Sixteen-year-old Winston Winters is awaiting the inevitable.
Stuck at a remote Vermont boarding school in the wake of unimaginable tragedy, Win knows it’s only a matter of time until he transforms into something dark, something wolfish, just like his father. Until he hurts people too. So in order to do the least amount of harm to those around him, he masters the art of shutting others out.
But meeting fellow cross-country runner Jordan Herrera thwarts Win's plans for emotional isolation. A scholarship student with secrets of her own, Jordan’s boldness and wit draw him in. And when she asks Win to accompany her to an all-night party in the deep New England woods, he’s torn. Because he’s not sure they should get any closer. He’s not sure Jordan will be safe with him. But she insists. And he goes.
Win wants to believe he’s not dangerous. That he would never hurt someone he cares for. But as he leads Jordan into the wilderness with his father’s blood running through his veins and wild wolves running through his fragile mind, Win knows this is simply not true….
Charm & Strange http://69.195.136.18/media/reviews/photos/thumbnail/200x285s/b7/e0/91/charm-and-strange-53-1371100478.jpg Featured New
Editor reviews
Stephanie Kuehn's debut Charm & Strange is a lot of things: confusing, frustrating, disturbing, thought-provoking, dark, and original. Starting out a career as an author with such an unusual book shows daring. Charm & Strange will not please every reader, and I myself felt largely ambivalent towards it until the very end. Those final scenes, though, helped Charm & Strange coalesce into something harsh but meaningful, something I'm glad to have read, if not understood fully.
Kuehn's writing style perfectly matches the character of Anrew/Winston (his first and middle name, which he goes by at different times of life). The narration is sort of fragmented, filled with commas and semi-colons. Punctuation breaks up the thoughts into little pieces, clearly illustrating Winston's troubled mind. He says nothing directly. For me, the writing was really tough to fathom, to piece together, which did result in a lot of confusion, but, artistically, I do think it's brilliant.
Much of what's admirable I cannot really speak to, as talking about this book to any great degree would involve spoilers. Suffice it to say that the twists are both deeply upsetting, perhaps even going marginally too far, but that the way everything ties together is impressive. From a psychological perspective, the conclusion is compelling and satisfying.
What brought things together for me were the final scenes. Kuehn imbues the ending with a bit of hope, but there's no happily ever after, and Winston's still got major issues to deal with. Rarely do endings like this show up in YA, with the hero or heroine still mostly broken and without a true love to cushion the loss of everything else. Still, there is that ray of hope, which shows through in Andrew's reversion to his first name and his much more easily parsed language.
What Left Me Wanting More:
There were three reasons I struggled so much with this book for most of its pages. The first is our narrator. Win is a brilliant teen, but a cold, aloof one. He keeps himself distant even from the reader, not just from the other kids at his boarding school. As such, he's hard to like, because he really doesn't want the reader to know anything but his worst moments, barely even explaining why he is the way he is, because he wants to wallow in the guilt.
The other two reasons are all bound up together. Win excels at science, and science terminology is dropped throughout the book. In fact, the title is a reference to something to do with quarks, and the chapter headings, alternatively Matter and Antimatter, are scientific as well. Their meaning is actually explained, but it wooshed right over my head. I was able to put together that Matter was Win in the present and that Antimatter was Drew in the past, but that was it. I feel like there's so much that I'm missing from a lack of science brain. Also, I had a lot of trouble navigating between the two timelines, finding that I would have forgotten what Win was doing by the time I finished a Drew section and vice versa.
The Final Verdict:
Though short, Charm & Strange is a read for a patient and well-educated reader, one with a high threshold for tough subject matter. If you're looking for an action-packed paranormal romance, you are in one hundred percent the wrong place. I will be very curious to see what Kuehn follows this up with.
| Overall rating | 3.3 | |
| Plot | 4.0 | |
| Characters | 3.0 | |
| Writing Style | 3.0 |
Dark, Creepy, and Contemplative
What I Liked:
Stephanie Kuehn's debut Charm & Strange is a lot of things: confusing, frustrating, disturbing, thought-provoking, dark, and original. Starting out a career as an author with such an unusual book shows daring. Charm & Strange will not please every reader, and I myself felt largely ambivalent towards it until the very end. Those final scenes, though, helped Charm & Strange coalesce into something harsh but meaningful, something I'm glad to have read, if not understood fully.
Kuehn's writing style perfectly matches the character of Anrew/Winston (his first and middle name, which he goes by at different times of life). The narration is sort of fragmented, filled with commas and semi-colons. Punctuation breaks up the thoughts into little pieces, clearly illustrating Winston's troubled mind. He says nothing directly. For me, the writing was really tough to fathom, to piece together, which did result in a lot of confusion, but, artistically, I do think it's brilliant.
Much of what's admirable I cannot really speak to, as talking about this book to any great degree would involve spoilers. Suffice it to say that the twists are both deeply upsetting, perhaps even going marginally too far, but that the way everything ties together is impressive. From a psychological perspective, the conclusion is compelling and satisfying.
