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The Revenant

by Sonia Gensler (Goodreads Author)

3.6 of 5 stars 3.60 · rating details · 449 ratings · 115 reviews

When Willie arrives in Indian Territory, she knows only one thing: no one can find out who she really is. To escape a home she doesn't belong in anymore, she assumes the name of a former classmate and accepts a teaching job at the Cherokee Female Seminary.

Nothing prepares her for what she finds there. Her pupils are the daughters of the Cherokee elite—educated and more wea...more

Hardcover, 315 pages

Published June 14th 2011 by Knopf Books for Young Readers

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2011 Debut Authors (Young Adult and Middle Grade Lit.)

88th out of 306 books — 2,029 voters

City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

YA Novels of 2011

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Jun 22, 2011 Claudia rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011-book-challenge-150-books, ya-books, historical-fiction

I have never reviewed a book written by a friend and colleague before. I taught with Sonia, and felt like I identified most deeply to Willie's struggles as a teacher. Those self-doubts will resonate with every teacher! But this book is so much more than a book about a teacher.

Willie comes alive from the first page when we discover she's a liar...she has run away from her family who wants her to leave school. She's swiped another girl's teaching certificate and has run away to Oklahoma...to the C...more I have never reviewed a book written by a friend and colleague before. I taught with Sonia, and felt like I identified most deeply to Willie's struggles as a teacher. Those self-doubts will resonate with every teacher! But this book is so much more than a book about a teacher.

Willie comes alive from the first page when we discover she's a liar...she has run away from her family who wants her to leave school. She's swiped another girl's teaching certificate and has run away to Oklahoma...to the Cherokee Nation. She soon learns that the Cherokee, are indeed a Civilized Tribe. The Seminary she runs to is home to upwardly-mobile girls whose parents are rich, educated, and ever-so-slightly snobbish about their light skin color. The girls are prairie Mean Girls...especially Fannie. Since Willie is really younger than her students, she lets them intimidate her -- at first, until her friend Olivia takes her under her wing.

There's also a ghost story...the girl who used to live in Willie's room died under mysterious circumstances...was it an accident? Was it murder? Suicide? No one much wants to talk about it. But strange things happen at school...Willie hears tapping on her window, the girls often smell river water, the same river where Ella died. And rooms would suddenly go cold. Olivia believes there's a revenant at the school.

There's also a love story. Eli, oh Eli. They meet on the train, but they're both trapped by Willie's lies. She's younger than Eli, but he thinks she's a teacher, and she must pretend to be something she's not. Eli is charming...seems to be a ne'r-do-well, a failing student with no ambition.

The mystery unravels itself, just as Willie's lies unravel...I loved the way the ghost story resolves itself.

My only frustration is one I often feel with well-crafted YA novels...I wish it was a full-length adult novel. I could tell Sonia knew the entire back story of each character. Olivia, who introduces Willie to revenants, and ouija boards and grading rubics. Toomey, the stepfather who may not be as evil as Willie first believed. And Miss Crenshaw...oh, how I want to know HER story. So, for me, I want to know more about these characters. I want to watch them interact, to think, to dream. I wanted the story to have that time to develop...I wanted more.

One reviewer compared Sonia to Jennifer Donnelly, and I absolutely agree. Each of them has a sense of place and time that bring the story alive. They know how to craft intelligent, literate, interesting heroines we want to know.

I'm so proud of my friend, and I can't wait to hold MY OWN book in my hand and have her autograph it.

