In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Eli the Good
  • Brennan M. Laskas (bio)
Silas House. Eli the Good. Somerville: Candlewick Press, 2009. 304 pages. Trade hardcover, $16.99.

The story is about a ten-year-old kid named Eli, who is a young son caught in the middle of a dysfunctional family. Josie, Eli's sister, is always fighting with their parents. The parents are mostly fighting each other. Eli, who doesn't fight, has a war going on inside him.

It wasn't always like this. Everything changed when the father returned to the household from Vietnam and had to face the tortures of war and the humiliation of leaving the country to the communists. As his family goes to pieces, Eli consults his best friend Edie, who knows how he feels. Edie's father wasn't in Vietnam, but her parents are battling each other in a divorce. No one is moving forward, but there are some nice moments between Edie and Eli, as they explore the world around them, and between Eli and his mother, like when they dance.

Then Eli's Aunt Nell enters the fray. All hell breaks loose when this former war protestor announces that she has come to stay with Eli and his family for a while. Trying to understand why every adult around them seems to be losing their minds, Eli and Edie sneak into Eli's parent's bedroom and read letters sent back and forth from Vietnam. Here they learn that Eddie's father killed a man. He killed a man in a war and then felt sorry because he was sure the man had a wife and kids just like he did. This is the first time Eli can begin to see the world through his father's eyes and begins to hope that his father really does love him after all.

But it's still hard, and even understanding his father doesn't make his behavior any easier to bear. He still gets these rages; he still tries to strangle Eli's mother in her sleep. When his daughter insists on wearing flag pants, the family seems broken so badly it can never be put back together again.

Meanwhile, Edie has plenty of her own struggles, as her mother leaves for Atlanta—leaves Edie behind. She can no longer be the friend Eli needs, or he the friend she needs. Her father is drinking, and Edie misses her mother terribly. Only by admitting this can the two of them become close again—but they become close as older, more grown up, people.

Eli is the best character in the book to relate to, but the father was perhaps the most interesting. You always want to read what the father is [End Page 96] doing, even if it isn't very nice. You know from the beginning that he is the one to watch, and that the climax will happen around him, which it does. He wasn't always the "good" character, but he was well put together. I believed in him.

The first chapter started out great—I was really interested. There was some filler in the middle, and too many details like saying Eli put both feet on the ground when he stood with his bike. (That's what anyone does!) But there were many moments to think about what I would do, or what it would be like if my father was like Eli's. The climax of the book was the best, and definitely kept me awake. Many of the details were great, although I wish he had given us risqué moments about the hot sister instead of the much older Aunt. I liked how he practically made an album out of all of the songs he wrote about.

This isn't a book I would normally read, because it's mostly a book that makes you think instead of a book where lots of exciting things happen. I sometimes thought this was a book an adult would like better than a teenager like me, especially the epilogue part where he talks about divorcing his wife, which I didn't really understand. But when things do happen, they keep...

pdf

Share