Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

Sadly, I’m not even kidding. Maybe a Fox was co-written by Kathi Appelt and Alison McGhee, but if you follow the Nicholas Sparks rule of “if two characters are truly happy together, there’s a good chance one of them is going to die”, you won’t be far off. Jules and Sylvie have lost their mother already, and Jules loses Sylvie not 60 pages into the novel. (That’s not a spoiler if you’ve read any description of the book at all.) Meanwhile, Senna the Fox is born with a special connection to the human world, and she loves and IS fiercely loved by her family even while she knows she has something she must do that sets her apart from them. Jules’ and Sylvie’s friend Sam is grateful to have his older brother home from Afghanistan, but Elk isn’t the same brother that left a year ago; he is grieving the loss of his best friend, Zeke, who didn’t return. Zeke’s grandmother raised Zeke because his parents died in a car accident, and she’s still grieving for him while helping Jules and her father in the wake of Sylvie’s loss. Throw in an unwise young bear and the possible return of the rare, gone-for-decades catamount to the Vermont woods, and you have a beautifully written tale of grief and love and loss within both the human and the animal world.

Bottom line? There is no shortage of sadness in this book, friends. The Vermont setting called to me, and I appreciate and respect beauty when I see it; on the other hand, I wouldn’t reach for another such book anytime soon.

You’ll have to make your own decision about this one.