Author: Caroline George
Genre: magical realism
Similar book: Impossible by Nancy Werlin
Age range: teen
Summary (provided by publisher): Blood holds all kinds of curses.
Seven generations of women in Susana Prather’s family have been lost to the Georgia swamp behind her house. The morning after her eighteenth birthday, she awakens soaked with water, with no memory of sleepwalking. No matter how she tries to stop it, she’s pulled from her safe bed night after night, haunted by her own family history and legacy. Now, the truth feels unavoidable: it’s only a matter of time before she loses her mind and the swamp becomes her grave.
Unless she can figure out how to break the curse.
When she isn’t sleepwalking, she’s dreaming of her great-great-great-great-grandmother, Suzanna Yawn, who set the curse in motion in 1855. Her ancestor’s life bears such similarity to her own that it might hold the key she seeks. Or it might only foretell tragedy.
As Susana seeks solutions in the past and the present, family members hold secrets tighter to their chests, friends grow distant, and old flames threaten to sputter and die. But Susana has something no one else has been able to seize: the unflagging belief that all curses can be broken and that love can help a new future begin.
What I liked: Most novels about curses center on breaking a curse. We get a brief introduction to how this character got cursed but the bulk of the plot focuses on the quest to gather rare ingredients or accomplish nearly impossible tasks. While that certainly plays a role in this book, George has allowed this plot to become something much more. This is a book as much about what it means to be or feel cursed and how the past is visited upon us as it is about breaking a specific curse. It is a plot as rooted in the characters' history as it is in the present. Thus the historical characters are as complex as the modern ones.
What I didn't like: The pacing is a bit slow at times. And this is a plot driven far more by emotion and internal motivation than it is by action. So if you're looking for a thrilling story this is not the right choice. But it does ask some interesting questions and gives the reader plenty to consider.
Advance Reader Copy provided by NetGalley
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