Charm & Strange by Stephanie Kuehn

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Book summary:

When you’ve been kept caged in the dark, it’s impossible to see the forest for the trees. It’s impossible to see anything, really. Not without bars . . .
Andrew Winston Winters is at war with himself.
He’s part Win, the lonely teenager exiled to a remote Vermont boarding school in the wake of a family tragedy. The guy who shuts all his classmates out, no matter the cost.
He’s part Drew, the angry young boy with violent impulses that control him. The boy who spent a fateful, long-ago summer with his brother and teenage cousins, only to endure a secret so monstrous it led three children to do the unthinkable.
Over the course of one night, while stuck at a party deep in the New England woods, Andrew battles both the pain of his past and the isolation of his present.
Before the sun rises, he’ll either surrender his sanity to the wild darkness inside his mind or make peace with the most elemental of truths—that choosing to live can mean so much more than not dying.

         I always had a weak spot for unreliable narrators and shocking reveals so it wasn't strange that this book got under my skin. I like being surprised and even though at moments Charm & Strange went off to places I might wanted to avoid still it gave me what I was looking for.

         Meet Win, a boy with a strange idea. Well, he believes that he may be a wolf. Just by that you might realize that this book will go somewhere between realistic and fantasy, depending how you want to see it. He tells his story from two aspects. One is Before which is actually the main part of the book and the other After, which actually reveals things for you. You get lost at the start and even though it all seems like just a story or rather imagination afterwards it gets realistic and it really shocks you. This books is much more than you expect after first few pages.

       This story is different in many ways. It tells about something I was never close to and still I felt every emotion that this book gave off. You will notice that I'm very wage about everything so don't blame me. If it get you curious and you go and read the book then my job is done. Telling you everything would just ruin the experience.

       Don't do research and read much about. Just read it. There are some things that you need to experience alone and in your own way.

Rating: 4 stars.

Until the next time,