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I don't normally do book reviews, because it's rare that book really strikes me in such a strong way that I feel the need to tell the world about it. Foxlowe is a book I received an advanced reader's copy of, due to my position as a book seller, and as I recently decided to slog through the hundreds of books I have sitting listlessly on my bookshelf, I gave it a whirl. Starting with the positives, the characters are easily identifiable and recognizable from each other. Each one seems to have a distinct personality that distinguishes them immediately upon speaking. Unfortunately, I think that's all the positives I have to discuss. The negatives start with the general writing style and theme. The author tried to do something different, in terms of how her paragraphs are written during moments of speech. Unfortunately, it lends itself to being rather awkward, as it's simply a large dash, occasionally followed by the name of the speaker. This might not be so difficult to read if it also didn't include a large amount of book-specific jargon. There are a lot of words and concepts thrown at the reader in the first few pages that aren't ever really explained. All you can do is use context to create a best guess at what the author is trying to describe. This brings us now to the plot. The book and its plot centers around a cult-like environment, where children are essentially kidnapped and brought into the house to be raised by the few adults there. Once they enter the house, they're given a new name and an identity, and a whole slew of rules to prevent "the bad" from entering them. What is "the bad"? It's the evil influence from outside. It causes people to act with negative or harmful intentions, and that's why no one is allowed to interact with the outside world, why darkness is evil, etc. If one of the elders thinks you have been influenced by the bad, or that the bad is inside you, you must do penance. This involves scraping your arm across rusty nails (the spike walk), burning yourself, being ostracized from the rest of the society, etc., and has such a large role in the book where scars are a point of pride and shame. There's never any true rationale given behind the punishment either, as The book essentially normalizes abusive households, as the main character was born to the household, and knows of no other life. Even in the end, once she's free from the house, she's not actually free from the cult. She still talks to them, eats dinner with them regularly, and seems to be trapped in the same mentality she had growing up. It's honestly hard to tell, because the epilogue where she's portrayed as an adult is literally seven pages long. In it, she returns to the house she grew up in, and gets upset when people describe the environment as neglectful, as though being raked over with nails and a fire iron was a normal way to get punished. She takes it a step further, and actually tries to groom a small child visiting the house with her family, by telling her the lovely stories of her youth. This is supposed to be a children's book, for ages 9-12. I can't honestly recommend this book to anyone, because it seems to be disturbing for disturbing's sake. The main character doesn't learn anything, she doesn't grow as a person. Sure, she rails a little bit against her lot in life, but she actually actively perpetuates the cycle of abuse on a baby that's brought into the house, and then again on some innocent stranger once she's an adult. I can't find anything positive or redeeming in this book that would cause me to recommend it to another person. Honestly, if I saw someone planning to buy it for a child, I'd actively urge them against it. It basically comes across as one of those horror movies where the only value in it is if you're solely looking to be actively disturbed by an environment or theme. Even if that was the reason someone chose to pick up this book, if the child in question is able to comprehend and grasp disturbing themes, there are so many better written choices in the general fiction section.
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