Citrus County

by John Brandon

There shouldn’t be a Citrus County. Teenage romance should be difficult, but not this difficult. Boys like Toby should cause trouble but not this much. The moon should glow gently over children safe in their beds. Uncles in their rockers should be kind. Teachers should guide and inspire. Manatees should laze and palm trees sway and snakes keep to their shady spots under the azalea thickets. The air shouldn’t smell like a swamp. The stars should twinkle. Shelby should be her own hero, the first hero of Citrus County. She should rescue her sister from underground, rescue Toby from his life. Her destiny should be a hero’s destiny.

Genres: Fiction, Southern Gothic, Mystery, Contemporary, Novels, Literary Fiction, Young Adult

224 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2010

About the author

Although John Brandon is an MFA graduate of the writing program at Washington University in St. Louis, while drafting the novel Arkansas, he "worked at a lumber mill, a windshield warehouse, a Coca-Cola distributor, and several small factories producing goods made of rubber and plastic." In his spare time, he obsesses over Florida Gators football.

Reviews

[Elyse Walters · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was in Citrus County during my last visit to Florida ... so when I saw this small paperback on sale for $5 through McSweeney's Publishing....( a fan of this publishing company created by Dave Eggers anyway)... I wanted to read it.

Author Dan Chaon wrote: ( about this book)....."Makes you laugh as it breaks your heart"! That pretty much sums it up for me too.

Author Lauren Groff says "John Brandon is a great young writer who can -- and probably will -- do just about anything".

My mind did a double take. I wasn't sure if I read things right. A child, 8th grader, Toby, living his uncle Neal, did he 'really' kidnap a child? His kinda- girlfriends little sister? Yes... yes... and yes!!!

Surprise....
.......this is a crime story.....'sorta'.... but 'feels' different. It was interesting the way author slipped the crime into the story so quietly. Unusual....and creative.

The bigger crime though - or tragedy - is the loneliness and depression of the characters. Every character is a little odd --but believable.

The three main characters are two 8th grade students - Toby and Shelby and their teacher Mr. Hibma.
Here is some sample dialogue:
"I'm not really the problem guy, Mr. Hibma said".
"You are for me, said Toby".
"I wanted to be the problem guy, but I can't. At this point, I'm getting by hour by hour, class by class".
"That's how I get by, Toby told him".
"I came here to say something, Toby said. Not to listen".
"Do you think you're my favorite or something? I gave you all those detentions because that's what teachers do and I was trying to be a teacher. I don't have a favorite. If you want to be somebody's favorite, start kissing ass. Definitely don't bother people during lunch".

One more excerpt:
"Shelby looked at the one who said he was a redneck and he was champing at the bit. She wished he would jump at her or raise his voice. She wanted to see her father beat the hell out of these kids. This was what she was stuck with. Citrus County. These were her people now. No one in Iceland was hers. Her mother and sister were not hers. Toby--who knew? The whole country was full of these kids, these punks, full of their parents".

So... I'll go with unique! I enjoyed this comic/tragic book, I became engaged with the characters. It was more sad than funny. I definitely agree that John Brandon is a talented writer.... it's just hard to pinpoint what this story is ultimately about.

3.5 rating

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

i blink and suddenly i have read two of the buzz books of the summer!

this one i have mike to thank for - i would have just bought it (like i did the author's first book) with good intentions, and it would have sat around until lord knows when, but his review made me read the first three pages right there at work and say - "oh, yes, i will read this soon". and look at me following through!

this man writes just the way i like - he has a story to tell and he tells it, with very few literary pyrotechnics. i love a lack of bullshit in contemporary writers. this is a book that grabs you right from the beginning (lgm). it opens with a scene of littering and verbal cruelty to a child and escalates into more serious crimes by the end. but it is not, strictly speaking, a crime novel; it is more about restlessness and the emptiness of rebellion.

mike was so restrained in his review w/r/t concrete plot elements that it makes me want to follow suit.

overall, it is a very sad story. his characters rattle around like pinballs, slamming into each other, affecting each other's lives in ways both criminal and tender as they discover the limitations of their criminal capacities and their capabilities for strength and survival through crushing disappointments. it is about two kids trying to find themselves and an adult who suddenly realizes he forgot to keep looking. (i write the tag lines for movie posters)

mr. hibma is a fantastically-wrought character. his slow dawning realizations are a perfect contrast to the two teenagers testing each other's boundaries and discovering their own. (see?) he is the "cool" and unconventional teacher who chose where he would teach based on the throw of a dart. cool, right? well, no. and this is why he ends up where he does, a little bewildered and watching his life drag by with no goals or agency. as great as shelby and toby's stories are, this is the one that hit a little close to home, and i loved watching his struggles.

here is something lovely:

The afternoon hours were the flattest. They were like Citrus County itself, fit only for ambush. Shelby wanted to get higher or lower. There were no basements, no second stories. Her house had no attic. Shelby didn't want to keep walking on the same ground. She was on a dumb plank of land where nothing would roll away. Everything stayed right where it was and festered. Shelby had been reduced to silly fantasies—visions of her and her dad moving off and working a farm somewhere, visions of going to stay with her Aunt Dale in Iceland, of having Aunt Dale show her how to be a rigid, invulnerable woman. Shelby wanted something more dramatic, more honest. She wanted a crashing ocean instead of the wash of the Gulf. She wanted weather that could kill you. She wanted respect from someone who actually knew how to judge.

if that doesn't just sum up adolescence perfectly...

i strongly recommend this, even if you hate dave eggers. mcsweeney's fiction list has overall been excellent, even though their foundation (eggers) is a self-aggrandizing douchebag. sold?

come to my blog!

[Mariel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish that I had read the same book that other members on goodreads read. I don't come from this place. I don't live in Citrus County. I want to live different places, know different people. I want to tell myself about stuff that happened and people that the things happened to. It doesn't have to be a mantra, maybe a sign of life or a reminder to feel something I'd forgotten. I want to sing along, you know? Some company would be really nice. I find that I can let myself go if I'm not the only one doing it. Being alone feels like when the song ends prematurely and you are surprised by the sound of your own voice. The record kept stopping. Citrus County didn't exist. Toby, Shelby and Mr. Hibma did not exist. No one was here. The Citrus County that Toby, Shelby and Mr. Hibma don't live in is where they can't see others living. People they don't want to be. If they had LOOKED at those people and that place.... Something deeper. Something to listen to again and longer than three minutes. I sigh alone.

