MONSTROUS

Something terribly wrong is going on in Sanctum, Alabama.

Folks keep mysteriously dying in the small town. Meanwhile, Latavia must follow Auntie’s strict rules: stay inside at night, come right home after church, and keep out of the foreboding Red Wood. To Latavia’s relief, there are only a few weeks to go before she’s off to the University of Georgia. That’s plenty of time to visit her crush, Allison, at the ice cream shop and hang out with her geeky younger cousin, Jade. Getting ready for a party one night, Latavia falls prey to a group of townsfolk who take her deep into Red Wood with violent force. In the woods, she’s left as a sacrifice for a monster that slithers out of the darkness. The gigantic snake, however, speaks—and Latavia strikes a scandalous deal. If she destroys the magical barriers protecting the town from the creature’s wrath, she can go free and get revenge against those who sentenced her to death. A frantic supernatural thriller, Lewis’ latest careens from light bloodshed to melodrama with impressive abandon. It also lightly explores racial inequity; Latavia is Black in a seemingly predominantly white town in the American South. Underdeveloped secondary characters smooth the moral quandaries that Latavia faces to their absolute, moral extremes. Overall, this offers an intriguing, at times spellbinding peek into antiheroic actions and an overt meditation on what it means to be monstrous.

Fantastically vicious.