When her older sister runs away to elope, Alice Winston is left to bear the brunt of her family`s troubles - a depressed, bed-ridden mother, a reticent, overworked father, and a rundown horse ranch. Faced with the hottest summer in fifteen years and a pile of bills, the Winstons are forced to board the pampered horses of rich neighbors, and Alice must confront the power and security that class and wealth provide. As the summer unfolds, her family and their well-being become intertwined with the lives of their clients Alice begins a dangerous friendship. Drawn into an adult world of secrets, hard truths, and even harder consequences, Alice experiences her first kiss, her first beer, and her first infatuation. But when the rain comes and brings the summer to an end, Alice`s choices lead to a devastating betrayal and a shocking, violent series of events that will forever change her family`s world.
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The Significant Seven Spotlight Title, March 2007: Aryn Kyle's haunting coming-of-age novel is the kind of book that you want to share with everyone you know. Twelve-year-old Alice Winston is growing up fast on her father's run-down horse ranch--coping with the death of a classmate and the absence of her older sister (who ran off with a rodeo cowboy), trying to understand her depressed and bedridden mother, and attempting to earn the love and admiration of her reticent, weary father. Lyrical, powerful, and unforgettable, The God of Animals is our must-read, must-own, must-share book for March. --Daphne Durham
Amazon.com
Joe has little time for Alice, other than counting on her to muck out the stalls and be polite to the paying customers. He doesn't even notice that she has outgrown her clothes. What Kyle does with this scenario is never predictable or clichéd. She writes beautifully of landscapes, interior and exterior, ravaged by extremes: the hottest summer in years, followed by a deluge; a lonely, isolated girl reaching out to a teacher, Mr. Delmar, equally alienated.
Alice starts telling lies, weaving bits and pieces of other people's lives into the tales she tells the teacher. What we eventually find out about her family is more poignant and tragic than anything she can make up. Horse lore is a large part of what explains each of the people in the novel: separating mares from their foals, the way a stud is treated, breaking a horse, ordinary everyday contact. This bond is explored in depth and each person: Alice, Nona, Joe, Joe's father, Alice's mother, is affected by this closeness in a different, unique way, revelatory of each individual's character. Much more than a coming-of-age tale, Kyle told a story of compromises and dreams that will never come true. --Valerie Ryan
10 Second Interview: A Few Words with Aryn Kyle
Aryn Kyle's Favorite Coming-of-Age Novels
Housekeeping | That Night | Thumbsucker | Ghostworld | Atonement |
Aryn Kyle graduated from the University of Montana writing program. In 2004 her short story Foaling Season, now the first chapter of this novel, won a National Magazine Award for Fiction for The Atlantic Monthly. Kyle spent most of her childhood in Grand Junction, Colorado, and now lives in Missoula, Montana.
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