The Serpent King

Starred review from December 14, 2015
Forrestville, Tenn., named after Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest, isn’t exactly a welcome place for slightly ouside-the-mainstream folks like friends Dillard, Lydia, and Travis. Dill is a high school senior whose snake-handling preacher father is currently incarcerated; Lydia, a successful fashion blogger, plans on attending NYU after graduation; and Travis, large of body and gentle of soul, loses himself (and the pain of his father’s physical and emotional abuse) in a fantasy series called Bloodfall. While Dill finds comfort and beauty in music, Travis’s innate kindness belies his circumstances, and Lydia’s incandescent, gleefully offbeat personality draws them together. As the novel, Zentner’s debut, builds to a shocking act of violence that shatters the friends’ world, this sepia-toned portrait of small-town life serves as a moving testament to love, loyalty, faith, and reaching through the darkness to find light and hope. Zentner explores difficult themes head on—including the desire to escape the sins of the father and the fragility of happiness—while tempering them with the saving grace of enduring friendship. Ages 14–up. Agent: Charlie Olsen, Inkwell Management.

November 15, 2015
Grades 9-12 In small-town Forrestville, Tennessee, broody musician Dill Early begins his senior year with a general feeling of dread because it means his best friend, Lydia, will be leaving for college once they graduate. As the son of a snake-handling Pentecostal preacher currently in prison, Dill is unable to escape his father's shadow. Lydia, on the other hand, is an outspoken blogger and fashionista, who can't wait to get out of Dodge. Completing their trio is Travis, a gentle giant who carries a staff and is obsessed with fantasy novels. In chapters that shift among the teens' perspectives, Zentner effectively shows the aspirations, fears, and dark secrets they harbor during their final year together. A musician himself, Zentner transitions to prose easily in his debut, pulling in complex issues that range from struggles with faith to abuse to grief. Refreshingly, this novel isn't driven by romancethough it rears its headbut by the importance of pursuing individual passions and forging one's own path. A promising new voice in YA.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2016
Three misfits in small-town Forrestville, Tennessee, have found solace in one another, but the start of senior year throws their vastly different posthigh school options into high relief. Dill, the son of a disgraced snake-handling preacher, knows he'll spend the foreseeable future paying off his family's debts by working at the local grocer; likewise, Travis, whose father has only grown more abusive since the death of Travis's older brother in Afghanistan, is likely to escape Forrestville only in the pages of his beloved fantasy novels. But for fashion blogger Lydia, senior year marks not an ending but only the beginning of the beginning as she starts planning for college at NYU. The three friends' relationships are complex and credible, both before and after a tragedy that throws Dill into a morass of depression and self-doubt. The adult characters are less well developed, frequently speaking in expository statements that contrast with the teens' more realistic and engaging dialogue. However, Zentner rarely takes the easy way out thematically, instead vigorously wrestling with issues of Christian faith, family history, poverty, and mental health. In the end, readers will, like Dill, be left pondering where salvation lies: with God, with oneself, or with one another. norah piehl

(Copyright 2016 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)