Tell the Wolves I’m Home: A Novel by Carol Rifka Brunt

I really need to pay attention to how books end up on my to-read list. Case in point? This one. Tell the Wolves I’m Home is the debut novel of Carol Rifka Brunt.  It tells the story of two teenage sisters, lonely individuals in their own ways, who have a tumultous relationship. I wasn’t dazzled. In fact I was annoyed. As a woman with three sisters I just didn’t understand what all the meanness between the two was all about. There was nothing touching about the evolution of their relationship. I found the coming-of-age angle tedious. That said, I kept going on because I was intrigued by how the author handled the fragile years of AIDS in America in the 1980s. In brief, 15-year-old June must come to terms with the death of uncle Finn from AIDS, the only person with whom she can be herself, by befriending his boyfriend. And that is about it. Perhaps I would have enjoyed it more were I to be a teenager right now.