I really want to describe the writing as unnecessary narrating in a Woody Allen film (one of his not that good films). You wish there was a good actor who would show you what the writer is saying they are feeling. The big feelings like title cards in a silent film. Fear! Sadness! Glee! You wish the voice would shut up and let you live the damned thing, in nuance and with hope. But you can't see them. None of it means that much. She wishes he was a star. He wishes the world revolved around him. Her world revolves around her. The voice sounds nebbish like that guy they later added to The West Wing. Kinda glib but without the spark it used to have. I really want to say I didn't feel anything.

I have lived practically right next door to the real Citrus County. (One thing this book got right is that towns I've lived in were mentioned only in connection to athletics. Soooo Florida. Locations of Tarzan and Elvis movies? Check.) I may as well have lived in Citrus County for how much the same those backwoods Florida places are. Hicks with meth labs, sunsets, sunrises, manatees, cults, animal cruelty, missing kids, sunshine, mosquitoes, sports, great produce. The characters in this book talk about movie set Florida of beaches, condos, theme parks. (When in Spain I was told that Florida brought forth images of rollerblading to Enrique Iglesias's horny pleading. That would be hell! It has to be hell.) Do I feel close to any of those things? Not really. Tarzan and Elvis movie sets. I've also made those observations a long damned time ago. It has ceased to mean anything to me. "Junior high school kids can be cruel." Yes, I've known that. Which kids? Who? Why? Where? I don't care about pushy religious people with wacky music (kind of an easy target, aren't they? What does it mean other than a person to be annoyed with for a minute?). I'm suspicious of anything that credits too much of the person to a place. Places are for feeling close to, I think. There's no place like home, right? Home can be somewhere else. If that's the connector then what is it connecting? In theory that's people... If you are afraid you are afraid of the people. I'll read a book set in a place and my affection grows because something alive happened there. From them to me. I might feel foreboding. I shouldn't feel contained. Writing on benches "I was here" and footprints the wind won't blow away. That's what I want more than just about anything. It's a kind of home and family to make up and carry around. It couldn't only happen in one place.

Brandon's characters wear their tastes like t-shirts to stand in line at the latest big thing. Yes, it's cool that fourteen year old Shelby knows all about Bill Hicks (me too). It would have meant much more to me if I knew if her comedians and Jewish authors grounded her in other places, to other people. Why did she like them? Why did she want to live some place glamorous, other than bragging rights? I just felt like Brandon was giving his taste to his characters. Look at what I like! It's the easy stuff like glancing over a group and sitting next to the person you would rather identify with. Cool criminals and sassy girls. Bright lights, big city. I'd rather see what the audience eyes looked like than who is on stage.

If a journalist had disliked John Brandon from way back when and wrote an article about what an asshole he was he would probably be as big of a joke as Dave Eggers is. Quiz time: Is this twee to you? Because it is really fucking twee to me. Dave Eggers and Brandon could rub the leather elbows of their tweed coats at McSweeney's mixers. I don't get why Eggers is precious and Brandon isn't. Someone please explain that to me (my theory is journalists for now). I don't hate Eggers myself. I find it curious the way the tide turned against him and Safran Foer. Why not Brandon? He's no different. (I like Foer considerably more than either Brandon or Eggers. I felt something less obvious.)
Shelby had been enjoying a dream about gangs of sly otters who could convince women to do anything. But then she smelled something and the otters were gone. It was morning. There'd been a scent in the dream, but not a savory one. There'd been the scent of wet eyelashes. I blushed when I read passages like that one. Some were good, written to delight (maybe too much to delight. The whole cute thing), others read like an author who had a massive crush on his own characters and took for granted that they came out as cute on paper as they did in his mind. You are skipping the steps like breathing and getting up out of bed and going straight to saving deserts (desserts) for old age. Sure, it's kinda cute that Shelby has stuff like that. Dream big and I'll listen if I have any idea who the hell you are and what it has to do with anything.

I don't understand the rage about being stuck in life directed at someone else. When driving late at night and a fat woman in a house dress waddles across the road (this happens pretty much any time I ever drive at night) without a care about blind spots or anything I don't feel better about myself (I have images of life in prison for accidentally killing her). Mr. Hibma was foreign to me. He should not have been. I understand the feeling of everything coming to you because you can't move yourself to step out of the way of fate (life suckage like how you can be more conscious of a paper cut than a larger wound). But no, I felt like when I watched either versions of The Office. Tim/Jim's misplaced frustration towards their irritating coworkers. I don't feel better about myself because of what anyone else is doing. There must be some club of guys who feel like they have to do something if someone is too fat or doesn't know the presidents on Mt. Rushmore. They might feel a grim satisfaction in superiority that they know those things when knowing those things never did a thing for anyone. I feel no attachment to that at all. I wouldn't give Mr. Hibma another glance of sympathy. He can zip up his pants and have trouble jerking off somewhere else. Those are the kinds of observations that put me no where. I don't want it. If this book was about making something happen should there not have been a bigger connection than targets who didn't mean that much, like toes in too small sandals or religious girls? Talk about avoiding the point. But you don't need to, I guess, if you just SAY they feel those things... Too easy. I don't trust it. Easy representation instead of making a story out of something that stands out from the void.

It didn't help that Mr. Hibma's story is the same story of Toby in part one. Part three is the same as part one and part two. Something would happen if they did something bad. Talking about something happening. Talking about how they would feel if they were trying to write something deep on a post card. They are the serial killers who get caught because they can't keep quiet about the credit they are not getting. I understand wanting something to happen. They weren't anywhere. Then Toby would feel he wanted to be somewhere. Mr. Hibma would think that he was either the real him or the fake him. This was based on fantasies. Where were these fantasies taking place? The cure was the disease that was the cure. Or the disease. I felt nothing either way. (I hate feeling that way. My stomach is twisted in emptiness thinking about this book.)

I don't care about credit and I don't care about heroes. Shelby, Toby and Mr. Hibma are not heroes. Nothing is going to happen from a big gesture. Something small would happen like that paper cut if there had been any effort in the direction of closeness. There should have been closeness. I felt a lot, "Gee, this probably sounded oh so cute to the author." That's about it. I wasted time in Citrus County where I didn't know a soul. No stories to feel as if anything was happening. Not one other voice. Not even jumping into the void but waiting for it to come to you (with time to dress for it. Cutely).