What brought things together for me were the final scenes. Kuehn imbues the ending with a bit of hope, but there's no happily ever after, and Winston's still got major issues to deal with. Rarely do endings like this show up in YA, with the hero or heroine still mostly broken and without a true love to cushion the loss of everything else. Still, there is that ray of hope, which shows through in Andrew's reversion to his first name and his much more easily parsed language.
What Left Me Wanting More:
There were three reasons I struggled so much with this book for most of its pages. The first is our narrator. Win is a brilliant teen, but a cold, aloof one. He keeps himself distant even from the reader, not just from the other kids at his boarding school. As such, he's hard to like, because he really doesn't want the reader to know anything but his worst moments, barely even explaining why he is the way he is, because he wants to wallow in the guilt.
The other two reasons are all bound up together. Win excels at science, and science terminology is dropped throughout the book. In fact, the title is a reference to something to do with quarks, and the chapter headings, alternatively Matter and Antimatter, are scientific as well. Their meaning is actually explained, but it wooshed right over my head. I was able to put together that Matter was Win in the present and that Antimatter was Drew in the past, but that was it. I feel like there's so much that I'm missing from a lack of science brain. Also, I had a lot of trouble navigating between the two timelines, finding that I would have forgotten what Win was doing by the time I finished a Drew section and vice versa.
The Final Verdict:
Though short, Charm & Strange is a read for a patient and well-educated reader, one with a high threshold for tough subject matter. If you're looking for an action-packed paranormal romance, you are in one hundred percent the wrong place. I will be very curious to see what Kuehn follows this up with.
User reviews
Average user rating from: 1 user(s)
It was actually kind of scary to read Charm & Strange due to all the emotions it unlocked within me. I've never had depression yet I instantly connected with Andrew and I definitely understood what he was going through. I understood exactly how Andrew was feeling, all those dark feelings swirling around inside of you, threatening to escape. Stephanie Kuehn managed to include so much raw emotion and feeling into Andrew.
Andrew may be a fictional character but he exists because there is a little bit of Andrew inside of everyone. Everyone experiences bad times and dark feelings that you just don't know how to express. Thank you, Stephanie Kuehn for bringing light to horrors that everyone deals with at some point in their life. Stephanie Kuehn has created the most realistic, complex characters that I have ever seen in all of literature. Her characters are the type that don't just live on the page, these are characters that you will keep with you in your mind. You won't be able to forget the characters Kuehn created and you'll be thinking about them long after you finish reading.
Charm & Strange is beautifully written in such an unique, heart-breaking way. This book will fill you with so much emotion that you didn't even know that it was building up inside of you. I loved the literary techniques Kuehn utilized in this book and they were so essential in making Charm & Strange, a hauntingly realistic book. At the end of this book, I couldn't help myself any longer and I just broke down in tears. Do yourself a favor and pick up Charm & Strange, (Note: I'm not responsible if this book shatters your heart into a million pieces and you're an emotional wreck afterwards.) Thank you St. Martin's Griffin for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for a honest review.
| Overall rating | 5.0 | |
| Plot | 5.0 | |
| Characters | 5.0 | |
| Writing Style | 5.0 |
Heartbreaking & Emotional!
Charm & Strange is this mysterious enigma where everything slowly, and brilliantly falls into place. I couldn't stop reading Charm & Strange at all and I actually read it in one sitting! I kept telling myself that I had to go to sleep but I just couldn't stop reading. This is going to be an extremely hard book to review without giving anything away.
It was actually kind of scary to read Charm & Strange due to all the emotions it unlocked within me. I've never had depression yet I instantly connected with Andrew and I definitely understood what he was going through. I understood exactly how Andrew was feeling, all those dark feelings swirling around inside of you, threatening to escape. Stephanie Kuehn managed to include so much raw emotion and feeling into Andrew.
Andrew may be a fictional character but he exists because there is a little bit of Andrew inside of everyone. Everyone experiences bad times and dark feelings that you just don't know how to express. Thank you, Stephanie Kuehn for bringing light to horrors that everyone deals with at some point in their life. Stephanie Kuehn has created the most realistic, complex characters that I have ever seen in all of literature. Her characters are the type that don't just live on the page, these are characters that you will keep with you in your mind. You won't be able to forget the characters Kuehn created and you'll be thinking about them long after you finish reading.
Charm & Strange is beautifully written in such an unique, heart-breaking way. This book will fill you with so much emotion that you didn't even know that it was building up inside of you. I loved the literary techniques Kuehn utilized in this book and they were so essential in making Charm & Strange, a hauntingly realistic book. At the end of this book, I couldn't help myself any longer and I just broke down in tears. Do yourself a favor and pick up Charm & Strange, (Note: I'm not responsible if this book shatters your heart into a million pieces and you're an emotional wreck afterwards.) Thank you St. Martin's Griffin for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for a honest review.
-This book filled me with so many emotions and feelings.
-The ending made me break out in tears.
-The author captures grief and heartbreak so well.
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