Charm & Strange by Stephanie Kuehn (review)

Sixteen-year-old Win, attending a boarding school in Vermont, believes his bouts of violence and inner torment are signs of a family trait: they have inner wolves, creatures into whom they may be able to transform. Flashbacks to his past, however, suggest a different story: young Drew, as he was then known, struggles in a dysfunctional and severe family, where his loyalties lie with his older brother and younger sister, who take their lives in a suicide pact. Distancing himself from the notorious tragedy and living under his middle name, Win is nonetheless unable to escape his past, and he must confront the truth about his father's sexual abuse, which was the destructive force behind the suicides and the beastly force Win has literalized to a wolfish family nature. Kuen writes powerfully of Win's torment and rage, and her use of a fantasy trope (reminiscent of Grant's Uncle Vampire, BCCB 11/93) as a way of conceiving the horror of child sexual abuse is effectively disturbing. Despite the protagonist's attempts to shut himself down, his narrative affect is intense and Victorianly emotional, steeped in howling fury, squalling resentment, and keening guilt in a way that serves as tribute to the degree of destruction he's suffered. The book tries to do too much, however, with the quark motif of the title going nowhere, the character of a new girl, Jordan, never developing beyond a superfluous device, and an additional unnecessary horror in the villainy of a cousin. The suicides also lack the taut emotionality of the rest of the book, especially since Drew's beloved little sister never becomes a dimensional character. Sexual abuse at the hands of family is still an underexplored topic, though, especially for male victims, and this is a creative and dramatic exploration.