Citrus County is an apathetic book about the fight against apathy. Maybe that was intentional. I don't feel so because of all the cutesiness. I wish I had felt ANYTHING other than apathy. This wasn't the book for me. I can't live with apathy. I want people and places and closeness. I don't need to read this to figure that a girl who loses her mom to death and a sister to kidnapping would be angry. Or that a kid beat up by his uncle would feel there wasn't any point. Or that a teacher who can't make a choice would fantasize about irrevocable choices. Okay, that's obvious. That's not the whole story! But it was. Fucking surface of things. Please don't get up.

A real life story of mine about a juvenile delinquent:
I was living in one of those orange towns close to Tampa and St. Pete. My apartment complex was cheap and mostly teenagers like myself. My neighbors were a mom and her young son (probably about fifteen). I talked to the son and his mom ONCE (my doberman had been in a fight with a cat. The cat had it coming for some time. I guess I made an impression the way I tenderly wiped the blood off of Sanchez. "Oh, it's not his blood," I said). The cops were over a lot and sometimes I'd hear the mom crying into the night through those thin walls. So one night, totally out of nowhere, the mom pounds on my door and tries to come inside. She keeps insisting that I was dating her son and hiding him in my apartment. I probably said something like, "I don't date kids. Back off, lady!"

Mostly the drugged up kids thought I was hilarious and laughed over every thing I said. I was a reject unless people were high (hey, that's a lot like now. Sobs). There was the time when a Mexican migrant worker tried to solicit me for prostitution (not counting yelling from cars like "Five bucks for a hand job!" Rural Florida ain't pretty). Does any of this make anyone feel closer to me, or Florida? I don't. (The tears made me sad. She was controlling. It's a glimpse where I was a bystander. The story was theirs. Just like Citrus County was theirs and not Shelby, Toby or Mr. Hibma's. Not even a glimpse!) I feel closer to me remembering reading Salinger and listening to John Frusciante. Those names could mean nothing at all to someone who might one day read this review. If you know what it feels like to hope that there are other people who give a shit then you might remember feeling the same way about somebody else. That's all I ever want. The effort to keep on going with any means necessary because there might be someone else to know. Not writing off people and feeling better than the kid I knew who damaged his brains huffing paint. There's no saying it'll ever happen for good. I wish I had felt that Citrus County was about that feeling. I think it wanted to be. I didn't feel it because it didn't come from any place and it didn't go any place. It was no place. I've repeated myself a lot in this review. I keep coming back to apathy. It's the worst!

I might be more needy than most. I don't know. All I know is that I watch people a lot and look for any sign of life. Some place to live. Where it comes from and where it might be going. What do you want?

P.s. I did like when Shelby's aunt gives her the stitch. It was a hope for a connection. Just the hope. That's enough. It isn't cliche to want a family. If you want to be different please tell me why (the bad boy thing, although it's not different). What's missing? I'll take the hope, for now. It was a fantasy relationship instead of a real one with her dad. That should have been more important... At least there was hope. Still representation (artistic aunt with a swank lifestyle). Why did they have to represent otherness for her to try? Why wasn't what she had good enough? Saying she liked different was not as good as looking at the reason. Better yet, show it instead of saying it a bunch of times.

[Krok Zero · Rating 5 out of 5]

The good kind of contradiction: I would have gladly read an additional 500 pages about Toby and Shelby, the troubled co-protagonists of Citrus County, yet I recognize that John Brandon's concision -- the book clocking in at just over 200 pages -- was the right choice for the story.

This is a great novel, the best new one I've read this year. So much love for this book. I wish I'd purchased it so I could spew lovely quotations at you, but this was a bookstore-loitering read. Don't judge me. I have a lot of free time and not a lot of money.

Hmm, what to say about this? I feel like I should do it justice by writing a powerhouse review that will impress you all, but that's not gonna happen tonight, I don't have it in me. The NYT blurb on the back cover calls it "a great story in great prose" and, as simple a statement as that is, it's really the most important thing to say here, because as readers of fiction what else are we really looking for, at the end of the day? Well, other stuff too, I guess, but it still feels great not to have to settle for either great storytelling or great writing, to have the total package.

There is suspense here, there is a gripping plot, but the story does not unfold as a thriller; it unfolds as a series of small character moments, observations, casually brilliant bits of psychological sketching. Brandon flits between the perspectives of three characters -- the above-mentioned Toby and Shelby, eighth-graders embarking on a tentative romance, and their geography teacher Mr. Hibma, an overgrown slacker-outsider who's drifted into a teaching job for which he feels nothing. All three of these creations are as compelling as any alphabet-rendered humans I've encountered in my reading career. Brandon doesn't bother with a lot of physical descriptions; to an extent, he follows Elmore Leonard's dictum to avoid "the parts that readers tend to skip over." Here's an example of his efficient, practical characterization; young Shelby is introduced through the eyes of Mr. Hibma:

Shelby knew a lot about stand-up comedians. She had memorized the acts of Bill Hicks, Dom Irrera, Richard Belzer--nobody new, just stand-ups from years ago. She knew where these guys had gotten their starts and what jokes they were known for. She knew a lot about a lot of different things--literature, illnesses. Also, Mr. Hibma had noticed, Shelby seemed to want to be a Jew. She used words like meshugana and mensch and had brought matzo ball soup for ethnic food week and the days she missed school with a cold or stomachache were always Jewish holidays. Shelby lived with her father and maybe a sister in a little ranch house a stone's throw from the school. Her mother had died a couple years ago.

Do you see how that makes us instantly know and understand something about Shelby, as opposed to a paragraph describing her hair and eyes and gait, or whatever, and even about Mr. Hibma too, the way he observes his students. I copied and pasted that from an excerpt at Salon, since I don't have the book handy, but I also remember this great line, re: Mr. Hibma: "He wished his life were a terse novella."

Brandon focuses on the hearts and minds of his characters; he knows them; his empathy meter is off the charts. His sentences are mostly simple, but there is a sense of orchestration, of rhythm, of a writer in total control of his voice. He is capable of coming up with the perfect phrase, the one that makes you say yes in recognition of Brandon getting it exactly right. He's unafraid of going to the darkest places, but his story ends up in a place of hard-earned life-affirmation. The youth violence and morality-play vibe amid a landscape of unglamorous Americana reminded me of two favorite films, David Gordon Green's George Washington and its spiritual sequel, Jeff Nichols' Shotgun Stories. I'm just word-vomiting now but this is a great book that did to me what literature is supposed to do, with an ending (three endings, really -- one for each character) that provided the kind of soul-nourishing but unsentimental kick that I basically live for. Tough-minded, sad, funny and profoundly moving -- can I get a fuck yeah?

