Dark story, lovely illustrations, lots of unanswered questions. ( )

I read a couple of non-spoilery reviews of this prior to sitting down to read it, and had a couple of complaints floating around as I made my way through it.

The first was "nothing happens for the first 100 pages, all they do is move." True, very little happens but there is a lot set up. The abandonment of Russell's mother, and the fact that he's uprooted from everything he knows.

There's a genius of systematic narrowing of Russell's universe being done here, that plays quite heavily into the ending.

And then there's the complaint about the ending..."doesn't really end, it just stops." To which I can only respond...did you read the same book as the rest of us.

This book was a slow burn, but a well written one. And, at least for me, there's a lot of Russell in me. ( )

graphic fiction (LGBTQA interest). Following his parents' separation, a boy spends his teenage years bouncing around various homes in California; beautifully-rendered illustrations provide appropriate depth to the story. ( )

Disclosure: Advanced Reader’s Copy received from EdelweissPlus in exchange for an honest review.

Taking place in the ‘50s, this is a dark and depressing story about a thirteen-year-old boy who has tragedy following him wherever he goes. Over the course of a year he loses his mom, dad, home, friends, and himself. There’s a lot to unpack here: a struggling veteran, post-WWII racism, teen angst, loneliness, homosexuality, bullying to the Nth degree, animal cruelty, and grief. Furthermore, the way the book was illustrated lends itself to a feeling of being perpetually unsettled and upset.

I was not expecting it to be as dark as it was. And although not brutally graphic, it still has some scenes that are difficult to look at (dead animals that were mudered, and a young boy being beaten to a pulp by a mob). This is one of those stories that doesn’t have a happy ending, and never really feels resolved even though there is a definitive conclusion. There is a beauty in the rawness of the story, and the way it leaves the reader feeling as if they have an open wound. However, I would not recommend this to everyone. You have to be in a particular mood to read this book, and you also have to be acutely aware that you’ll probably need a palate cleanser after reading it to recover from all the intense emotions. ( )