Sheri Reynolds

The Rapture of Canaan is the story of a young girl’s coming of age within the confines of the Christian cult her grandfather devised. She struggles to understand her place in a community ruled more by her grandfather, Pastor Herman, than by Jesus. She’s desperate to avoid the sin her grandfather preaches against and uncertain why she doesn’t feel the connection to Jesus that has her family speaking in tongues and crying out to God during Sunday services. Into this confusion comes show more James, her prayer partner, and the two are equally torn by their desire to please God (or maybe just Pastor Herman) and to explore their newfound feelings for each other. When Ninah finds herself pregnant and abandoned, she fears her life in the church and the only community she’s ever known is over, but it may be that her indiscretion and its unexpected outcome will change the lives of the congregants of the Church of Fire and Brimstone and God’s Almighty Baptizing Wind forever.

This story starts off quickly with simple prose and a sympathetic narrator in Ninah. She has had the laws of the church drummed into her but finds herself confused that all the rhetoric and suffering for Jesus doesn’t produce the spiritual outpouring in her that she witnesses in the rest of her family and community. In fact, at points in the early going the writing style actually seems too simplistic, and I found myself bored for just the briefest moment before the story rapidly picked up steam.

As Ninah begins to experience the consequences of her pregnancy, the book plumbs the depths of radical religion, the fragility of community, the mysterious ways of God, and the weaknesses of self-proclaimed arbiters of right and wrong. Reynolds has created a very captivating picture of a community dominated by a charismatic leader. Ninah’s journey to discovery of what she herself will choose to believe is compelling reading. show less

In this superb example of southern gothic literature, the dead continue to exist if they still have a story to tell. The more their story is told the lighter they become until they moves on. During this interim period, the dead in ghostly forms are not idle; they are responsible for "the weather, the tides and the seasons."

Normally these wraiths go about their business unseen; however, not to Finch Nobles who regularly talks with them in her role as a groundskeeper of a small community's show more cemetery. This paranormal ability may be because she was traumatized and disfigured when she pulled a pot of boiling water onto her when four-years-old. She grew up teased, friendless, and lonely. As Finch enmeshes herself in the stories of some of the cemetery's resident's stories she begins to heal.

I highly recommend this well crafted bit of literary fiction with themes of emotional pain and isolation but also friendship, acceptance and redemption. show less

Dori is a trouble young teen living with her unstable mother when she takes part in a violent assault against a young gay boy. Her mother helps her to escape justice by sending her to live with her older sister, Teresa, a woman Dori has never met before, a woman who is not only a lesbian but in a committed relationship with her wife, Jen.

The Tender Grave is a beautifully written story that shines a lights on families, how they affect people and actions, both for good and bad. The narrative show more is split between Dori and Teresa and, in many ways they are very different despite their shared parent. Dori is impulsive and headstrong while Teresa rarely reacts without thinking things through completely. But, perhaps most importantly, Dori has been involved in a murder while Teresa is trying desperately to conceive. All of this may make it seem like a very dark novel and, in some places, it is but, overall, it leaves the reader with a sense of hope, that family isn't necessarily destiny and change is possible.

The story is left open at the end, leaving both sister's stories unfinished but that seems fitting here. This is the kind of story that makes you think long after the last page is read and I recommend it highly. show less

this is excellent. the writing, the way the story goes (definitely unexpected in many aspects), and the complete full characters. i really loved this.

reading much of this from dori's perspective - the point of view of the character who literally killed someone in a homophobic hate crime is a brave and effective choice. we see into her head and the times when she is remorseful, but also how she makes excuses for herself. we are witness to her arc of acceptance that she needs to face show more consequences for what she did, even if she doesn't really know why she did it or even if she didn't mean for it to happen. the incident with sugar britches is a nice parallel to the incident with owen, as she does something awful without really thinking about it or even, really, malice. i really like seeing her start to want to repent (in a much different way than her religious mother would) but not knowing how to do that, or if she could.

as for teresa's journey, which was completely different, seeing her with jen and sugar britches and in her life where she was out sometimes but not at work and seeing her struggle with her past and her fertility (and if she even really wanted a baby) felt like such a real and true look into someone. it felt so honest a depiction of a person and i loved her struggle with her memory of her mother and the knowledge that she only sees it from her perspective and not at all from her mother's. and what incorporating that truth might mean. (or not. she really mostly seemed like a shit mother.) but just that she was thinking about it and wanting to go there, for dori, was powerful and felt really real.

i really, really liked this. the writing is stellar, too. i thought i knew where this story was going, but it really surprised me. it wasn't as predictable as i thought - the writing would have carried it if it was, but it was nice that it was also not what i expected from the plot.

i hadn't been interested in reading her before, but i will definitely read more by her now. show less