THE CRESSWELL PLOT

A girl struggles to break the cultlike bonds tying her and her siblings to their tyrannical, religious father.

Castella Creswell, a white teen called Castley, and her five siblings have always been ruled by the word of God as taught by their father. He makes them study not only the Bible, but his own book of revelations. They live in the woods and have been taught that they are the only pure people left and will be married to one another in a heavenly ceremony. But at 17, Castley has begun to question her father’s rule and wonders if her siblings do too. Though punished to the point of abuse, her brothers and sisters defend their father and the visions of fire and brimstone that guide him—even when he tells them that they’ll all soon be called home to God. And the only way to be called home to God is to die. Castley’s forays into normal high school life are both delicious in their rebellion and heartbreaking in their revelations. As the siblings reckon with their faith in their father, they clash within and with one another, and it’s a breathtaking, gut-wrenching coming-of-age saga from all sides. Readers will be swept into the Creswells’ claustrophobic world and ache for them long after it’s set aflame.

A harrowing, pulpy page-turner along the compulsive lines of Flowers in the Attic.