[Matthew Allard · Rating 2 out of 5]

117. That's the page where I am going to stop and put this book to rest. It's a painful mental burden to stop a book midway, but I'm so slumped by this. 2. That's the number of stars I'm applying. I'd give it half that, but it gets an extra since I, admittedly, didn't read to the last page. (As if my system of rating things has ever been scientific or systematic.)

Bah. A lot of people liked this book. (The NYT Book Review gave it some high praise, for example.) Others, like me, did not/could not enjoy it. I just thought it ran in place. The dialogue was wooden. I got no sense of the characters being real or "alive." I didn't mind the subversive subject matter or the very bad, depraved actions Toby might have taken or thought about. But also: so what? Everything felt disjointed and hollow, not for me.

I've been trying for weeks to break into this, but instead it has just made me angry via dissatisfaction.

[Oriana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh. God. So. Good. I love love John Brandon anyway, back from the painfully spectacular Arkansas, and this one gives you that same sinking feeling in your stomach once you get into it, once you know that there is just no way this will get better or go well. Toby and Shelby, the main characters in this one, are just amazing and so so real. (I hope I never get too old to ache and squirm when I read about teenagers falling messily and awkwardly and terribly for one another.) John Brandon's writing is so simple and brusque it's exquisite. I don't know why he wants to write about such fucked up shit, but holy hell is he good at it.

***

And OMG, in case you need more convincing, here's what Daniel Handler, whom I desperately love, has to say:

[Brandon:] subverts the expectations of an adolescent novel by staying true to the wild incongruities of adolescence, and subverts the expectations of a crime novel by giving us people who are more than criminals and victims. The result is a great story in great prose, a story that keeps you turning pages even as you want to slow to savor them, full of characters who are real because they are so unlikely. “Citrus County” subverts countless expectations to conform to our expectations of a very good book.

(Full review here)

[Adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

The characters of Citrus County possess ugly, meanspirited souls, and that’s putting it lightly. Also, the book takes on very serious issues but puts its narrative emphasis in all the wrong places. About 30 pages into the novel, someone kidnaps and imprisons a young child, and up till the midpoint of the book (as far as I got before giving up), the child’s status in this limbo-like prison is almost never mentioned. Instead, we get a lot of trivial stuff about boy-girl relationships and early-teen angst. As much as I enjoyed John Brandon’s Arkansas, I ended up thinking of his second novel as an anti-Dostoyevsky story--a novel that raises weighty philosophical questions and, cynically, refuses to handle them in any recognizably responsible fashion. The emphasis here is all on egocentric slackers and the contemporary culture of nihilism. And there are several details that are unconvincing and just plain off, such as the inexplicably unprofessional and, well, dumb behavior of the pair of FBI agents in the novel. So, no thanks.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

With John Brandon, get ready to spend time with criminals. But get ready too, to strip away everything that defines them as criminals, to write in everything that makes them whole, interesting, broken, fun, doomed, ordinary, earnest, cruel, largehearted people. No one gets written off, no one gets cut any slack. We spend time in the woods and get just what was promised: the subversion of expectations, the wild incongruities of humanity, the cigarette before the firing squad shoots you down. It’s scary and funny and helpless but ultimately hopeful, and it gives you what is instead of what should be.

“He was a kidnapper and might soon become something worse, but he was still a kid too. He could feel himself as a kid with a ripening heart who looked forward to things, who borrowed his schemes from the same old shelves as everyone else, who loved dumbly like people were meant to.”

I had said before I was withholding that fifth star for John Brandon’s next. He’s got it. He earned it with this one. Following big in the footsteps of Arkansas, this is just exactly my kind of thing. I couldn’t put it down and it ends in just the right way.

First read December 2011

* * *

September 2012:

I wish I had given this four stars the first time just so I could give it five now. This is crazy in just my kind of way. If Elmore Leonard ever cedes the throne of Florida crime fiction, I think Brandon is in line as heir.

[Kathrina · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is very good writing here, but no soul. The writing is clinical, all white walls and and the smell of antiseptic cleaner in the air; The characters are drawn with gloves on. I kept reading because that is how one gets to the end, but my heart was in the other room. There was excellent dialogue that belonged to some other book, and was dropped in this plot by a negligent editor. Who takes a class in marine biology in eighth grade? Psychology? In eighth grade? What eighth grader has the guts to reply, "That's what people with accents think" to a complete stranger at the passport office? Witty, yes, makes good reading, but true? As a reader, I should have cared more about these people, this troubling plot, but a glass barrier prevented me from ever getting close enough -- I could see what was happening, but I couldn't feel it.

[Lee Klein · Rating 3 out of 5]

A generous three stars, more like 2.5 for me. An admirable short novel that seemed to do what it wanted to do just fine, I guess. Mid-level misanthrophy. One minor LOL for me re: the girls basketball team. Occasionally precious A+ "creative writing 101" descriptions ("she smelled like freckles"). Felt like an overextended short story? Monotextured (<-- that's a really wonky way of saying it maintains a similar tone/pace/approach throughout). A "terse novella" maybe would have worked better? Synonymous piling up of phrases too often made me aware I was reading contemporary literary fiction? Too often a little too cutesy for me, like it aspired to be turned into a movie by whoever did "Little Miss Sunshine"? Too often, overall, I was aware I was reading fiction, aware of the dynamics of the story, the inevitablility of old-fashioned character change, instead of seeing/believing in the characters? Maybe the characterization needed reemphasizing sometimes? Likability wasn't as much an issue for me as not really believing in the characters or the story because of the prose/tone/syntax? Sort of fell somewhere between Tinkers and Netherland for me in terms of readerly "enjoyment." By which I mean I can appreciate and admire passages, descriptions, scenes, but there's something in the helices of its literary DNA that didn't exactly twine with my readerly genes? Here's a sentence I can pull to support what I mean: "Some kids were just kiss-asses and they couldn't help it, no more than one can help being Samoan or allergic to celery." As a reader, I can't help being sort of like a walrus, whereas this book can't help being more of a manatee. We can swim together in the same waters but can't quite breed, you know what I mean? I can't help prefering another sort of fiction, something a little less "sane" in form and content, something maybe a bit more individuated at a sentence level? Also, I've always had trouble reading about kids. The few books involving young adults I've loved are way crazier than this one, with way more thematic HEFT: The Notebook, The Proof, The Third Lie: Three Novels, or His Dark Materials Trilogy. This one's not really my bag, ultimately. So I guess I should say something like sorry, it's not you, "Citrus County," it's me . . . you're readable and professionally executed and, physically, a beautifully designed book, plus you include a great line about a sky of clouds like the aftereffect of an exploded sun bomb, but I just couldn't get beyond something in your tone and tactics re: these yearning (<-- default emotion of contemporary literary fiction), confounded, essentially good-hearted yet ultimately mostly misdirected/parentless (or nearly parentless) kids and one of their young teachers etc, and so I wish you all the best in terms of finding a devoted readership.

