 The disappearance of a parent lead to a heart-breaking chain of events in convincing genre-bending YA horror thriller Although Daniel Kraus’s forthcoming collaboration with zombie godfather George A Romero The Living Dead will undoubtedly pick up the headlines in the horror world, I would suggest also checking out the excellent Bent Heavens. Kraus has a superb back-catalogue of dark/horror YA fiction, including the highly recommended Rotters, and this latest release maintains his high standard. Surprisingly, in the UK he remains a relatively unknown quantity and Bent Heavens merits a proper release on this side of the pond. Eighteen-year-old Liv Fleming leads this genre-bending thriller which dances around horror, science fiction in a very convincing, Ohio, small-town setting. Teenage readers will easily tap into the troubled psyche and angst of a girl whose world was turned upside down when her father disappeared two years earlier. Her pain and grief from the lack of closure radiates from the page. She believes him to be dead, but a tiny part of her suspects he is still alive somewhere and has never given up hope, taking solace by competing for the school’s track team and remaining emotionally distant and detached from her friends. It is the circumstances of the disappearance of her father which makes this story fascinating with the occasional flashback thrown in. Lee Fleming was a very popular English teacher at the school Liv attended and before he disappeared indefinitely, vanished for a much shorter period before reappearing, naked, on the school campus. He was not the same man and was deeply psychologically traumatised claiming to have been abducted by aliens, or at least having vague memories of being experimented upon. Officially, it was presumed he suffered some sort of breakdown and the family struggled to cope with the emotional fallout. After his initial naked reappearance Lee Fleming directed, as he did every year, the school’s annual musical and reimagines “Oliver!” in a way which hints at aliens, abductions and other crazy stuff which lead to the show being halted in embarrassment. Early in the story Liv finds out the school will be staging a new version of “Oliver!” and is deeply upset by the insensitivity as the wounds are still very raw. This kicks off a chain of events which lead to her getting into trouble at school, which are not helped by the fact her mother is failing to cope at home. The relationship between Liv and her absent father and the sense of loss she feels lie at the heart of Bent Heavens and plays a major part in this convincing emotional drama. She is conflicted, confused, and struggling to cope within a realistic high school setting. Daniel Kraus does not ram usual high school tropes down our throats and the changes are subtle as Liv begins to pull away from her track group friends. She was an engaging central character and some of the scenes, such as when she loses control with the drama teacher were superb and any teen reader will surely connect with her pain. I do not know whether Daniel Kraus has come across the Iain Banks Scottish cult classic The Wasp Factory as Bent Heavens shares some of its vibe. Once Lee Fleming returns after his first disappearance, he becomes obsessed with aliens and constructs a series of six very dangerous traps in the woodland surrounding his house and names them; Amputator, Hangman’s Noose, Crusher, Neckbreaker, Abyss and Hard Passage. If you have ever read The Wasp Factory the traps might ring some bells and soon the creations catch something significantly larger than a squirrel. In other articles Ginger Nuts commentaries, I have lamented the lack of male lead characters in current YA fiction and Bent Heavens is yet another example of the boys being kicked into touch. I found this very disappointing at Doug Monk was a fascinating, tragic, and ultimately underused character. This troubled teenager was the same age as Liv and was taken under the wing of Lee, who Doug hero worshipped. Touchingly, even two years after the disappearance Doug still maintained and checked the dangerous alien catching traps created by Lee. The dynamics between the two teenagers was great, but I would have liked to have seen more of the boy who suffered the loss of Lee as much as Liv. It was also touching that Liv also continued to watch out for Doug at school and, ultimately, he was a very sad and broken character and their relationship could have been explored further.  I found Bent Heavens to be a great read and it has enough strings in its bow to attract differing types of teen readers with its convincing blend of horror, drama, and thriller. In the end the story did not go where many readers might expect it to and is backed up a killer twist (although I saw it coming) which was also rather heart-breaking. I will be interested in finding out whether genuine teen readers figure it out. Reading it from an adult’s point of view, Liv probably solved the ‘mystery’ too easily, but YA audience should be happy with how things conclude. Ultimately, even though Liv might not have been the most sympathetic of characters, her pain and grief were convincingly portrayed in a powerful novel about the lengths people will go to know the truth. Even if the answers are going to provide more pain, there is at least closure. I have this book in my school library and look forward to recommending it to kids aged around thirteen or older. 4.5/5 Tony Jones   the heart and soul of YA fiction reviews |
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