Together We Rot

[cornerofmadness]

Together We Rot by Skyla Arndt

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I absolutely loved this. I'm hard wired to love a character like Elwood. I want to see abused children like him get away from their abusers and succeed and boy is Elwood abused. His father is a head of a Christian cult definitely into not sparing the rod. He also goes in big for animal sacrifice (that's your content warning, child abuse and a few on page rabbit deaths). Elwood's mother is even more vicious than his fire and brimstone father. All Elwood is, is a soft boy who likes to collect butterflies and moth and he likes his best friend, Wil.

That is until Wil's mother disappears and she blames Elwood's family for it. Wil's life is falling completely apart. Since her former investigative reporter mother had walked off once when she was very small, the local cops are sure that's what happened again, especially since her father's motel is moldering around them. Wil's father has been drinking his wife's disappearance away and Elwood's father is close to buying the hotel and razing it, leaving Wil homeless.

Wil has one friend left and that's not Elwood. Ronnie (whose mom is in Elwood's father's church) is her friend in spite of her bad taste (according to Wil) in boys. She doesn't like Lucas or his friend Kevin much though some of that could be they're friends with Elwood.

Much of the action is in just a couple of days. Wil is determined to prove Elwood's father has kidnapped her mother with a background of the last semester of high school and all of them on the cusp of adulthood. For Elwood, that means...well he doesn't know. All he knows is he won't be going to college like his friends. All too soon it means something dire and he fears rabbits aren't the only thing his father's willing to sacrifice.

Soon Wil's investigation into what happened to her mother is conflated with what is about to happen to Elwood and what dark secrets the forest in frigid upstate Michigan is holding. It is dark and creepy. You have the pathos of being a teen faced with those big life decisions post high school, the pain and fear of losing a mother, basically a father and your home coupled with Elwood's deep fear that he won't live to see spring.

Wil and Elwood are beautifully written characters. I also enjoyed Cherry, one of Wil's mom's friends. The villains of the piece have nicely done motivations and feel as awful as they should in this. Horror, unlike other genres, has no promises of a happy ending (though you usually have at least one person who makes it to the end) so that does keep you guessing. Will Wil and Elwood and their friends survive? That you'll need to read for yourself. It's well worth the read. Thanks to Netgalley for the arc.



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