[tee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm hovering between four and five stars for this one but after some initial hesitation, it just has to be a five. I loved it, not in the same way that I have loved other books that I have rated five star but it was amazing in its own way. Brandon's writing style is fantastic, one of those books where you're unaware that you're reading; the story merely unfolds in front of you. Most unnerving about the book was the protagonist and his callous actions but somehow at the same time, you understood him; maybe not what he did per se but those awkward, confusing, often hellish years of adolescence where you're still figuring out right and wrong, discovering what your morals are and where your boundaries lie. Those times where you did really fucking stupid things (perhaps not stealing a kid) but still, stupid things that in hindsight makes you uneasy to think you ever did it. Or, too, those things that we've contemplated doing but never acted upon. Toby kidnaps a child, Mr Hibma contemplates killing a co-worker but never acts on it. This novel is about that too. For me, anyway. I've always been fascinated with the concept that we're all merely a decision away from committing a crime. Self-control, morals, law and order. We hold our destiny in the fist of our hand.

Brandon weaves these emotions into his book and you never see any of it coming, depression, uncertainty, fear, regret it's all there -knitted into his words. This is "show don't tell" at its finest. The stolen girl doesn't even get a voice or a face and almost in the absence of her that we sense how terrifying and horrific it all really is. By giving us few details about her, her state of mind, or living conditions, each fucked up detail is left to our imagination. And because my imagination knows no bounds, I was overcome with tension and grief for most of the novel. Brandon also manages to set everything up with such deftness that everything that happens feels natural. He's listened to his characters and simply voiced their story.

And as much as I might be able to identify with the protagonist, I was still left thinking how the fuck could anybody do something like that? but Brandon delivers everything in such a way that nothing is unfathomable. We understand the characters. We live inside them, or beside them, for the duration of the book; in a detached way. I almost felt like I was drifting ghost-like whilst tailing them around as they circled each other through the book.

I don't know whether it is because I am a parent that I was quite unsettled throughout. Having two small children of my own certainly added to the anxiety that I felt reading this book. I rarely get emotionally involved in my novels, not to the extent that I did with this one; my cheeks were actually burning and my hands clammy as I waited to see what the outcome was going to be. And yet, no furore, no pyrotechnics, just bleakness, apathy and grey.

Brandon is a fucking terrific writer. I know I've read something great when I close the book once I've finished and feel a mixture of sadness that it's finished, a glow from having just read a really good book and envy that I hadn't written it myself.

[Max Everhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good fiction has the ring of truth. It is believable, plausible, and enjoyable, even the ugly bits. But great fiction is true. And Citrus County, with its extraordinarily ordinary characters, no frills prose, and stuck-in-second-gear pace is great fiction.

The narrative follows (shadows might be a better word) three characters: Toby and Shelby, two middle school students, and Mr. Hibma, one of their teachers. Early on, Shelby is infatuated with Toby, a boy who is something more than your run-of-the-mill trouble-maker, and once the two become girlfriend and boyfriend, Toby kidnaps Shelby's little sister and holds her in a secluded bunker. No one, including the very astute Shelby, can figure who took the little sister or where she is. No one can understand why it happened, least of all Toby. Toby keeps the little girl alive, feeding her, clothing her, and the passages where he struggles with stopping her care and simply letting her die are heart-wrenching and oddly fascinating.

But ultimately, the plot is secondary. The real genius in these pages is in the characterization. All three narrators--Toby, Shelby, and Mr. Hibma--are flawed, lost individuals struggling to find meaning in anything. Of the three, Shelby is by leaps and bounds the most sympathetic and the most mature and self-effacing. But the reason I kept turning pages in this one wasn't the linguistic pyrotechnics, or the fast-paced plot (spoiler alert: this one moves at a plodding pace). No, the reason I fell under this particular writer's spell was the voice. Each character's thoughts and actions were relayed simply and nakedly at every turn, and I had no choice but to accept, and, in the end, care about every character. Hell, by the end they weren't characters; they were real people- -people I cared about, and that is a major testament to the writer.

[gwayle · Rating 1 out of 5]

I got to page 32 and was so shocked and horrified by the contents of that single page that I skimmed the remaining 170 or so pages to see if the novel was worth pursuing. The answer? Um, no. Why on earth did we have to go there? I was sort of warming up to this, thinking that maybe I'd wrongly stereotyped McSweeney's fiction catalog in the past. I even LOLed at several of Mr. Hibma's antics and found him a sort of an edgier, funnier, male counterpart to Bynum's wonderful Ms. Hempel. I thought that this would be some sort of Chuck Klosterman-esque coming-of-age--boy was I wrong! My irritation goes beyond mere frustrated expectations: it just seems so manipulative to embed such a black effing hole into the plot and then proceed so coyly to prance about its edges until the final pages. I for one have no patience for this. Siiiigh. Maybe I'll try Arkansas , but I don't have time to guilt myself into slogging through this.

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not since Scott Spencer’s ‘Endless Love’, have I been so conflicted about a novel. Is Citrus County fatally flawed or have I failed as a reader? I really don’t know, so I’ll just hit on a few things:

John Brandon is the heart breaker with the bottom line; his characters know more than they possibly could. There are sentences so perfect and wise that they leap out as not belonging to these characters at all. Was that a bit surreal? Sure, but it worked for me.

The writing is off-beat, really alluring.

