History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund

Such an unsettling, coming of age story this is. It's the first time I read a novel in which the title has nothing to do with the development of the plot. The story is told from Linda's point of view, a 14 year old girl who lived in Northern Minnesota. She is socially awkward, no friends and a strange relationship with her parents mostly related to a lack of communication. Linda's knowledge of the world is limited because of the remoteness of the place in which she lives and this makes the story so unusual. However, she is a good judge of people, she is highly obsessed with observing people's gestures, activities. At the same time she knows so little about the world especially the grow up world and what should be taken for granted. It is her deep love for nature and her surroundings that allows her to connect with Paul, a 4 year old child she baby sits. Together they participate in games and daily walks in the woods. We learn from the start that Paul dies in peculiar circumstances but we don't know exactly what happens until the end. Other than that, the novel jumps forward and backward in time with a plot that succeeds to maintain the reader's attention. There is also a peculiarity about this novel that I enjoyed so much. It's strongly related to the setting, the atmosphere inside and outside home and characters. All characters within the story seem to be slightly detached from their present and this is not attributed only to their geographical remoted lives. On the surface they seem so ordinary and not very likable, but I've found them so interesting because of that weirdness and detachment. The language is poetical and it makes the writing and the winter descriptions so lovely. The pacing is slow and most of the events happen so quietly that they hardly seem to happen at all. Having said all that I can only say that I thoroughly enjoyed the novel and I recommend it to you all. Did you read it and if so did you enjoy it?