Delicate Monsters

Seventeen-year-old Sadie Su returns to her family’s California vineyard estate and public high school after being kicked out of boarding school for a “prank” that nearly killed another student. Cruel and dangerously bored, she amuses herself by toying with childhood acquaintance Emerson Tate. Emerson is already stressed -- with a sickly younger brother, an overworked widowed mom, whispers about his family around town, his own shameful dark impulses -- and Sadie’s reappearance adds to the pressure. She gleefully reminds him of their sadistic afterschool activities as children and, after catching him committing an act of sexual violation against his unconscious girlfriend, adds this secret to her arsenal. Emerson’s precarious good-kid façade -- one he desperately wants to believe himself -- begins to crack. Meanwhile, Sadie meets Emerson’s brother, fifteen-year-old Miles, at school and (surprising them both) takes a protective role as Miles endures bullying, a series of unexplained illnesses, and bloody visions he believes are prophetic. Both Miles’s illnesses and his visions, as it turns out, have origins in one long-ago afternoon at the vineyard; all three teens confront the brutal truth of that day as their intersecting stories build to an explosive, shocking conclusion. As she did in Charm & Strange (rev. 11/13) and Complicit (rev. 7/14), Kuehn unflinchingly explores the darkest places of the human psyche, leaving many lingering questions about nature-versus-nurture and the relentlessness of mental illness. katie bircher

Seventeen-year-old Sadie toys with acquaintance Emerson, gleefully reminding him of sadistic childhood activities and threatening to reveal a more recent act of sexual violation he committed. Meanwhile, Sadie feels protective of Emerson's brother Miles as he endures bullying, unexplained illnesses, and bloody visions. The three teens' intersecting stories build to a shocking conclusion. Kuehn unflinchingly explores the darkest places of the human psyche.