After I read it, I had several of my students read it and they loved it too...they loved the characters, the romance, and they wrote thank you notes to Sonia...this one is a winner!(less)

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Oct 15, 2011 Shannon rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: creepy, 2011

This book was ok. I wanted to read this book for the plot. I love any type of hauntings or mysterious and it got even better when I found out there was people who'd been murdered. I think in general that if there's some type of tragic murder as a backstory it makes things more interesting. This book wasn't at all scary. It was more on the creepy side. There were several instances where I went 'oh sh**!', but nothing that kept me up at night. I liked how the clues unfolded and the scenes about di...more This book was ok. I wanted to read this book for the plot. I love any type of hauntings or mysterious and it got even better when I found out there was people who'd been murdered. I think in general that if there's some type of tragic murder as a backstory it makes things more interesting. This book wasn't at all scary. It was more on the creepy side. There were several instances where I went 'oh sh**!', but nothing that kept me up at night. I liked how the clues unfolded and the scenes about discovering the culprit freaked me out a bit.

Willie was alright. She was always blushing, which I found annoying. But I guess girls back in the 1800's had different opinions about what was considered inproper or not. I downright hated Fannie, especially towards the end. She was a total biotch and part of me wanted the ghost to smack her in her over-priviliged face.

I didn't like the end at all. I liked how the whole mystery of Ella's death was solved and I thought this book was pretty good. But then it goes on for 40 or so more pages about boring housechores and newborn kittens. I was like REALLY? I felt like it should have ended after the whole discovery about the culprit and then maybe take on a few more pages about the complications of Willie's future.

Also, I hated the part of the end with Eli. I liked Willie and his romance. It was cute and a bit innocent. It wasn't anything over-the-top or hoish. It just seemed like two people who had a crush on each other, but then the end crapped all over that. (view spoiler) I just kept thinking to myself, 'really? is this serious?'. First off, Eli and only a handful of interactions. A few of them were really cute and at most they kissed, but the rest of their times were awkward and nothing much was said. I could understand how this could have happened over time because they had chemistry and potential. However, I thought it was a bit ridiculous. While I thought the outcome was a bit forced, I didn't like Willie's answer/reaction to him. (view spoiler)

Aside from what I mentioned I don't really have much to say about this book. It wasn't bad and it wasn't amazing either.(less)

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Jun 19, 2011 Beth Chandler rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: teen-ya-fiction, supernatural, native-american, historical-fiction

A good historical novel about a non-standard place: a Midwestern Cherokee girls' school. Moderately suspenseful Gothic ghost story with a bit of romance. Major characters had at least a bit of three-dimensionality to them that kept them from being entirely stock characters. The plot was somewhat predictable but did have some twists.

One thing I liked about the story was the fascinating and respectful insight into the nature and social structure of middle-class (and to a lesser extent, poor) Nativ...more

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Apr 14, 2011 P.J. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Book 17 for 2011.
There are so many things I loved about this book!

I loved the setting of the girls' boarding school in Indian country.
I loved the feel of the novel as it was so Libba Bray in the language.
I loved the romance as it gave just enough to keep me wanting more.
And most of all, I loved that the main character had a who subplot of her own that made her so much deeper of a character. The novel could have been an exceptional ghost story with a murder mystery twist. But instead, it was an...more

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May 04, 2012 Kendra rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was a 3 1/2 for me, but since I read it quickly and eagerly, I bumped it up to 4. This is a good choice if you like historical novels and/or ghost stories since it is both. The story is set in Oklahoma in 1896, and the main character, Willie, has just accepted a teaching position at the Cherokee Female Seminary. The story quickly becomes intriguing as the reader realizes that Willie has accepted the teaching position under false pretenses AND she is almost the same age as her students. (The...more

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Jan 18, 2012 Melanie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult-literature, runaways, teachers, schools, native-americans, cherokee-indians, ghosts, secrets, boarding-schools

Interesting premises on this book: girl murdered by drowning haunts Cherokee National Female Seminary in the mid-19th century.

Wilhelmina Hammond is summoned home from school to help tend the family farm. Resentful of the summons, "Willie" assumes a classmates identity and takes off for Indian Territory (Oklahoma) to be a teacher at the Cherokee National Female Seminary. She immediately begins to have problems with a trio of cousins who are too big for their britches. On top of dealing with diffi...more

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Jul 01, 2011 Paula rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: ya-books, fantasy

I should start this review by saying that I know the author. And while I was intrigued by the synopsis, I had never read anything she'd written. I was hoping it would be a pleasant enough read to be able to find some nice things to say about it.

