Tell the Wolves I'm Home in Crazy Challenge Connection

Mar 01, 2013 Chaitra rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: lgbt, contemporary-fiction, bildungsroman, young-adult

Given that I hate Young Adult genre as a rule, Tell the Wolves I'm Home comes as a pleasant surprise. I loved this book. I avoided it for a while because I have a mortal fear of book wolves post Twilight. But I'm happy to say this book has nothing to do with werewolves. It's rather a beautifully written coming of age YA book that tackles an adult theme with the maturity and the complexity it deserves.

June Elbus, the fourteen years old narrator, would love to have been born in medieval times, her Given that I hate Young Adult genre as a rule, Tell the Wolves I'm Home comes as a pleasant surprise. I loved this book. I avoided it for a while because I have a mortal fear of book wolves post Twilight. But I'm happy to say this book has nothing to do with werewolves. It's rather a beautifully written coming of age YA book that tackles an adult theme with the maturity and the complexity it deserves.

June Elbus, the fourteen years old narrator, would love to have been born in medieval times, her ambition is to be a falconer and her deepest, darkest secret is that she's in love with her uncle and godfather, Finn. Finn is dying of AIDS - this is the 80s when AIDS has just begun to rare its ugly head. After he dies, she becomes aware of the existence of his boy friend, Toby, who her family believes is the culprit. She hates him at first, believing her family's stand on him, but gradually befriends him for his own sake. Throughout this, she has a difficult relationship with her older sister Greta, who used to be her best friend. But Greta grew prettier and June grew weirder and the relationship was fraught.

Tell the Wolves I'm Home deals with some difficult subjects: AIDS when it was still taboo, the apportioning of blame, the forbidden nature of love, jealousy and redemption, and the fallibility of usually kind-hearted adults. It deals with them beautifully, never once overwhelming me, the reader with the tragedy of it all, never once manipulating my emotions. The prose is lyrical but understated. It would be very easy to slip into melodrama, but Brunt steers clear of that throughout this tearjerker of a book. June Elbus is a very relatable character, and her feelings, her love for the weird, for her uncle Finn is palpable. The other characters too are accessible and their motivations are explained well. None of them are perfect, not even Finn, but they're all coming from a place I could understand. I loved Greta and Toby and their respective relationships with June.

All in all, I'll be looking forward to the next Carol Rifka Brunt story, because this one has proven to me that she can indeed write a near perfect book, in my least favorite genre no less. ...more

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Jul 17, 2024 Olivermagnus rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: ya, fiction, x7, 2024, zjuly-2024

Tell the Wolves I'm Home portrays an awkward young girl’s struggle to comprehend love in a time and a culture when AIDS awareness was just beginning. Fourteen-year-old June Elbus feels closer to her uncle Finn than anyone else on earth. June’s love for Finn will not die even though Finn is. It’s 1987, and he has AIDS. In the final months of his life, Finn spends Sunday afternoons painting a portrait of June and her sister, Greta, that he titles “Tell the Wolves I’m Home.” The girls’ mother, Finn ...more

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Apr 20, 2020 Keksisbaby rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorite, on-my-kindle, 0-blue-cover, read-in-english, read-2020

June ist ein bisschen anders als andere in ihrem Alter und der Einzige der das zu verstehen scheint ist ihr Onkel Finn. Er ist ein bekannter Maler und fertigt von ihrer Mutter, ihrer Schwester und ihr ein Portrait an. Viel Zeit bleibt ihm nicht, denn Finn hat Aids und 1987 hat noch niemand ein Medikament gegen diese tückische Krankheit. Als Finn stirbt, sucht sein Freund Toby den Kontakt zu ihr. Dies geschieht heimlich, denn Junes Familien kommt sehr mit dem Lebensstil den Finn geführt hat nicht June ist ein bisschen anders als andere in ihrem Alter und der Einzige der das zu verstehen scheint ist ihr Onkel Finn. Er ist ein bekannter Maler und fertigt von ihrer Mutter, ihrer Schwester und ihr ein Portrait an. Viel Zeit bleibt ihm nicht, denn Finn hat Aids und 1987 hat noch niemand ein Medikament gegen diese tückische Krankheit. Als Finn stirbt, sucht sein Freund Toby den Kontakt zu ihr. Dies geschieht heimlich, denn Junes Familien kommt sehr mit dem Lebensstil den Finn geführt hat nicht gut klar. Zunächst weigert sich June die Verantwortung für Toby zu übernehmen, aber in ihm findet sie jemanden der ihren Onkel ebenso vermisst. Was sie nie geahnt hätte ist, dass diese schwierige Zeit ihr ermöglicht wieder einen Zugang zu ihrer Familie zu finden.

