Lucretia and the Kroons by Victor LaValle ~ My Thoughts

Lucretia and the Kroons

Lucretia and the Kroons by Victor LaValle
ebook, 104 pages
Published July 23rd 2012 by Spiegel & Grau

Lucretia’s best friend and upstairs neighbor Sunny—a sweet pitbull of a kid, even as she struggles with a mysterious illness—has gone missing. The only way to get her back is for Lucretia to climb the rickety fire escape of their Queens tenement and crawl through the window of apartment 6D, portal to a vast shadowland of missing kids ruled by a nightmarish family of mutants whose designs on the children are unknown. Her search for Sunny takes Lucretia through a dark fantasyland where she finds lush forests growing from concrete, pigeon-winged rodents, and haunted playgrounds. Her quest ultimately forces her to confront the most frightening specter of all: losing, forever, the thing you love the most.

Lucretia and the Kroons is a dazzlingly imaginative adventure story and a moving exploration of the power of friendship and the terror of loss. This all-new novella serves as the perfect companion piece to The Devil in Silver, a thrillingly suspenseful work of literary horror that continues the story of Lucretia.

   

My thoughts about Lucretia and the Kroons ~~

(I love to note the first lines of the books I'm reading. First lines can really grab a reader's attention and I love seeing where the author takes the reader after their first lines.)

First line—"Most twelve-year-olds don't know much about death, and that's the way it should be. But a handful get the knowledge too soon.' 

Lucretia and the Kroons is a peculiar book and I mean that in a good way. Every once in awhile, I am drawn to books that stretch my imagination and this author has definitely done that. Lucretia embarks on a wonderful, but odd adventure to find her best friend. She encounters all sorts of amazing and weird things along the way as she tries to save Sunny.

This was a treat to read and definitely a story that I won't soon forget. I may just have to read The Devil in Silver to find out more about Lucretia and to get another taste of this author's work.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and am voluntarily reviewing it.

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About the Author

Victor LaValle is the author of the short story collection Slapboxing with Jesus, three novels, The Ecstatic, Big Machine, and The Devil in Silver, and two novellas, Lucretia and the Kroons and The Ballad of Black Tom.

He has been the recipient of numerous awards including a Whiting Writers' Award, a United States Artists Ford Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Shirley Jackson Award, an American Book Award, and the key to Southeast Queens.

He was raised in Queens, New York. He now lives in Washington Heights with his wife and kids. He teaches at Columbia University.

He can be kind of hard to reach, but he still loves you.

Connect with Victor

Website | Goodreads

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