Shelby is a dream; I fell for her character and wanted to know everything Shelby. But what I didn’t need: Mr Hibma and the scattered minor characters who all shared the voice of the author: the taxi driver, the store clerk, and the FBI chicks- the element of the ridiculous just didn’t work for me.

Then there is the undefinable magic of the novel that I can’t quite explain, the mood, the sounds and the collision of all those swampy hearts.

[Craig · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you like books about a bunch of assholes doing asshole-ish things, then you'll love this book about a bunch of assholes doing asshole-ish things.

I didn't love it. I didn't like it. I loathed it.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 stars a weird book with no back ground or explanation as to why the crime happened in the first place or what the point of it was. Not exactly believable either.

[Ericka Clou · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was so stressful, and so dark in that all the men have fantasies of doing evil.

[Stephanie Sanders-Jacob · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think I heard about Citrus County from a Buzz Feed-esque list containing “15 Examples of Modern Southern Gothic Literature.” Southern Gothic is one of my favorite things on Earth and I had just gotten back from a trip to Florida, so this seemed like the natural progression of things. I was nervous, however – I’ve got it in my head that something is not truly Southern Gothic unless it was written before 1963. This rule is arbitrary – I made it up – but it seems right, somehow.

I will be revising that rule thanks to John Brandon’s sophomore novel – Citrus County is so good.

The setting was vibrant and dangerous in all of the ways you want the backwoods of Florida to be. In an early college fiction workshop, a teacher told me that I needed to tone it down a bit – I was describing unfortunate scenarios and places so grotesquely that I was verging on the insensitive. This really stuck with me; the last thing I want to do is alienate or belittle readers. Brandon is a master of finding this balance. He can describe the forlorn, impoverished quality of Uncle Neal’s house without being offensive. He can describe the tacky neighborhood mall without seeming spiteful.

Sometimes the adolescent characters are more resolute than they should be. I was never really able to grasp how old Toby and Shelby are. We’re explicitly told what grade they’re in, but I don’t think that mattered. Sometimes they are simplistic and sometimes they are wise beyond their years. Perhaps this is the nature of of middle school though – a nonsensical combination of the complex and childlike. Toby and Shelby flit between adult conjectures and a child’s selfishness, often within the space of a sentence. If we are trying to stay within the Southern Gothic atmosphere, I would say that this characterization of Shelby and Toby as being serious, yet childlike fits well within the realm of the genre. Children and childlike figures are so prevalent in Southern Gothic literature (see: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter) – they allow us to explore the simple truths Southern Gothic is fixated on in an unbiased, uncorrupted way. Southern Gothic is all about exploring the nastiest, most horrendous things through the clearest lens. Shelby and Toby allow us to do that, but it is still unsettling to continually question how old our main characters are.

I also noticed that many websites classify this novel as YA. That really surprised me! I guess it could be YA – there are young characters, the writing is accessible, but I thought that calling this YA was like calling The Heart is a Lonely Hunter YA. I just wasn't seeing it.

What most impressed me about Citrus County was Brandon’s ability to rationalize the horrific. I felt like Toby was almost justified in kidnapping Kaley. I never felt that he was committing evil. Horror, to me, is when you find yourself sympathizing with the heinous. I felt like the crime Toby committed was a key aspect to his development into an adult. I felt that it was a good thing that he kidnapped a girl – it showed him how to be himself. It provided Uncle Neal (one of my favorite characters) an outlet, even though that outlet was death. Somehow, this all seemed satisfying – it seemed right.

www.bookpuke.com

[Caitlin Constantine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've written before in reviews that I usually do not find most "comic" novels to be very comic. I feel bad admitting this, like it is somehow indicative of some sourpuss-type personality, or like it means I am deficient in the humor category, but the truth is, I just don't find books that try to be funny to be all that funny. A book that makes me actually laugh out loud is GOLD.

Which is why I am pleased to say that I laughed multiple times while reading this book, and almost always at Mr. Hibma, who might be one of my favorite literary characters ever. My only complaint is that there is no way someone can be THAT much of a dour curmudgeon by the age of 28. Maybe if he was 38, I would have bought it, but my experience has been that bitter, sour 28-year-olds are usually fronting, like it's proof of their worldiness and experience.

The comedy of the book was an interesting contrast to the rest of the book, which was actually quite dark and depressing. The story centers around a crime that is, unfortunately, a bit too commonplace, especially in this part of Florida. (The other thing that really attracted me to this book was that it was set in Citrus County, which is not exactly the most literary part of the world, and if you'd ever been there before, you'd know what I mean. But I love Florida, and I love books about Florida, and no one ever writes books about this part of Florida, so even if the book hadn't been selected by the Rumpus Book Club or gotten a write-up in the New York Times, I would have sought it out anyway.) The characters are sad, they suffer a lot, they are depressed and desperate and fumbling around for anything that will give them even a second of human contact. It is not the happiest book I have ever read, and it has the added difficulty of centering the story on a kid who does something that is pretty heinous.

I loved it anyway. I thought the writing was gorgeous, I thought the sensibility was gritty without being overly cynical, I thought he wrote about west-central Florida in a way that resonated with me (and my news station even got a shout-out, too!) and of course, Mr. Hibma was hilarious. (His episodes as the coach of the girls' eighth grade basketball team had me literally shaking with laughter.)

My only complaint was that the ending was way too pat. If you read the book, you'll see what I mean. It was all very convenient and neatly tied up, and I thought it was the weakest part of the book.

[Edan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many passages in this book were quite beautiful, and I was interested in how little we saw of the crime in the novel, around which everything revolves. That was pretty cool.

My main trouble with Brandon's novel is the characterization. It felt like these characters were made up of a series of arbitrary quirks. Shelby is into Jewish comics. Mr. Hibma (kept at a distance with his teacher-title throughout the book) gives his students posters of old movies. And? So what? When I described this characterization to Patrick, he said, "They sound less like characters and more like Facebook profiles." It's not that bad, but there is something to this analogy, for the soul is made up of more than a series of strange inclinations and obsessions. The book tells us these characters want more, want something--but the telling of those desires, the declaration of their existence, still doesn't accurately capture them in all their complexity and terror and beauty.