Schon lange stand „Tell the wolves I’m home“ auf meiner Lesewunschliste und nun nach der Lektüre finde ich auch zu Recht. Die Beziehung von June zu ihrem Onkel mag für viele befremdlich anmuten, weil sie in ihn verliebt zu sein scheint, von daher verstehe ich das einige Leser sich nicht so gut mit der Geschichte anfreunden können. Ich für meinen Teil fand es nicht schlimm, zumal es glaube ich nur darauf beruht, dass June jemanden gefunden hat, der ihre verschrobene Art versteht und sie unterstützt die zu sein, die sie ist. Mit ihrer tagträumerischen Art und ihrer Vorliebe fürs Mittelalter, stößt sie oft auf Unverständnis in ihrem Umfeld. Toby konnte ich zu Beginn nicht wirklich einordnen. Er scheint eine dysfunktionale Persönlichkeit zu haben, aber je weiter man liest, desto mehr Facetten kommen zu Vorschein und man erkennt, dass Finn nicht der Heilige ist, den seine Schwester aus ihm machen will. Manchmal wusste ich nicht wer sich um wen kümmert, June um Toby oder Toby um June. Augenscheinlich brauchen sie sich gegenseitig um mit dem Tod des geliebten Menschen klarzukommen, der zuvor ein Fixpunkt in ihrer beider Leben darstellte. Schwierig ist es nur, dass Junes Mutter ihre Wut auf Toby projiziert und er somit zu einer Persona non grata avanciert. Als anstrengend empfand ich auch Junes Verhältnis zu ihrer Schwester, die durch die Pubertät einen Knacks erlitten hat. Der Tod von Finn und das Gemälde bringt beide wieder näher. Insbesondere da beide daran beginnen herum zu malen, was herauskommt, als ein Käufer viel Geld für dieses Werk bietet.

Die Geschichte hat mich auf so vielen Ebenen berührt und das Buch kommt mit Sicherheit auf meinen Re-read-Stapel. Ich wette mir werden beim erneuten Lesen bestimmt noch Sachen auffallen, die mir bei der ersten Lektüre entgangen sind. ...more

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Jan 19, 2013 Michelle rated it liked it

This was a hard one to rate. The writing is spectacular, however I tended to get bored and just a bit creeped out. In 1987 I was a year older than June and a year younger than Greta so I remember the huge AIDS epidemic and how everyone freaked out. The characters were a tad screwed up. I wanted to like them, but I just couldn't. June was way too attached to her Uncle Finn in a way that was really not healthy for a 14 year old. Not only was it strange, but she managed to push everyone else in her ...more

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Feb 26, 2017 Sushicat rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

When June's Uncle Finn dies of AIDS, she struggles to come to grips with her feelings and her relationships with her family. The one person who feels the loss as keenly as herself is Finn's friend, which he has kept hidden all these years. A very moving story. ...more

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Dec 16, 2017 Peg rated it really liked it · review of another edition

So many emotions still running through me after putting this down. This is not just a raw coming of age story placed in the 80's, it is one of grief, the struggle through that murky hell and finding a way out that works. Try any way you can, just find one, even when you're not looking. This may have hit me hard in areas since that's where I'm at in my life, although I believe it will ring true for anyone at anytime if they have been through a loss.
It's characters could ring true with all their ...more

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Nov 06, 2012 Mildy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

It was obviously a good read, I breezed trough the book in 1 1/2 days. However, the story didn't really develop much, and it's really difficult to like the characters (with the exception of Toby). Not only that, it seems like the author felt the need to point out the flaws of the characters to the readers. And a big part of the book the book is just sappy, although this is as good as a tear-jerk-er can get.
11/9/12: ok, I probably wasn't being fair. two days after I finished the book I'm still cr ...more

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