THE GOD OF ANIMALS

Twelve-year-old Alice Winston's father owns a failing Colorado horse farm, her mother hasn't left her bed since Alice was born, and her older sister has run off with a cowboy. With her breathy, youthful voice, Lillian Rabe expresses all Alice's fatigue with a world she neither likes nor understands, but has to muddle through for the sake of others. For her, it feels mostly like mucking through horse stalls, with occasional moments of pure radiance from the touch of her father's hand or a magical performance at a horse show. Rabe alters her voice only slightly for changes of speakers so as not to confuse the first-person point of view. As narrator, she easily controls the shifting tones of adolescent experience in Kyle's stunning debut novel. P.E.F. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/ NOV 07]