The whole time I was reading this book, I was thinking, "I'm reading a book. I'm reading a book. I'm reading a book." It exhausted me.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

I rarely give a book a one star rating because I rarely finish those books. This I was forced to finish in order to turn in an assignment on time. I found this book deeply disturbing. A lot like walking into Columbine in the head of the gunman. It just felt like a train wreck and the resolution was very unsatisfying.

Toby and Shelby are two teens whose lives seem to be revolving around a disaster course. Toby is a hardened delinquent who plans and commits a horrifying crime. Shelby is a teenage girl who falls for Toby and is affected by this crime. This story also revolves around characters such as Mr. Hibma, an angry geography teacher who is trying to find his own place in the world, whether good or bad.

Citrus County is a nominee for the 2011 Alex Award. It is a suspense story, which focuses on providing points of view from different characters. This is a book best handled by the oldest young adult readers.

[Megan Crusante · Rating 3 out of 5]

I somewhat feel like the 3 star rating is generous, because the book is full of unforgivable characters, including a main character who does something REALLY terrible but then the act is almost glossed over. He does this bad thing then focuses on his 8th grade love life. It is all very unsettling. But on the other hand, I somewhat feel like the 3 stars are unfair because despite the unlikable characters and dark subject matter, I found myself unable to put it down. I also found the characters very funny- out loud laughing at them at times. And while the plot is ridiculous, there is so much truth in all that happens that you believe every action taken as the story unfolds. It's definitely worth a read!

[Liam · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wish I adored this book as much as I adore the cover art.

John Brandon's Citrus County is a book I bought almost entirely based on the cover, after all (I was gonna buy another novel of his, A Million Heavens, and added this to my cart once I got a look at it). I know cover-based judgement is a classic blunder but I just can't help it. Unfortunately, while the cover is *fitting* the novel was a disappointment.

First, the good: there are moments in this book that were enjoyable: the beginning and the ending. The first section absolutely crawls along so that when the Big Shocking Event occurs it snaps you out of that slow pace like a lightning strike or a jump scare in a high quality arty horror movie. Like, the juxtaposition worked really well on me. And I enjoyed the way the various main character's arcs concluded.

The problem was everything in between. I saw another review suggest that this might've worked better as a short story and I think I agree.

The story is a meandering slog for a lot of its page count, which isn't bad per se (there's plenty of slow-paced works of literature that are beloved by readers all o'er), but when combined with the total *mean-spiritedness* of the story and characters there's just not enough for me to push forward. I did, because I don't like quitting books, but I wasn't happy about it. I didn't really jive with the humor in the book— in fact I found it to be pretty humorless. The prose, while clever in a lot of paces, was terse in a way that felt maybe a bit choppy to me (although that's probably just a personal taste thing). But the aforementioned mean-spiritedness was the real killer for me. The book is just angry and aimless, like its characters. A pacing animal in a cage, with nothing to take out its aggression upon. I guess that gives it some literary value, but it's not enjoyable and it feels... I dunno, lazy? It's not hard to load up a story with spit and venom, but it's only worth doing if something of value is being said. There's a nihilistic streak in the book (for the most part, the end has a hopeful turn) that just feels ugly in a way I didn't enjoy, and I can't pin down why all the nastiness is worth going through (and by "nastiness" I don't mean the content, I've read worse, I mean the attitude). I guess it feels *edgy* in a juvenile way, which while appropriate for the story being told, isn't fun to read. All in all a bit of a let down.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn't pull myself away from this book. I've seen criticisms for it being 'twee' or like a John Green novel in tone, and while the female lead is precocious, I couldn't look away from the way Brandon wrote the family as they broke down.

I lost the name of this book for a few months but I still remember the way it made me feel.

[Laraemilie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Citrus County, Floride : une petite ville sale et perdue ; des habitants en quête de leur identité, arrivés là par un malencontreux hasard. Dès les premières pages, nous découvrons cet endroit sombre, qui semble coupé du reste du monde. Une atmosphère lugubre y règne et il n’est pas difficile de comprendre la dépression qui habite les personnages.
Tout d’abord, il y a M. Hibma, le professeur qui n’aime pas son métier et qui est tout le contraire du bon exemple à donner aux élèves. Dans sa classe, Toby, petit délinquant vivant avec son oncle dérangé, dépressif et asocial, collectionne les heures de colle, alors que la petite nouvelle, Shelby, est bien trop intelligente pour se trouver là.
Au gré de leurs humeurs, les personnages tissent des liens, puis les défont. Dans un tel milieu, il n’est pas facile de trouver de la motivation, surtout lorsque les adultes sont aussi perdus que les adolescents et les enfants. Certains ont des rêves, la plupart se contente de survivre... en espérant que quelque chose va changer à jamais leur vie monotone. Et quand ils décident de forcer la main au destin, les choses ne peuvent que mal tourner.
J’ai été très surprise par ce roman, car il ne ressemble à rien de ce que j’ai lu auparavant. Il y a bien un peu de mystère et de tension, mais je ne l’aurais personnellement pas qualifié de « polar », et encore moins de « thriller ». Les personnages et leur environnement en sont l’intérêt principal, parfaitement indissociables l’un de l’autre. Nous suivons les actions de Toby et de M. Hibma – qui ne sont pas toujours honorables, il faut l’admettre – et tentons de comprendre comment ils ont pu en arriver là.
Leur évolution et leurs relations sont bien décrites, mais j’ai toutefois eu un peu de mal à comprendre leurs motivations. Certaines scènes m’ont paru un peu surréalistes, impression qui a peut-être été renforcée par le ton pessimiste et cynique de l’auteur. Citrus County est un no man’s land où aucun espoir n’est possible... quoiqu’on ne puisse s’empêcher d’espérer. Malgré un certain manque de compréhension des personnages, je me suis d’une manière ou d’une autre attachée à eux et même si je ne me suis jamais dit que ce livre était extraordinaire, je ne peux pas nier que je l’ai beaucoup apprécié.
Citrus County est, à mon sens, plus un roman sociologique qu’un véritable polar ; je dirais même qu’il s’agit d’un roman sociologique noir, dans lequel nous voyons les personnages se débattre, impuissants, dans un environnement oppressant et lugubre. Bien que ne comportant que peu de suspense, on se laisse facilement entraîner par les aventures quotidiennes des protagonistes. Et la question transparaît dans chaque scène, dans chaque dialogue : basculeront-ils du côté du mal, ou du côté du bien ? Et dans un lieu comme Citrus County, cette distinction existe-t-elle vraiment ?
Je remercie Le Livre de poche pour l’organisation du Prix des lecteurs 2014, dans le cadre duquel j’ai reçu ce roman.

