March 15, 2024
Varying perspectives show the inner workings--and secrets--of a rural Vermont town. The humdrum order of small-town Glenville, Vermont, is disrupted when a family moves in from New York. Parents Sarah and Jim Calper seek a better life for their son, Willoughby, while Will just seeks an end to the summer so he can leave for college. But when he meets sheltered, home-schooled Honey Mitchell and falls in love, he unknowingly changes Glenville forever. Kuebler's debut novel spans a year in the town through the alternating perspectives of residents whose deepest thoughts betray a tense, insular place buried beneath a peaceful surface. As Honey defies her evangelical parents for Will, other characters go through parallel changes. Honey's friend Sophie, for instance, deals with jealousy and fracturing friendships, while Nell, an isolated woman living alone in the woods, navigates poverty and disability in the midst of the cruel Vermont seasons. Honey and Will's relationship, though shown sparingly, is the axis around which the story swings. Their devotion to one another brings about a surprising conclusion, one whose arrival Kuebler sows slowly and carefully. The narrative moves like the river that runs through the town: gentle at first, then harsh and unforgiving. At times dark, at other times beautiful, Kuebler's debut shines in its precision. It picks apart each character's thoughts in an unusual clipped stream-of-consciousness narrative. The characters' points of view fit together like an elaborate quilt, gradually coming together into a satisfying whole. Kuebler's skillful, minimalist prose carries this small-town story from tranquil beginning to perilous end. Among the residents' growth, discovery, and tenderly told emotional arcs, only one thing is certain: Glenville will never be the same. An intricate, slow-burning patchwork of a debut novel.
COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
April 1, 2024
Seasons in Glenville, Vermont, are marked by snows, thaws, swims, and changing leaves. Kuebler's debut plays off the four seasons and the seasons of life, all of them reflected in the river running through town. Postmistress Jeanne is interested in others' news but personally stagnant. Nell lives alone on a shoestring, haunted by the river and by loss. Friends Sophie, Honey, and Amber are the only girls in their class, if Honey, being homeschooled, counts. Sophie's family are innkeepers, and Honey's family has an agricultural business. Amber lives in town with her mother to escape her dad and brothers, the bad-news LeBeaus. New Yorkers Jim and Sarah and their college-bound son, Will, settle in Vermont to fulfill a dream. Then Will sees Honey swimming in the river, her face, figure, and thick blond hair jump-starting a romance the two hide from their families. Kuebler's prose is visual, astute, and rich. Family drama, mystery, and subtle foreshadowing carry readers headlong to the conclusion. A novel for readers who relish a sense of place, quirky characters, and intertwined stories.
COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Starred review from August 12, 2024
Kuebler debuts with a pitch-perfect narrative of a small Vermont town and the intersecting lives of its residents. Some of the novel’s many characters are directly impacted by the arrival of Jim and Sarah Calper, who move to Glenville, Vt., from New York City with their teenage son, Will. Drama ensues after Will attracts attention from his classmate Sophie, a budding singer-songwriter. Among Sophie’s best friends is the homeschooled Honey, who Will chooses over Sophie, causing her to be intensely jealous. The cast also includes the infamous LeBeau boys, including Eli, who’s called the “runt of the family” by his father and who pines after Honey, spying on her and Will making out in the woods. Eli’s oldest brother, Cyrus, is making and selling a synthetic drug called Z8, and Kuebler crafts mesmerizing scenes of Eli wandering the woods while high off Cyrus’s stash, fantasizing about burgling the Calper house (“Look how these rich people live up here, with their big bright windows shining out for everyone to see”). Kuebler applies the same succinct style to all the characters’ points of view, laying bare their emotions at various crisis points, including a drowning and an unplanned pregnancy, which force the people of Glenville to reconcile with each other. This is iridescent.