Bent Heavens

December 9, 2019
Almost three years before this novel’s start, high school senior Liv Fleming’s father, Lee, a beloved high school English teacher, disappeared for four days. Eight months after he reappeared, naked and staggering in the town square of Bloughton, Iowa, he vanished again, for good. In the feverish days following his initial reappearance, Lee obsessively crafted a shed full of weapons and built a series of traps in the woods designed to catch the aliens that he claimed had abducted and experimented on him. When one of the traps ensnares a humanoid being, Liv and her childhood friend, outcast Doug Monk, restrain it in the shed for interrogation. But Doug, who loved Lee like a father, spirals out of control, convinced that cruelty is the only route to finding out what happened. Struggling to conceal this explosive secret amid her senior year and a burgeoning romance, Liv must decide whether she’s willing to sacrifice her humanity in the same way, and the road to the truth is pitted with one uncomfortable twist after another. Kraus’s blend of sci-fi and heart-stopping horror isn’t for the squeamish, but it offers a viscerally terrifying examination of grief, othering, and the price of vengeance. Ages 14–up. Agent: Richard Abate, 3 Arts Entertainment.

December 15, 2019
Can Liv put the pieces of her life back together after her father's mental breakdown? In rural Bloughton, Iowa, Liv takes solace in the cross country team and the idea that she will be off to college before too long. Three years ago, her father, the high school's former English and drama teacher, vanished only to return naked and talking about alien abduction. He disappeared for good eight months later. Liv and her friend Doug check the elaborate traps her father built in the woods during those eight months every Sunday. The teacher who replaced him decides to stage the same musical that was her father's swan song, and after getting in trouble for an outburst over her insensitivity, Liv decides to destroy the traps...but discovers that one has caught an alien. After hiding the horrifying creature in her father's shed, they discover it has her father's compass. In anger, Liv attacks the beast and then she and Doug torture it repeatedly as revenge for her missing father...but the alien is not what they perceive him to be, and as the truth is revealed, the horror mounts. Kraus' (Blood Sugar, 2019, etc.) newest horror fantasy (there is no science here) might inspire more anger than horror as the protagonists respond to otherness with violence. Outrage will likely be followed by laughter at the stagy, manipulative, over-the-top conclusion. Most characters seem to be white. Few chills and even less logic. (Horror. 16-adult)

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Starred review from January 1, 2020

Gr 9 Up-As she was walking to school her freshman year, Liv Fleming came across an alarming sight: her father, the high school's English and drama teacher, naked and gibbering incoherently in the town square. He had been missing for four days. As the town looked on and EMTs loaded him into an ambulance, Lee Fleming shouted one phrase: "biologic evidence!" After a year spent claiming he was abducted by aliens, Lee went missing again, this time for good. Now, as Liv steadfastly trudges through her senior year, she has accepted that her father is dead, but that doesn't stop her from checking his alien traps every Sunday with her friend Doug, the town's outcast and Lee's disciple. However, she's fed up with childhood memories-she's leaving for college in a few months anyway-but on the day she decides to destroy the traps, the unthinkable happens-an alien is caught. Liv and Doug now face an impossible decision: turn the alien over to the authorities, or keep it a secret and try to find out what happened to Lee Fleming. Kraus dissects loss and anger through the underused genre of alien abduction. Liv and Doug's grief and fury toward the "skinner," as Lee calls the aliens, are fully and uncomfortably realized at times. The prose is lyrically visceral and can be unsettling, but the genuine voices of the characters lend themselves to a story that is ultimately a haunting and heartbreaking look at human suffering and the lengths we will go for our loved ones. VERDICT Beautiful prose does little to mask the anger of this powerful narrative. Readers will have a hard time putting this down.-Tyler Hixson, Brooklyn Public Library

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Starred review from December 1, 2019
Grades 10-1 *Starred Review* Olivia (Liv) was a freshman when her gentle, bookish father, Lee, swore he'd been abducted by aliens. For months, he raved about the horrors he'd endured and obsessed over defending his home from invaders. Then he disappeared. Now a popular senior, Liv has learned to mask the still-raw wounds left by his legacy. The only holdover from her former life is Doug, the town pariah who worshipped Lee, and their Sunday excursions into the woods to check Lee's traps. They never catch anything but unlucky wildlife?until the day they find a live alien. Liv wants to go public and clear her dad's name, but Doug proposes another way to get justice. Aren't they at war, after all? Kraus' timely new novel, blending science fiction, coming-of-age realism, and psychological horror, is a brutal, unflinching look at how ordinary people can come to justify dehumanization, torture, and the abuse of power. Liv is sympathetic and relatable, making her slide from grieving teen to vengeful torturer more shocking; Doug, her foil, has equally complex and understandable motivations. Though Liv ultimately finds compassion stronger than hatred, there are no happy endings here, only devastating consequences. With a gripping, twisty story line and assured writing, this book will be a powerful and confrontational read for mature teens.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)