[KC Snow · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn't give this book three stars. While Shelby was an entertaining though a barely believable—extremely prococious—character, I had a hard time even warming up to her. I appreciate an author going the way of Hemmingway and his Iceberg Theory; I just don't think it pertains here. Leaving out the backstory of these kids keeps the reader further than arm's length. I cannot sympathize, empathize, or even truely care about any of these characters if I don't understand what motivates them.

I have a very vested interest in this book. That is the ONLY reason I finished it. I live in Citrus County and it's a sad and beautiful and scary and brutal place. That said, despite the few very accurate depictions of the locale, I didn't feel as though the characters were in any way shaped by Citrus County. I wouldn't even say they were shaped particularly by a rural, ignorant environment. I was expecting to see a product of Citrus County, not just some characters that happened to live there.

Additionally, the crime that this whole book revolves around is unbelievable. I did not, for one-second buy that Toby A) could pull it off and B) would stick with it. Nothing Brandon did as far as character development allowed me, the reader, to even consider the possibility that Toby was capable of this particular crime. Other crimes, sure. And what's worse is that the crime starts so early in the book without yet and ever having any understanding of the character(s) motivation(s).

Mr. Hibma would have been a better character to revolve the entire book around. I understood where he was coming from and what would motivate him to do anything and everything he did in the book.

I really, really wanted to like this book. I tried REALLY hard. There are smart lines, there is something in this book. But the smart lines was not enough to make up for the everything this book wasn't.

That said, I would read another book by John Brandon.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a really unique & interesting book. It wasn't what I was expecting, it built suspense in a way I haven't seen a book do before, and it left me with an ending that invited questions instead of a pat finale. Where would these people go from here?

I give it three stars because it was engaging & well-written, but it wouldn't warrant a second reading. Once you know what happens, it wouldn't have as much to offer a second time. The following synopsis doesn't have any major spoilers, but if you want to be as surprised as I was, it might be best to just read it on its own without knowing anything else about it.

In a dismal mid-Florida county, two men with sociopathic leanings are sick of being thought of as losers. One is a student at the middle school, and one is a teacher there. Unbeknownst to each other, they're both ready to prove to everyone that they're not just ordinary deadbeats.

When a new family moves into town, the elder daughter could qualify as one of the cool girls, but she finds she has nothing in common with them. Instead, she has things in common with the deadbeats. The student decides he wants to impress the girl, & the teacher decides he wants to impress her sophisticated aunt.

The most interesting part of this book for me was getting inside the head of someone who would commit heinous acts. I'd never given much thought to why someone would do things like the men do in this book. It gave a psychologically profound view of how their feelings of worthlessness combined with their inability to see things from another's point of view to lead them where they went.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading the review and excerpt of CC in the NYTimes this weekend, I ordered the book, got it last night via UPS, and finished it by morning. I never do that. Okay, I do, but it's exceedingly rare. The whole time I was thinking, yes, yes, yes, this is what a novel is supposed to do. I didn't want to skip paragraphs. I noticed zero things I would've wanted done differently, or better. I didn't think, jeez, that's strains believability. I was just along for the ride, thankful to hear someone playing the right notes and doing so effortlessly. Why can't more books be like this? Why isn't this book rated an average of five stars? A quick glimpse at some people's reviews and I see that one dude described the characters as "mean-spirited." That couldn't be further than the truth (you want mean-spirited? troll some youtube comments). Is the book dark? Certainly. Are characters embalmed in loneliness and powered by unseemly yearnings? Yes and yes. So what if the teenagers don't speak like normal teenagers--who wants to hear "normal" teenagers speak? Who wants "normal" in a novel? These kids are giving voice to that which is almost always unsayable. The whole time you're reading, you care for the characters and you hope the worst doesn't happen. And almost none of what you expect does, which, in the end, is a good thing. If you want a suspenseful reading experience made up of sentences you can relish--if you want a book you can pick up immediately after you're done and read again, snag this.

[Bob Lopez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really wish we could do half stars. This one's 3.5.

Shelby's walk through the woods while she followed Toby is one of the tensest scenes I've read in a long time. The tension was fucking nuts...he's completely unaware she's there, she's completely unaware of what/whom she only moments away from finding, and it all unraveled so naturally, so organically.

Both Shelby and Toby have a somewhat-trite older-than-their-years characterization, which could be cool, but is entirely disingenuous here because they're both in...what, seventh grade? They're each disaffected to the point of ennui, and Shelby has moments reminiscent of Ethan Hawke in Reality Bites.

That being said, this moment in the book (a four-page climax about ten percent from the end) developed in an entirely believable fashion with Shelby behaving exactly as we expect her to act.

But this great segment is completely undermined/undercut by the next segment. As Shelby opens the door to the bunker the chapter ends and next we are presented with Toby in a hospital the next day. WTF? How about racheting it up another notch? You don't have to have Shelby discovering Kaley, but how about a confrontation w/ Toby? Or...fuck that! Let's read about everything that happened! Everything! There is this great tension, I'm covering lines so I don't read ahead, but I'm reading as fast as I can b/c I need to know...and there's her hand on the door, and then...Nothing. Talk about deflating.

[Owen Curtsinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brandon weaves a chilling suspense tale that is totally devoid of any stereotypical one-dimensional suspense characters. What we have instead is a group of people who are as deeply layered and complicated as real-life people, each with their own fears and just-slightly-twisted obsessions that make them seem so close to reality that we could speak to them or hug them...not that we would want to. The book follows the life of the perpetrator so closely that there's no room for edge-of-your-seat mystery or head-scratching. Instead, the joy in reading comes from peeling back the layers of these awkwardly placed and often misguided characters, and I found myself rushing back to the book not as much for the storyline but just to see what Toby or Shelby or Mr. Hibma would do next, what part of their warped sense of themselves in this garish setting I could identify with. Brandon writes great dialogue and his writing holds a shaky but reverent light up to this strange part of the country which add much to the richness of his tale.

My only complaint would be the way that the novel finished, the last fifteen pages reading more like a summary from a police report than a chapter of the carefully crafted tale that Brandon had weaved so far. Still recommendable, if not for the good writing then just for a refreshing break from the cliches that are so commonplace in similar novels.