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A review by sralgee
Aletheia by J.S. Breukelaar
4.0
(Note: I received an ARC from the publisher for review purposes.)
With ALETHEIA, I have one thing to say first: read this book with time on your hands. It's dense and complex and needs to be well-chewed.
Thettie Harpur and her large extended family have come back to Little Ridge: the place they were driven from, the place that doesn't want them, the place that has changed vastly in their absence. But the meat of this story isn't the characters (complex and gritty and wonderful as they are); it's not the squabbles of Thettie's sons, or the mysteries of one-eyed Bryce-with-a-"y", or the private pains of Thettie's paramour Lee, or the twisting search for Thettie's enigmatic cousin Frankie.
While Breukelaar has captured the "small rural town" mindset perfectly, its corruption and pettiness and unwillingness to forgive, the heart of this novel is the atmosphere. It becomes a character in itself, thick and foreboding, lush and rotten, hanging over Little Ridge with a weight greater than any monster could provide. All the other elements are just players in its shadow.
Step into it.
With ALETHEIA, I have one thing to say first: read this book with time on your hands. It's dense and complex and needs to be well-chewed.
Thettie Harpur and her large extended family have come back to Little Ridge: the place they were driven from, the place that doesn't want them, the place that has changed vastly in their absence. But the meat of this story isn't the characters (complex and gritty and wonderful as they are); it's not the squabbles of Thettie's sons, or the mysteries of one-eyed Bryce-with-a-"y", or the private pains of Thettie's paramour Lee, or the twisting search for Thettie's enigmatic cousin Frankie.
While Breukelaar has captured the "small rural town" mindset perfectly, its corruption and pettiness and unwillingness to forgive, the heart of this novel is the atmosphere. It becomes a character in itself, thick and foreboding, lush and rotten, hanging over Little Ridge with a weight greater than any monster could provide. All the other elements are just players in its shadow.
Step into it.