Angel's Rest

Summary: Eleven-year-old Charlie York has lived all of his life in a small town in southwestern Virginia. However, Sunnyside no longer feels like home - not since his dad died from a shotgun wound to the stomach. His mother claims it was an accident, but no one believes her, and she's brought to trial for murder. While she's awaiting her trial, Charlie stays in his house with an eighty-seven-year-old black man named Lacy Coe. The people of Sunnyside aren't pleased with this arrangement, however, and Charlie has to deal with racism, loneliness, and his growing suspicions concerning his mother, a wild loner named Hollis Thrasher, and the horrible night his father died.

Review: I'm pretty familiar with the area of southwestern Virginia show more where this novel is set, and it's pretty firmly rooted in its setting. Angel's Rest becomes the name of the mountain instead of the name of the overlook on Pearis Mountain, but otherwise, this book could easily have been set in Pearisburg or one of the surrounding small towns in the late 1960s - names of towns, streams, and people are pulled from existing natural features. One of the best things about this book is how authentically it captures poor small-town life in the area - the voices are real, the characters and settings all breathe with real vitality. Thematically, this book reminded me of a combination of Gwyn Hyman Rubio's Icy Sparks, Jane Hamilton's A Map of the World, and To Kill a Mockingbird. The plot, of a murder mystery in a small town combined with a young boy's coming-of-age, is not a particularly original one, although it's well told, and I figured out the "mystery" long before it was revealed. The worst part was the epilogue, in which an adult Charlie sums up everything that had just happened, stripping the rest of the book of any hope of subtlety it had possessed, and beating home the moral of the story, just to make sure WE ALL GET IT, and in the process turning it into more of a dead horse than it needed to be. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: Not a bad read, although nothing particularly outstanding, either. Best part is the authentic local flavor, but it's not something I'm particularly likely to want to revisit any time soon. show less

Not one of my favorites. Too much "soap box". Hard to guess ending. It was interesting that the author gave the main character his own first name.The author is a former Federal Law Enforcement officer

Good book!! We are going to be doing a book discussion on it this June; in our newly formed book club...

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