How delightful to be able to say, with all honesty, that I was completely sucked in and mesmerized by this book!

The book's writing style starts out as an intriguing merging of the styles of Jane Austen and Lucy Maude Montgomery. It does a good job of bein...more

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Jun 26, 2011 Novel Novice rated it 4 of 5 stars

Mixing genres can be a risky business, but Sonia Gensler proves she is a master literary chef with her debut novel, The Revenant — a sweeping historic thriller, with elements of your classic ghost story and Victorian romance.

The Revenant tells the story of 17-year-old Willie, who runs away from a home she can’t fit in with, and assumes a stolen identity to become a teacher at the Cherokee Female Seminary. But life in Indian Territory is not like anything Willie expected. She struggles to teach s...more Mixing genres can be a risky business, but Sonia Gensler proves she is a master literary chef with her debut novel, The Revenant — a sweeping historic thriller, with elements of your classic ghost story and Victorian romance.

The Revenant tells the story of 17-year-old Willie, who runs away from a home she can’t fit in with, and assumes a stolen identity to become a teacher at the Cherokee Female Seminary. But life in Indian Territory is not like anything Willie expected. She struggles to teach students who come from wealthier backgrounds than her own, while also fighting a growing attraction to one of the young men from the neighboring boys’ school. Then there’s the troubling matter of strange happenings that everyone else believes are linked to the ghost of a student who drowned in the river the year before. Willie’s not so quick to believe in ghosts, but as more strange (and increasingly perilous) events begin to transpire, even she can’t deny that something nefarious is at work.

What struck me so much about The Revenant is how Gensler stays so true to her characters and the time period in which the story is set. As a modern reader, it’s tempting to want your characters to just “go for it,” but in a book that takes place in 1896, there are societal expectations that just can’t be ignored. Gensler brilliantly stays true to the historical aspects of her setting, while at the same time building complex and dynamic relationships between her characters. She is a master of the Victorian courtship, and every stolen whisper and light touch of the hand is imbued with as much chemistry and sexual tension as that infamous “leg hitch” scene in Eclipse — so much so that you forget how chaste the interaction really is.

Gensler also brilliantly weaves in the history of the Cherokee Seminary School without once sacrificing an element of the story. Little bits of fact are sewn into the text seamlessly, offering a world that is all the more vivid for her efforts. Willie’s experiences simply wouldn’t be the same without such a lush historic backdrop as the one Gensler provides.

What’s more, her characters are multi-faceted and engaging. Not only does Willie have an intriguing story, but so does Eli — that mysterious young man from the boys’ school; Dr. Stewart, the charming young widower; Olivia, Willie’s fellow teacher and confidant; and even Fannie, the student who seems out to get her teacher at any cost. Not one character falls into the trappings of caricature or stereotype. In truth, Gensler could easily write a library of companion novels to The Revenant, each one chronicling the stories of these other interesting characters.(less)

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Jun 15, 2011 Margo Tanenbaum rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult, paranormal, frontier

With The Revenant, which hits bookstores this week, debut author Sonia Gensler has crafted a historical fiction/paranormal romance page turner perfect for summer reading. Our heroine is seventeen year old Willie--a self-described liar and a cheat. Desperate to avoid having to return home to help her mother take care of her half-brothers, she fakes educational credentials to get hired as an English teacher at the Cherokee Female Seminary in Indian Territory.

It’s 1896, and Willie doesn’t know wha...more With The Revenant, which hits bookstores this week, debut author Sonia Gensler has crafted a historical fiction/paranormal romance page turner perfect for summer reading. Our heroine is seventeen year old Willie--a self-described liar and a cheat. Desperate to avoid having to return home to help her mother take care of her half-brothers, she fakes educational credentials to get hired as an English teacher at the Cherokee Female Seminary in Indian Territory.

