Antenora
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Antenora: Dante's ninth circle of hell reserved for traitors to their country. What really happened to Nora Willet? The religious community of Bethel, Alabama can't agree on the truth. They always said she was trouble. Later, they said she was possessed. Maybe she lost her mind, killing three people and injuring many others. In a part confessional, part plea for Nora to come home, Nora's childhood friend Abigail Barnes tells of another girl's gruesome eighteenth birthday, of the time Nora may have fully revived a snake, of the intimacy of their private encounters at the lakeside, of Nora's deliverance ceremony. Where, Abigail wonders, is Nora now? In this tender and horrific debut, religious dogmatism sniffs out two girls whose innocent affections threaten an entire town and way of life, making one a traitor to a homeland in which only Abigail and Nora know the bittersweet truth. A homeland in which Nora can only say, "There's a snake speaking to me, Abby-girl."
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Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!
This one left me with a bittersweet feeling after I ended my read. With the way the story Is told, in a non linear way, and Abby foreshadowing events that she hasn't told us yet, the whole read has a bittersweet taste.
I like and dislike the use of the first person narrator in the novella for the same reasons: It leaves me with the feeling that Abby Is not a completely reliable narrator. I don't really have reasons to feel this way yet in the back of my mind I have the feeling that some of Nora crimes/actions aren't real or didn't happen as she recollected them. It gives the story a dreamlike feel, like other have said before, but I kinda wanted a more straightforward retelling of Nora's actions, because she's such an interesting characters.
I think the story had more to tell and this could have been a liitte longer, but at the same time it doesn't feel incomplete nor rushed. It was a very good debut imo.