Publishers Weekly
12/09/2019
Almost three years before this novel’s start, high school senior Liv Fleming’s father, Lee, a beloved high school English teacher, disappeared for four days. Eight months after he reappeared, naked and staggering in the town square of Bloughton, Iowa, he vanished again, for good. In the feverish days following his initial reappearance, Lee obsessively crafted a shed full of weapons and built a series of traps in the woods designed to catch the aliens that he claimed had abducted and experimented on him. When one of the traps ensnares a humanoid being, Liv and her childhood friend, outcast Doug Monk, restrain it in the shed for interrogation. But Doug, who loved Lee like a father, spirals out of control, convinced that cruelty is the only route to finding out what happened. Struggling to conceal this explosive secret amid her senior year and a burgeoning romance, Liv must decide whether she’s willing to sacrifice her humanity in the same way, and the road to the truth is pitted with one uncomfortable twist after another. Kraus’s blend of sci-fi and heart-stopping horror isn’t for the squeamish, but it offers a viscerally terrifying examination of grief, othering, and the price of vengeance. Ages 14–up. Agent: Richard Abate, 3 Arts Entertainment. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
Kraus gets under your skin with brutal, elegant efficiency. Necessarily horrifying, devastatingly timely.” – Kiersten White, New York Times-bestselling author of The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein and Slayer
“Bent Heavens is the darkest, angriest alien horror story that I've ever encountered. Hell. Yes.” – Stephanie Perkins, New York Times-bestselling author of There's Someone Inside Your House
"With a gripping, twisty story line and assured writing, this book will be a powerful and confrontational read for mature teens." – Booklist, Starred Review
"Beautiful prose does little to mask the anger of this powerful narrative. Readers will have a hard time putting this down." – School Library Journal, Starred Review
"Kraus's blend of sci-fi and heart-stopping horror...offers a viscerally terrifying examination of grief, othering, and the price of vengeance." – Publisher's Weekly
School Library Journal
★ 01/01/2020
Gr 9 Up—As she was walking to school her freshman year, Liv Fleming came across an alarming sight: her father, the high school's English and drama teacher, naked and gibbering incoherently in the town square. He had been missing for four days. As the town looked on and EMTs loaded him into an ambulance, Lee Fleming shouted one phrase: "biologic evidence!" After a year spent claiming he was abducted by aliens, Lee went missing again, this time for good. Now, as Liv steadfastly trudges through her senior year, she has accepted that her father is dead, but that doesn't stop her from checking his alien traps every Sunday with her friend Doug, the town's outcast and Lee's disciple. However, she's fed up with childhood memories—she's leaving for college in a few months anyway—but on the day she decides to destroy the traps, the unthinkable happens—an alien is caught. Liv and Doug now face an impossible decision: turn the alien over to the authorities, or keep it a secret and try to find out what happened to Lee Fleming. Kraus dissects loss and anger through the underused genre of alien abduction. Liv and Doug's grief and fury toward the "skinner," as Lee calls the aliens, are fully and uncomfortably realized at times. The prose is lyrically visceral and can be unsettling, but the genuine voices of the characters lend themselves to a story that is ultimately a haunting and heartbreaking look at human suffering and the lengths we will go for our loved ones. VERDICT Beautiful prose does little to mask the anger of this powerful narrative. Readers will have a hard time putting this down.—Tyler Hixson, Brooklyn Public Library
Kirkus Reviews
2019-11-19
Can Liv put the pieces of her life back together after her father's mental breakdown?
In rural Bloughton, Iowa, Liv takes solace in the cross country team and the idea that she will be off to college before too long. Three years ago, her father, the high school's former English and drama teacher, vanished only to return naked and talking about alien abduction. He disappeared for good eight months later. Liv and her friend Doug check the elaborate traps her father built in the woods during those eight months every Sunday. The teacher who replaced him decides to stage the same musical that was her father's swan song, and after getting in trouble for an outburst over her insensitivity, Liv decides to destroy the traps…but discovers that one has caught an alien. After hiding the horrifying creature in her father's shed, they discover it has her father's compass. In anger, Liv attacks the beast and then she and Doug torture it repeatedly as revenge for her missing father…but the alien is not what they perceive him to be, and as the truth is revealed, the horror mounts. Kraus' (Blood Sugar, 2019, etc.) newest horror fantasy (there is no science here) might inspire more anger than horror as the protagonists respond to otherness with violence. Outrage will likely be followed by laughter at the stagy, manipulative, over-the-top conclusion. Most characters seem to be white.
Few chills and even less logic. (Horror. 16-adult)