It’s 1896, and Willie doesn’t know what to expect from her new position, but she certainly doesn’t expect to find a her pupils are mostly mixed-race, upper-class young Cherokee ladies who are much more sophisticated and privileged than she is. Nor does she expect the school to be shrouded in mystery--one of their students had supposedly drowned and now her classmates believe that the young girl’s spirit haunts Willie’s room. Willie doesn’t believe in ghosts, but she can’t explain the peculiar noises and the strange events happening at school. Could it be a revenant--one who returns from the dead?

She also doesn’t know what to make of her attraction to a handsome, charming young man, Eli Sevenstar, who’s a student at the nearby Cherokee academy for boys. Romance between an instructor and a student is surely prohibited, not to mention a romance with a native. But in the meantime Willie has to figure out how to grade all the English assignments she has given out, organize the students in a Shakespeare play, and solve a murder mystery--a hefty load for any proper young lady. Can she survive long enough to figure out her own destiny?

This book offers plenty of suspense and entertainment for fans of ghost stories, mysteries and the paranormal, with a good dose of history in the mix as well. My favorite element of the book was definitely the detailed historical setting. While I was familiar with the outlines of the Cherokee Trail of Tears, when the tribe was forced to move from Georgia to what is now Oklahoma, I was unfamiliar with the existence of a small group of wealthy Cherokees who signed a treaty with the Jackson administration and moved voluntarily to what was then Indian territory. An author’s note describes Gensler’s extensive research with primary sources at the Oklahoma Historical Society and Northeastern State University’s archives. This research provided accurate historical background, including depicting the tension on campus between Cherokee students of different economic classes. The main characters are highly appealing, and teens will enjoy the bit of forbidden romance as well.

Gensler’s website provides links to further information on the real Cherokee Female Seminary, which was staffed by graduates of Mount Holyoke and other Eastern colleges. (less)

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May 23, 2011 Jennifer rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult-teen

Loved: The concept—a rural farm girl assumes the identity of a wealthy rival and takes her abandoned teaching position at an 1896 boarding school for Cherokee students. There, Willie discovers she has been given the room of a dead student and proceeds to try and unravel the mystery of her death, amidst ghostly evidence that the school is being haunted by the dead girl’s spirit. HOW HAWT IS THAT?! Great socio-economic class tension and illustration of the prejudice leveled against the Cherokee, b...more

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Apr 14, 2013 Terri rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: highly-recommended

Gensler's first novel works on several levels... It's a story of relationships, coming of age, romance and a nice little mystery all tied up in a historical fiction bundle. Winnie begins as a rather willful seventeen-year-old, taking a graduating student's identity and teaching certificate then running away to Indian Territory rather than go home to help her family. Her stereotypical image of Indians gives her confidence that, as a junior, her education is adequate to teach the basics to the you...more Gensler's first novel works on several levels... It's a story of relationships, coming of age, romance and a nice little mystery all tied up in a historical fiction bundle. Winnie begins as a rather willful seventeen-year-old, taking a graduating student's identity and teaching certificate then running away to Indian Territory rather than go home to help her family. Her stereotypical image of Indians gives her confidence that, as a junior, her education is adequate to teach the basics to the young, ignorant half-savages she expects to find at the Cherokee Female Seminary. Instead she finds herself teaching English to upper school students who just as educated as she is and far more wealthy and elegant than she could have ever imagined.

