though there is some running in place due to the alternating time lines, Kuehn absolutely nails the voice and keeps us on constant edge regarding exactly what genre of book it is that we’re reading.

Stephanie Kuehn's debut won the William C. Morris YA Debut Award from the ALA.

The dark and twisted heart of this YA novel unfolds slowly, every chapter revealing a hint of the terrible secret that holds Andrew Winston Winters deep in its painful grip. The narrative toggles between the present, as Win, a surly Vermont boarding-school student (chapters titled "matter"), and flashbacks to his past as Drew, the middle child between his sensitive older brother and doting younger sister (chapters titled "antimatter"). Kuehn's descriptions of the boy's violent impulses, confusion, and coping strategies are taut and precise. Although it is hard for readers to get a firm hold on his state of mind and character (since there is so much that he is hiding from himself), the other characters, although painted in broad strokes, are fascinating, and readers will be intrigued to find out more about them and how they relate to Andrew and to one another. There's Lex, Andrew's best friend turned enemy at boarding school; Keith, Andrew's protective older brother; and even Andrew's provocative Boston cousins, who seem to have played a role in the unfolding mystery behind his taciturn veneer. Teens who enjoy their novels with a shovelful of gritty realism will find this enigmatic novel gripping. And the shock of realization at the end, when everything clicks into place, is palpable.

Twisted, and twisting. Relentlessly compelling. Lush storytelling. A must-read.