I RECEIVED AN ARC FROM THE PUBLISHER. THANK YOU.

My Review: Make friends with the Darkness Within. There's never going to be a way to get rid of it, so pick a coping strategy: Denial will fail in quicktime; submission will have dreadfully uncomfortable consequences; but making friends with the Darkness Within, making its vision and its urgings (not to mention urges) a source of strength...that way billionairedom lies!

The real question this book presents to its younger-skewing audience is: Who exactly is it that's possessed? What makes someone a possessor? Where, in other words, does the real power lie? (Wordplay decidedly not optional)

What makes this a four-star read but not a five-star one, for me, is Hunter as a stream-of-consciousness narrator. He doesn't think like a high-school senior, said the grandfather of more than one such being. It's only problematic, to be honest, because it's a book aimed at the high-school aged crowd. If it were simply another of Author Seidlinger's unease-inducing, perception-defying novels, I'd never even bring it up. But aimed where it is, I expect it to go there; it didn't make the trip in this reader's perception.

The story itself...how the Falter Kingdom is accessed, what the Falter Kingdom represents...is the usual Author Seidlinger-esque mindfuck of "sure, look at the pretty surfaces, but remember that this author dude laughed through the entire Saw franchise." It's perfect, in terms of believably attracting the teen-boy victims these demons are in search of. It's believable metaphorically..."don't go into that tunnel," says Adult, thus guaran-damn-teeing the kid will and thus will learn from this initiation...it's handled in a quite amusingly perfect way, and it satisfies the narrative need for a driver of action.

I'm all for it. Read, remember, respond with the desired shivers and frissons and half-laughs of memory.

***As an aside, this review vanished from Goodreads last year which caused me no little amount of angst. Must've been a victim of the stupid-people-friendly redesign's early stages. Luckily it's been safely parked on my YA tab, but this year's publication of ANYBODY HOME? brought it into the full glare of public scrutiny. ( )

Falter Kingdom by Michael J. Seidlinger

Already at the age of thirty, Michael J. Seidlinger is the author of nine literary novels, books he produces at what can seem to other writers (myself included) as a dizzying pace. With his latest, Falter Kingdom, Seidlinger slows down just long enough to give us a jaw dropping, cleverly paced tale of demonic possession and addiction, social media and fundamental truth.

Though Falter Kingdom (with its teenage protagonist) may qualify as YA in the strictest sense, the book’s subject matter should tip potential readers that this is no jaunt through Narnia or Wonderland. Evincing neither the British manners nor the broad, whimsical world building of old-school YA, Falter Kingdom is alternative YA, the sort parents might want to keep Suzy and Jimmy from reading, something young adults will find nonetheless. Instead of fantasy, Seidlinger gives his readers contemporary hyper-realism with one major change: Demonic possession is not just a possibility but a reality, one that dominates the book’s narrative arc and produces a truly terrifying climax.

Protagonist Hunter Warden is a high school senior struggling with the usual problems of the high school senior: popularity (or the lack thereof), romance (or the lack thereof), and moods dominated by anomie, confusion, and self-loathing. Hunter’s parents don’t have time for him, his girlfriend is clueless, and his friends all seem frenemies in disguise. Along comes a demon named H. and Hunter may have found his new best friend. That, or a fiend ready to possess and destroy him.

Falter Kingdom is a tale very much about our modern world, the ennui that goes with information overload and sensory excess, and the opportunities for sadness and addiction that seem to lurk in so many hidden corners. This is not a happy novel, but a smart, enthralling one, a book that’s sure to gain Seidlinger fans among teens and twenties, readers who will, no doubt, be following his work for years to come.

http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/kbaumeister/2016/08/the-nervous-breakdowns-re... ( )