Teaching proves difficult for Winnie as she struggles to engage her students, establish appropriate relationships with students and teachers, and wrestles with grading. Winnie can tell when a composition is good or bad but has no idea how to explain the shortcomings, so papers go unmarked and students receive no feedback. Winnie also has difficulty controlling her natural teenage exuberance in social situations and is often reprimanded by the principal for improper decorum. But is hard to behave like a proper teacher when you're the same age as your students! Winnie finds it even harder to behave responsibly when Eli Sevenstar, a senior student at the Cherokee Boys' school, is around. Add to this mix the mysterious death of a student the year before and a series of unexplained strange events that have many people convinced that the girl's vengeful ghost haunts the school and particularly Winnie's room, which was also the ill-fated Ella's room. Winnie is caught up in the mystery

These disparate elements combine to yield a high interest tale that will spark speculation on "who dunnit" as well as discussion about stereotypes, responsibility, family, love and more. There is one anachronism that jangled my teacher-brain. Winnie, who has absolutely no idea of how to grade student writing, gets caught up after another teacher shares "her rubric" with her. Rubrics were not used in education until the 1970s, ninety years after the story takes place. In the 1880s the word referred to text printed in red in a formal document, usually for emphasis. In fact "rubric" comes from the Latin for red ink. It is almost a certainty that Gensler's young adult audience will never notice or care. All in all The Revenant is an intriguing and satisfying blend of genres that will engage readers.

(less)

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Jul 03, 2011 Natasha rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime, haunting, historical, romance

So this book was... interesting. The premise of a "white" girl from Tennessee stealing off in the night with a false identity to the Cherokee territory to teach in a Cherokee seminary. Now, me having a drop of Cherokee blood in my veins, I was fascinated as to where this could go. It isn't so much about Cherokee traditions, it's more about haunting and people pretending to be what they're not. Which is fine.

And then I got to the "haunting". Frankly, I've read more foreboding ghost stories writte...more

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Jan 28, 2012 Eden rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, books-to-buy, native-american-and-first-nations

Willie is 17 and she ran away after getting a letter from her mother telling Willie that she was needed at home. Willie took another girl's certificate and she's in Indian Territory to teach at a Cherokee girls school.

Life in Indian Territory is definitely not like anything Willie expected. Some of the girls come from very wealthy families and she struggles to teach them, Especially Fannie Bell. And Willie must fight the growing feelings she has for a student at the Cherokee boys school.

And then...more Willie is 17 and she ran away after getting a letter from her mother telling Willie that she was needed at home. Willie took another girl's certificate and she's in Indian Territory to teach at a Cherokee girls school.

Life in Indian Territory is definitely not like anything Willie expected. Some of the girls come from very wealthy families and she struggles to teach them, Especially Fannie Bell. And Willie must fight the growing feelings she has for a student at the Cherokee boys school.

And then she finds out about the stories of a dead student haunting the school. A student who once stayed in the room that now belongs to her.
Willie doesn't believe in ghosts, but when some strange things happen, she begins to think that it isn't just her imagination as she originally thought.

From the first page I was hooked. Willie says on the first page that she's a liar and a thief. When a character says that, you just want to keep reading to know their story.
But it wasn't just Willie I kept reading for. The stories of other characters in the book interested me as well. There were some great characters in this book and some that just made me mad, like Fannie Bell. But I think that is to be expected. I don't think Fannie is supposed to be a likeable character.
I haven't read much historical fiction, but this interested me because I love reading paranormal books - fiction or nonfiction - and I enjoy reading books about Native Americans. Since I'm Cherokee, this book interested me even more.
I think the only thing that bothered me was in the beginning Willie thought and said some offensive things about Indians. I do realize this is because the story is set in the late 1800s and also because the character only knew what she had read about Indians. But of course, later she learned much more about Indians and realizing they were just like her.

Overall, I thought this was a truly wonderful book. I love the story and Willie is a great character as well as others. To be honest, I would love another book about Willie and Eli and to know what happens to the other characters in the book. This book was so great I want to read more stories involving the characters in this book.(less)

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Nov 10, 2011 R rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-and-loved, ya, own, historical

4.5 stars, y'all.

