Review: Delicate Monsters by Stephanie Kuehn

Delicate Monsters by Stephanie Kuehn
Publisher: St.Martin's Griffin
Release Date: June 9th, 2015
Purchase: Amazon

From the Morris-Award winning author of Charm & Strange, comes a twisted and haunting tale about three teens uncovering dark secrets and even darker truths about themselves.

When nearly killing a classmate gets seventeen-year-old Sadie Su kicked out of her third boarding school in four years, she returns to her family’s California vineyard estate. Here, she’s meant to stay out of trouble. Here, she’s meant to do a lot of things. But it’s hard. She’s bored. And when Sadie’s bored, the only thing she likes is trouble.

Emerson Tate’s a poor boy living in a rich town, with his widowed mother and strange, haunted little brother. All he wants his senior year is to play basketball and make something happen with the girl of his dreams. That’s why Emerson’s not happy Sadie’s back. An old childhood friend, she knows his worst secrets. The things he longs to forget. The things she won’t ever let him.

Haunted is a good word for fifteen-year-old Miles Tate. Miles can see the future, after all. And he knows his vision of tragic violence at his school will come true, because his visions always do. That’s what he tells the new girl in town. The one who listens to him. The one who recognizes the darkness in his past.

But can Miles stop the violence? Or has the future already been written? Maybe tragedy is his destiny. Maybe it’s all of theirs.

My thoughts:
My first thought after finishing Delicate Monsters was I don't get it.  And I really don't.  I've read one other book by this author and I remember being completely blown away and honestly Charm & Strange has stayed with me so I know what Stephanie Kuehn is capable of.  Now I do remember Charm & Strange having a say what moment and being slightly confused, but it all came together at the end and made sense.  This book though I am just at a loss with.

So I knew going in this book would be deep.  Stephanie Kuehn doesn't shy away from the hard stuff so I settled in with tissues within reach.  The whole time I was reading I kept thinking there is a reason why she is making me repulsed because I was indeed repulsed by her characters.  Each and everyone of them with the exception of Miles were just disgusting.  But I kept reading hoping that things would be made clear.  Well things were not made clear and I honestly don't really understand what the point of this story was.  Was it to show mental illness?  Was it to show that Sadie really did care in the end to some extent?  I get the mental illness part, I can see it woven in throughout the story but I don't think it was woven in strong enough.   I don't even know how to describe this story other than to say it was about three very messed up teenagers each messed up in their own way.  We get to see thru the eyes of each individual and yes it was painful at times, but the author made her characters so destructive that I couldn't feel compassion for any of them.

I loved in her previous book how the big bomb was dropped in the end and I expected it to happen again since this book seemed to be following the same formula, but when it was dropped I didn't get it.  I know I keep going back to I don't get it but I really don't. I think I get what was happening to certain characters, but I am completely baffled by the ending.  What in the hale happened??

I guess I can look at this in three ways...1. My mind just doesn't think outside the box enough and I didn't read between the lines as much as I should have or 2. This open ended last chapter was on purpose and the reader is supposed to think of their own ending or 3.This book is just not up to par to other one I read and the author tried too hard to be out there and expected too much of her readers. I am not sure which way I will go, but those are my thoughts at the moment.

2.5 snowflakes