Charm & Strange – Stephanie Kuehn (2013)
Rating: 5/5
Genre: Psychological thriller, holy-crap-that-was-soul-crushing, really messed me up
"When you've been kept caged in the dark, it's impossible to see the forest for the trees. It's impossible to see anything, really. Not without bars . . ."
Andrew Winston Winters is a mentally ill boy. His mother has sent him to a boarding school far away from home and he believes he has a wolf inside him. Win is violent, broken and lonely, he has no friends and is very unstable.
"Andrew Winston Winters is at war with himself.
He's part Win, the lonely teenager exiled to a remote Vermont boarding school in the wake of a family tragedy. The guy who shuts all his classmates out, no matter the cost.
He's part Drew, the angry young boy with violent impulses that control him. The boy who spent a fateful, long-ago summer with his brother and teenage cousins, only to endure a secret so monstrous it led three children to do the unthinkable."
I have come to the conclusion that I am not good with books that involve mental illness and this book is no exception. Yes, I know I rated this 5/5 but that doesn't mean I didn't find it extremely hard to read. I think it's best to go into this book blind, which is what I did and I thought it was amazing.
Random advice:
- GO IN BLIND
- DON'T READ THE BOOK SYNOPSIS
- DON'T CHECKOIUT THE GOODREADS PAGE
- HAVE NO EXPECTATIONS
Don't get me wrong this book was shockingly real and completely mind-blowing but it is so, so sad. At times I just had to put this book down and leave the room.
"I am not broken. I am savage."
I wasn't quite sure why he had a wolf inside him until there was about 50 pages left and I swear to god when I read that flashback I started crying. You don't realise until you sort of get to the last third of the book that Winston has a really, really bad past and he isn't getting any help at all.
"Love doesn't always look nice.''
I promise you, when you find out the truth it will break your heart.
YOU ARE READING
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