I think this may be my favorite 2011 YA book. Published in 2011, that is. It also might be my favorite YA book read in 2011!

So, story time. I had to watch a video for my online class. The video talked about boarding schools set up for Native Americans in the 1800s and their goal of assimilating Native American children into white culture. I wanted to know more, so I did a handy dandy subject search. Soon I came across this book, when combining "Native Americans," "boarding schoo...more

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Feb 25, 2013 Taylor Fenner rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people who like ghost stories

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jul 30, 2011 Laura Bang rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, history, supernatural, young-adult, mystery

Ghost stories are not usually my cup of tea, but I know the author through the interwebs and was intrigued by the historical setting so I decided to give this a try—and I loved it!

The Revenant is a well-written mystery/ghost story (with a dash of romance, of course!) with an interesting historical backdrop. The historical aspect was probably my favorite, actually, as I knew next to nothing about the time period/place and had certainly never read anything about the Cherokee Female Seminary before...more

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May 08, 2013 Anne Broyles rated it 4 of 5 stars

For most of my life, I have been aware of and studied Cherokee history (at least since second grade, when a teacher pinched my arm and told me not to talk about my own degree of Indian blood/Cherokee heritage). So I found Gensler's setting fascinating. Really, her supernatural mystery could have taken place in any time and setting, but using Talequah, Oklahoma, Indian Territory, 1896 was a wonderful way to tell a bit of Cherokee history and culture. 17-year-old Willie is herself mysterious and b...more

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Mar 28, 2011 Karyn Silverman rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: z2011-reads, ya, arcs

Eh. There were two stories here-- three if you count the inevitable romance as its own arc-- and I think either tale might have worked, but together they made the pacing all kinds of uneven and played off each other badly. The outer story (Willie doesn't want to go home to the farm, misses her dead papa whom she worshipped, steals a classmate's teaching certificate and accepts a job in Indian Territory) is where the magic never happened, mostly because Willie is a spoiled bitch. BUT-- the charac...more

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Feb 24, 2012 Brittany rated it 2 of 5 stars

I was captured not by the cover, but what this story would be about. Stories about ghosts intrigue me. But this story just didn't do it for me. I made it halfway through and I felt like the same thing kept happening again and again. One of the girls gets hurt 'cause a ghost girl is trying to get revenge on them and uses water as her weapon of choice. All the other girls hear noises coming from the room Willie resides in where they think the ghost girl now haunts as well. Willie brushes them off....more

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Dec 13, 2011 Anne rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, historical-fiction, paranormal, mystery, romance, washyarg-reviews, young-adult

Willie is 17 years old when she steals another young lady's teaching credentials and then moves to Indian Territory to teach at The Cherokee Seminary for Girls. She does this to avoid going back to the farm to help her mother and step-father with young twin boys and a new baby, not to mention all the chores. She is shocked to find the seminary much bigger and more elegant than she imagined – plus she is not much older than the senior girls attending the school. She is in for more surprises thoug...more

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Aug 08, 2011 Leah Fuller rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Sometimes there comes a book that fits into a category I like MLB, major league books. The Revenant is one of this books. This setting was fantastic, historically accurate, and well described. The main character Willie was the perfect character. Bold and shy, headstrong in her ways and wise and able to change. The romance was wonderful an kept me on the edge oft seer waiting for more. And the writing, well lets just say Sonia Gensler took my breath away. Even parts that normally would have bored...more

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Feb 19, 2013 Tracy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Willie runs away to Cherokee Nation to avoid farm and family life. At 17, Willie steals a classmates identity and assumes the role of a teacher at a Cherokee Female Seminary. Mystery, historical fiction and paranormal activity - and it really, really works!
Forbidden love, mysterious men, strong women and a revenant (one who returns)kept me glued to this book for the past two days.
I was particularly touched by the end. An 18 year old child begins to understand her mother and the choices that sh...more

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Jul 25, 2011 Kwinks rated it 4 of 5 stars

