Revelator
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ONE OF THE WASHINGTON POST'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • The dark, gripping tale of a 1930’s family in the remote hills of the Smoky Mountains, their secret religion, and the daughter who turns her back on their mysterious god—from the acclaimed author of Spoonbenders. “Gods and moonshine in the Great Depression, written with a tenderness and brutality … this is as good as novels get.” —Stephen Graham Jones, author of The Only Good Indians In 1933, nine-year-old Stella is left in the care of her grandmother, Motty, in the backwoods of Tennessee. The mountains are home to dangerous secrets, and soon after she arrives, Stella wanders into a dark cavern where she encounters the family's personal god, an entity known as the Ghostdaddy. Years later, after a tragic incident that caused her to flee, Stella—now a professional bootlegger—returns for Motty's funeral, and to check on the mysterious ten-year-old girl named Sunny that Motty adopted. Sunny appears innocent enough, but she is more powerful than Stella could imagine—and she’s a direct link to Stella's buried past and her family's destructive faith. Haunting and wholly engrossing, summoning mesmerizing voices and giving shape to the dark, Revelator is a southern gothic tale for the ages.
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Man, I seem consistently drawn to stories about moonshiners, but somehow they all end up being rather humdrum.
Revelator is the story of Stella Birch, of her adolescence in the cove raised by her strict and strange grandmother, and her role as the revelator of a small cult; and ten years later, having left the cove behind, making money as a moonshiner, and then called back after her grandmother dies and she has to finally face the choices she made back then. Do you ever get the feeling when you're reading something that the author made an outline and just never deviated from it? Or just never found the seeds in the middle that would make it grow into something special? This was one of those books for me.
Revelator is unique, but also pretty straight forward. As such, I don't have much to say about it. It's fine? I loved the dialogue, and the prose flowed well enough that when I sat down to read it it was relatively easy to get sucked in. Though that was mostly when I was reading adult Stella's chapters, young Stella was very frustrating and kind of annoying. I wanted to dig more into who Stella had become, but most of plot I found uninteresting, which came through in the climax and finale which I really had to push myself through and largely skim to finish.
I like this book for its atmosphere, and it is delightfully weird in many ways. However, the characters and plot just didn't have a whole lot of pull.
Rating: 3.08 leaves out of 5-Characters: 2.75/5 -Cover: 4/5-Story: 2.5/5-Writing: 4/5Genre: Horror, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Paranormal, Southern Gothic-Horror: 1.5/5 -Fantasy: 3/5-Historical Fiction: 4.5/5-Paranormal: 2.5/5-Southern Gothic: 3/5Type: EbookWorth?: MehHated Disliked Meh It Was Okay Liked Loved FavoritedGosh what do I even put? The story felt like it was just right outside of what it wanted to be. Stella could have been more than what she was. The whole moonshine was... a waste. The God? I get what it was suppose to be. It was creepy an disturbing but a lot just left me staring at the screen. Abby was a dear, loved him to bits. The uncle? I got choice words I rather not say. Then the big reveal was more like... woah but meh? And the ending is god awful.
I enjoyed this book. I could have used more creepy Ghostdaddy scenes, but what I got was quite fun. I was surprised by the twist at the end, actually. Depressingly, no matter how much one tries to fix things, sometimes, one is just hosed.
I also liked all the bootlegging descriptions. But I'm the person who had a lady hardon for all the descriptions of ship stuff in The Terror, so don't mind me.
So, yes, Southern Gothic fun. Yes, I would classify this as horror. But Gothic isn't always terrifying. It's a mood, an aesthetic, a subgenre. And I really liked our hero.
This isn't a very informative review, but it's been a busy day.
