A review by 2shainz
Mr. Splitfoot by Samantha Hunt
5.0
Ah, what's there to say that hasn't already been said (and spoiled) in my video review with Julianne?
Nat and Ruth are seventeen, just a year shy of being unceremoniously kicked out of their foster home called Love of Christ! (yes, with the exclamation point). The good news? Nat can speak to the dead, and the business of getting people in touch with their late loved ones is booming.
Fast-forward about thirteen years, and Ruth's niece Cora is stuck at a dead-end job and in a dead-end relationship, and she just found out she's pregnant. Her long-lost and newly mute aunt Ruth shows up and quite literally helps her to walk out on all of it, taking only her baby along for the ride.
Much like Bats of the Republic, this book completely defies a quick summary. Much unlike Bats, the numerous elements—multiple séances, a mysterious cult, and a box full of money being just a few—work in tandem to create something bigger and more meaningful.
It took some time to settle into the story, but eventually I was getting lost in Samantha Hunt's sentences. She never quite gives you the full picture, and yet she says so much: about the family you're given and building your own, about motherhood, about the universe, about taking a long walk and maybe, just maybe, finding yourself as the end of it.
This book is confusing and surreal and absolutely glorious. Read it.
See this review and more at Shaina Reads!
Nat and Ruth are seventeen, just a year shy of being unceremoniously kicked out of their foster home called Love of Christ! (yes, with the exclamation point). The good news? Nat can speak to the dead, and the business of getting people in touch with their late loved ones is booming.
Fast-forward about thirteen years, and Ruth's niece Cora is stuck at a dead-end job and in a dead-end relationship, and she just found out she's pregnant. Her long-lost and newly mute aunt Ruth shows up and quite literally helps her to walk out on all of it, taking only her baby along for the ride.
Much like Bats of the Republic, this book completely defies a quick summary. Much unlike Bats, the numerous elements—multiple séances, a mysterious cult, and a box full of money being just a few—work in tandem to create something bigger and more meaningful.
"Before I was pregnant, I thought carrying a baby meant knowing a baby. That's not true. I don't know anything about this child. Pregnancy is a locked door in my stomach, all the weight of life and death and still no way to know it. The baby gives me a small kick, taking what's delicate—lung tissue, tiny see-through fingers, hair fine enough to spin webs—and hardens it into a tough thing, a thing that likes it rough. It'll grow and I will be the only one who remembers when it was unmarked and delicate as a moth." - pg. 219
It took some time to settle into the story, but eventually I was getting lost in Samantha Hunt's sentences. She never quite gives you the full picture, and yet she says so much: about the family you're given and building your own, about motherhood, about the universe, about taking a long walk and maybe, just maybe, finding yourself as the end of it.
This book is confusing and surreal and absolutely glorious. Read it.
See this review and more at Shaina Reads!