What a pleasure! This is not only a spooky ghost story, but a highly researched historical novel as well. I could not put it down, and do not remember reading anything like it before.
I was super pleased to see the main character grow up during this novel, the change was subtle,and realistic. Very well done!
The ghost here is a real chiller, but scarier than the dead is the behavior of the living. This novel, at its core, is really about class and social standing. It is about how we treat each ot...more

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Mar 06, 2013 Kate Langtry rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-favourites

I read this book in one night and I´ve got to say, it was different from what I was expecting. I love historical fiction, especially if it´s set in the 1890s, so this was the perfect book for me. I was hoping for it to be a creepy ghost story with some romance tossed in and to some extend it was. But it was a bit more than that and I´m not sure that was a good thing.

I loved the setting though. It was different and very interesting, even though I would have liked to learn more about how people t...more I read this book in one night and I´ve got to say, it was different from what I was expecting. I love historical fiction, especially if it´s set in the 1890s, so this was the perfect book for me. I was hoping for it to be a creepy ghost story with some romance tossed in and to some extend it was. But it was a bit more than that and I´m not sure that was a good thing.

I loved the setting though. It was different and very interesting, even though I would have liked to learn more about how people treated the natives back then. There was only one scene during which the problems of the Cherokee were really addressed and the rest of the book concentrated on other things and topics. The problems between white people, Cherokee and half-Cherokee were mentioned too and I had some "This is unfair!"-moments, but there could have been more of that. Overall this book concentrated a bit too much on it´s protagonist. That´s fine, I mean she IS the protagonist after all, but I think choosing a setting like this comes with the responsibility of explaining that setting and the problems of the people you write about - not only the main character´s.

I liked Willie though. She was a great narrator with a very interesting voice and I loved how she wasn´t your usual YA-good-girl who could do no wrong and lived only to be loved by others. I understand Willie´s motivation to leave her family behind and cheat her way into the seminary and I liked how strong and determined she was to keep her new life. She was an interersting heroine and felt real to me.

What I really loved though was the ghost story. I´m a real sucker for the fin de siècle and I love stories about séances and ghosts. There was some of that in this book even though I was kinda missing the Victorian approach to mortality here. It felt very modern to me. But I liked the way the ghost story built and how it all turned out in the end. I wasn´t expecting the outcome at all and the last few chapters of the ghost story were really intriguing.

What I didn´t like so much was that the ghost story fell kinda short when it came to pacing. The pacing in this novel seems a bit off. First you´ve got a detailed description of single days, then whole weeks get skipped. The actual ghost story is over too soon and then there are about fifty pages left of Willie just... living. I don´t really care for that in a ghost story. Without the ghost story it would have worked, if this book had really focused on it´s main character´s life story. Historical fiction does that all the time. But the focus of the novel should not have been Willie getting her act together but the story of Ella´s death and hauntings and how to solve the mystery regarding her spirit. Sometimes I felt like the novel couldn´t decide wether it wanted to be a scary Gothic Novel or rather a historical coming of age story and the mix didn´t work too well.

And then there was the problem of me not caring for the love interest at all. He had too little page time to really catch my attention and I didn´t like him at all. He seemed sleazy to me, not the kind of guy I would want around. In two of the few scenes he featured in he was drunk. And most of the time he was just a tease (Willie mentions this too), which would have been perfectly fine if there had been some deeper moments too. I would have liked to see him drop his act and be a bit more serious but the only time he wasn´t grinning and making funny remarks was when he got really angry. I didn´t feel the connection between him and Willie either. But okay, I don´t care much for love stories so I didn´t mind this all too much.

The writing on the other hand was spectacular. I loved it. It was the right mix of modern YA and a more victorian romantic style and I really liked the descriptions of clothing, rooms and people. It added a lot to the Gilded Age atmosphere and I really liked that.

