Format: Hardcover, 336 pages
Release Date: September 4, 2018
Publisher: Algonquin Young Readers
Source: Library
Genre: Young Adult / Ghost Stories
Bina has never forgotten the time she and her mother ran away from home. Her mother promised they would hitchhike to the city to escape Bina’s cruel father and start over. But before they could even leave town, Bina had a new stepfather and two new stepsisters, and a humming sense of betrayal pulling apart the bond with her mother—a bond Bina thought was unbreakable.
Eight years later, after too many lies and with trouble on her heels, Bina finds herself on the side of the road again, the city of her dreams calling for her. She has an old suitcase, a fresh black eye, and a room waiting for her at Catherine House, a young women’s residence in Greenwich Village with a tragic history, a vow of confidentiality, and dark, magical secrets. There, Bina is drawn to her enigmatic downstairs neighbor Monet, a girl who is equal parts intriguing and dangerous. As Bina’s lease begins to run out, and nightmare and memory get tangled, she will be forced to face the terrible truth of why she’s come to Catherine House and what it will cost for her to leave . . .
In A Room Away from the Wolves, critically acclaimed and New York Times bestselling author Nova Ren Suma weaves a spellbinding ghost story about who deserves a second chance, how we lie to those around us and ourselves, and what lengths girls will go to in order to save each other.
Author Nova Ren Suma's A Room Away From the Wolves is a spellbinding ghost story set in a refuge for trouble girls deep in the heart of New York City. The story is told in the first person narrative by Sabina (Bina) Tremper a girl who has had a difficult life. She remembers her mother teaching her how to hitchhike. She also taught her how to cover up abuse she receives from her step-sisters, or shall I call them, step monsters? After being told to leave by her mother, Bina sees a dark tunnel with even more danger and darkness ahead.
How could her own mother trust her new husband and his daughters over her Bina? Bina is
supposed to go stay with a friend of her mothers, but she instead decides to run away to
New York City and find the mysterious Catherine House from her mother's
stories. Catherine House is supposed to be a safe refuge for girls of her age. As you are reading this book, you have to ask yourself questions: Is Sabina really a liar? Is she confused? Or, is something even more
sinister at work?
It's clear Bina's not telling the whole truth, but
readers will relish the clues and Easter eggs the author drops as her story
unwinds. You will have to also piece together clues that the author provides you as to what actually happened to Bina before she came to NYC. I have to admit that I figured out the plot early in this story. I figured out the plot because the author doesn't bother trying to hide the fact that this isn't a normal contemporary story about a girl who runs away from home and ends up in the same place her mother spent when she was 18 and pregnant with Bina.
It is a story about a girl who may hold answers to those who live in the home. It is a story about a girl who meets a bizarre girl named Monet Mathis who apparently knows secrets about Bina and her purpose. Nova Ren Suma is a strange author. You can look at the story's that she has written (The Walls Around Us, Imaginary Girls, 17 & Gone) to see the obvious talent she has for making strange places, and characters, and then tossing in a whole lot of magical realism aspects into the story.
A Room Away From the Wolves is a mixed genre mashup. It is a bit on the spooky side, it is a bit on the mysterious side, and it is definitely a bit of everything else mixed in. As for the secondary characters, most are a mixed lot with various inclinations to just be there when things happen, while Monet is a light in a dark place who flutters in and out of Bina's life one moment until the next. Monet brings Bina out of her shell, and she begins to question things that are happening to and around her. This story could be a case study on relationships between mothers and daughters and how unfulfilled promises drove a major stake into their relationship which honestly never is allowed a second chance.
