Rotters

February 28, 2011
Kraus's (The Monster Variations) sophomore novel is a gruesome and meandering work that saps the life (so to speak) out of a potentially fascinating subject. When 16-year-old Joey's mother is killed by a bus, he's sent to live with Ken Harnett, his previously unknown father in Iowa. Harnett is distant and passively abusive, not taking care of his son's food or hygiene needs for days at a time as he travels, and Joey quickly becomes the target of school bullies (including both a jock and a teacher). When Joey discovers that Harnett's business is actually grave robbing, he persuades his father to bring him along. There's little sense of conflict over the morality or ethics of grave robbing, which is matched by Joey's lack of remorse over his revenge on the bullies or those he perceives as having harmed him—something that might be interesting in a character deliberately portrayed as a sociopath, but here feels like an omission. There's little danger or excitement in the grave robbing scenes and nothing new in the dreary, overlong scenes of an outsider at a new school. Ages 14–up.

March 15, 2011

After the tragic death of his mother, Joey is shipped from Chicago to a father in Iowa he's never met. The town's majority immediately and vehemently rejects Joey based solely on his bloodlines, and it doesn't help that his sleuthing reveals that the stench enveloping his father's shack stems from illegal grave robbing. However, bullied from every side, he decides a bond with his father plucking valuables off corpses is better than not belonging at all. With countless oozing, festering descriptions of decay both physical and mental, this is not a story for the weak at stomach. At times, the near tangibility of cracking bones, icky vermin and self-mutilation seems gratuitous, but how else to describe such a gruesome realm of morbid artistry? A first-person narration from 16-year-old Joey provides a genuine foray into the mind of an intellectual young man who injects himself into a seedy brotherhood with hopes of simultaneously belonging and escaping the demoralizing social mores of small-town life. A cerebral romp through a fascinating, revolting underworld. (Fiction. 14 & up)

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

July 1, 2011

Gr 9 Up-It's a hot day in Chicago when Joey Crouch's mother is hit by a bus and killed. The 16-year-old is forced to move to small-town Iowa with a hermitlike father whom he has never met. Life is hard; his father disappears for days at a time from his squalid, unfurnished home, and at school Joey becomes the victim of bullies and a self-righteous faculty. When he discovers that his father is a grave robber, Joey decides that he wants to be a part of this clandestine and ancient profession. Through this morbid but shared interest, he begins to learn the truth about his father's relationship with his mother, and why his dad never settled down. With abhorrent descriptions of corpses, and all of the repulsive, vile things that happen to our bodies once we are placed under the ground, Rotters is darker than your typical coming-of-age story, but, nonetheless, is still a gripping and emotional tale. Joey's disillusionment with his life, culminating in a disturbing revenge scene and succumbing to the depraved side of digging, makes it all the more rewarding when he comes to understand the gravity of his mistakes and what is really important. Kraus's exquisite grasp of the English language makes the descriptions come to life, greatly enhancing the story. The pacing and depth make it a good choice for those interested in offbeat tales, such as Libba Bray's Going Bovine (Delacorte, 2009).-David Burritt, Jackson Memorial Library, Tenants Harbor, ME

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.