The Silent Strength of Stones

The Silent Strength of Stones is the second book in the Chapel Hollow trilogy, but its links to the other two books are fairly loose and it stands on its own very well. (I read the trilogy in the reverse order...)

Nick spends his summers helping his father run a general store / motel, and watching the visitors who come to the Lake. He longs to escape - not so much from the lake, but from his father store and his father's expectations. But the summer Willow and her family visit the lake, Nick makes some new friends and is forced to confront the truth about his unusual abilities.

Nick isn't your average 17 year old, but literature is full of stories about lonely teenagers with powers they don't understand; in this, he is not an uncommon show more protagonist.
What is unusual is that the most intense relationship in this book is a close friendship between two heterosexual boys. Oh, there are girls and romance - for both of them - but Nick falls into friendship the way other teenage protagonists fall in love.
Admittedly it is a friendship complicated and deepened by magical matters, but it is still the most durable relationship to come out of this book. (Although I suppose all the relationships in this story are works in progress...)
I liked this; the world needs all the stories of friendship it can get.

This is a quiet, introspective, hopeful YA novel which should be better known. show less

I picked up [The SIlent Strength of Stones] by [[Nini Kiriki Hoffman]] on the discount shelves of a local bookstore. I'd heard good things about her writing on LibraryThing, so I figured it was worth trying. The book sat on my shelves for a few months before I finally delved into it. My reaction within just a few chapters was "Wow!" It was fantastic! Some of the best writing I've read in years.

This is something of a fantasy coming-of-age story. Nick is a teenager who lives in the tiny hamlet near Sauterelle Lake in the Oregon Cascades. It's one of those remote locations where the rich urbanites congregate for the summer, and the much less wealthy locals provide the necessary services for the tourists. In Nick's case, he and his divorced show more dad run the little general store. Nick spends his days working in the store and spying on the neighbors, particularly the interesting range of summer guests. In rural areas, not much entertainment is available, and people watching allows Nick to escape his own dreary circumstances for awhile each day. Willow and her family move into one of the rental chalets, and Nick finds their mysterious activities an irresistible draw. Soon Nick finds himself entangled in magic, including a wolf companion, and his life will never be the same.

The prose is crisp and engaging. The characters are exceptionally well drawn; they are all white and apparently straight and able-bodied, though Nick does deal with some temporary physical problems. [[Nina Kiriki Hoffman]] excellently portrays teenagers struggling with questions of identity, need, love, responsibility, abuse, abandonment and loss, and problematic adults in their lives. The plot moves along smoothly, the dialogue sparkles, and the resolution doesn't feel too contrived. It feels set up for a sequel, since various mysteries have been introduced and remain unresolved. Again, amazing, evocative writing well worth reading again and again. show less

A very good story in the Chapel Hollow series - but it doesn't grab me the way The Thread That Binds the Bones does. Nick is interesting, especially coming to terms with his various powers - and then having them all upended. Willow and Evan are interesting - they're from Chapel Hollow, before Tom got there (as Hoffman says in the afterword, this is actually a prequel to Thread). The family they're with are amazingly stupid and blind to reality - the workings they cast could have killed people (mostly Nick) several times, and it doesn't seem to bother them. Nice ending, though. The usual rich, complex characters that this author writes; it's almost entirely from Nick's POV, but we get a good idea of what others are thinking at times. And show more other times it's completely opaque... I did enjoy reading it, both times, but it's already more faded in my memory than Thread. Good but not great, for me. show less

I really loved it. It's less hectic than the first book and more balanced in personalities. The story is told quietly, slowly revealing the events, forming the friendships. It was charming, even if those friendships had some abusive elements. It was clear that everyone was damaged in some way by previous events, but trying to do their best to improve. And most of them did evolve and become better people.
I do feel the information in the extra story should have been part of the main book. But still, I enjoyed this a great deal, even if the connection with book 1 didn't become fully clear without that extra story.

If I have a criticism it would be that I wish it was longer. A riveting read with compelling characters that was over far too quickly.

I'd read this one about ten years ago, but couldn't remember it. It touches upon the same scary magic people as in the Thread that Binds the Bones combining it with the coming of age story of a young boy living in a small lakeside town with his father. He watches people in his spare time with an idea of someday becoming a detective, when the biggest mysteries in his life are his missing mother and the family that arrives to stay in a summer cabin and look for something powerful.

The first book I'd read by her. The book reminded me of Zenna Henderson's "People" stories, but with a much more sinister edge.