The God of Animals

Twelve-year-old Alice Winston's father owns a failing Colorado horse farm, her mother hasn't left her bed since Alice was born, and her older sister has run off with a cowboy. With her breathy, youthful voice, Lillian Rabe expresses all Alice's fatigue with a world she neither likes nor understands, but has to muddle through for the sake of others. For her, it feels mostly like mucking through horse stalls, with occasional moments of pure radiance from the touch of her father's hand or a magical performance at a horse show. Rabe alters her voice only slightly for changes of speakers so as not to confuse the first-person point of view. As narrator, she easily controls the shifting tones of adolescent experience in Kyle's stunning debut novel. P.E.F. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

October 16, 2006
Horses and lost love propel this confident debut novel about Alice Winston, a 12-year-old loner with family troubles in Desert Valley, Colo. Her mother hasn't left her bed since Alice was a baby; her father struggles to keep their horse ranch solvent; and her beautiful older sister, Nona, has eloped with a rodeo cowboy. Alice resists befriending the rich girl who takes riding lessons from her father, becomes obsessed with a classmate who drowns in a nearby canal and entangles herself with adults whose motives are suspect. Kyle imbues her protagonist with a genuine adolescent voice, but for all its fluidity, her prose lacks punch, and too often, somber descriptions of Colorado's weather and landscape are called upon to underscore themes of human isolation, jealousy and pain ("Tomorrow, the sun would rise and deaden the land beneath its indifference"). The coupling of female adolescence with the stark West produces its share of harsh truths, though Kyle overstates the moral: love hurts, it's a dangerous world and the truth is hard to swallow.

Lily Rabe portrays Alice Winston, the 12-year-old narrator of this unforgettable novel. With subtle attention to detail Rabe describes Alice's life with her parents on a failing horse farm. Especially memorable is Rabe's understated depiction of Alice's bedridden, emotionally crippled mother. Rabe also provides a nuanced portrayal of Alice's father, who is emotionally distant and willing to do anything for financial stability. The hopelessness of Alice's situation is fully captured in Rabe's delivery of her loneliness, her search for love with a male English teacher, and her horror as she watches the death of a promising colt. The narrator's vocal range and skills produce an amazing performance. G.D.W. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine