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  • The Beast Is an Animal by Peternelle van Arsdale
  • Kate Quealy-Gainer
van Arsdale, Peternelle The Beast Is an Animal. McElderry, 2017 [352p]
Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-4814-8841-9 $17.99
E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-4814-8843-3 $10.99
Reviewed from galleys         R Gr. 7-10

Unable to sleep, seven-year-old Alys is wandering the outskirts of her town when she sees two ghostly women hovering near the forest; upon her return, she finds that all the adults, including her beloved parents, have been killed in their sleep, their souls sucked from them leaving only empty shells. The orphaned children [End Page 337] of Gwenith are taken in by the town of Defaid, but the villagers are certain the deaths were caused by soul eaters, creatures of the Beast, and that some resident of Gwenith must have made a bargain with it to bring about such disaster. The Defaiders therefore build an enormous wall around their village to keep out the evil and force the children of Gwenith to stand guard outside of it, even though they keep disappearing without a trace. Alys, meanwhile, continues to have visions of the Beast in which it insists she is a savior. The opening chapter, detailing the origin of the sister soul eaters, sets the disturbingly eerie tone of the book, and the atmosphere becomes oppressive in its darkness as the years move on and Alys’ inevitable meeting with the soul eaters come closer. The detached narration and prolonged timeline makes this a slow burn story with a slightly folklike feel, and the few pages from the sisters’ perspective ratchet up the suspense to an almost unbearable level. The unsettling actions of the Puritan-like Defaiders and the chilling legend around the Beast combine to create a truly horrifying tale of revenge, murder, and evil.

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