Overall I really liked this book. It was a great read I couldn´t put down once and I loved the protagonist and ghost story. I just felt there was too much of Willie and too little of everything else to make it work as a ghostly mystery and the pacing was off. But I still think this book will appeal to people who love historical paranormal stories. (less)

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May 05, 2012 Ems (Ems Reviews Books) rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: paranormal, young-adult, historical-fiction

I picked this one up at the local library because I thought the cover was stunning. I'd never heard of Sonia Gensler before, so I went into it blind on her writing style. I've discovered that I kind of like that. I like not knowing anything beforehand, because it really lets me start with a clean slate and no preconceived notions gleaned from others.

I found the combination of historical fiction and a little bit of paranormal quite fascinating. I really enjoyed the story. Willie made a fairly str...more

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Feb 23, 2012 Dark Faerie Tales rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed-by-macie

Review Courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales

Quick and Dirty: The Revenant is unique because of the setting and genre. The novel did get slow at times, but the conclusion is worth it to finish.

Opening Sentence: I thought by the time I’d transferred to the Kansas and Arkansas Valley Railway, this foolish tendency to jump at every sound, to blush each time someone looked me in the eyes, would have subsided.

The Review:

In Sonia Gensler’s debut novel about paranormal happenings at girls school in the rural Ok...more

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Dec 09, 2011 Kristina rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, young-adult

I didn't have high expectations for this book, but I was still disappointed. I didn't get a good ghost story and I didn't get a good Cherokee story. So that leaves this book in the "I'm embarrassed to have read this clearly-meant-for-teens book" category. The thing is, there are some YA books that are really good and can bridge the gap, but this isn't one of them.
(view spoiler)...more

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Jul 16, 2011 Janice Liedl rated it 5 of 5 stars

The Revenant was riveting - I knew a bit about the book as I started it but I followed so many twists and turns along the way that the story kept taking me by surprise. Willie is angry and adventurous, a combination which takes her far away from home, into Oklahoma Territory where she has her misconceptions about the west, the Cherokee and her own self all shaken in short order. Add a burgeoning mystery to the tale as well as an intriguing romantic storyline and you have a captivating recipe for...more

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Nov 16, 2011 Pam rated it 4 of 5 stars

**3.5 Stars**

To escape a life she doesn’t want, Wilhemina, impersonates a classmate and takes her teaching job out in the Cherokee nation. Once she arrives at the school, she finds she isn’t prepared to be a teacher of girls her own age. She is also thrust into the middle of a murder mystery. The previous year a classmate was murdered and Willie now inhabits her old room. Things start going bump in the night and the murdered girl’s former roommates are being inexplicably hurt. When Willie starts...more

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Jul 15, 2011 Doug Solter rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is one of the best ghost stories I've ever read. What I like about it is that the book is more than a ghost story, it's a story that explores every teen's fantasy of leaving home and forging a new life. But with a new life comes a steeper learning curve with immense rewards and dangers, especially in a world that's constantly changing.

What brings out the originality in this story is the setting which takes place inside a Cherokee girls school inside Indian Territory (Oklahoma) at the dawn o...more

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Other Editions (4)

Genres

Young Adult

52 users

Historical Fiction

49 users

Fantasy > Paranormal

31 users

Paranormal > Ghosts

30 users

Mystery

20 users

Fantasy

20 users

Romance

14 users

Fantasy > Supernatural

11 users

Young Adult > Teen

8 users

Young Adult > Young Adult Fantasy

4 users

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About Sonia Gensler

I am a former high school teacher turned full-time writer living in Oklahoma with my husband and my cat.

My debut novel, THE REVENANT (Knopf 2011), is a ghostly mystery set at a Cherokee girls' school. My latest book, THE DARK BETWEEN (Knopf, August 2013) is a Gothic murder mystery set in Cambridge, England.

PLEASE NOTE: I'm not assigning stars to book reviews anymore. I'm really not writing revie...more

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