Name: The Serpent King
Rating: 4.127272727272727 (55 reviews)
ISBN: 9780147521316

Jeff Zentner

The Serpent King

The son of a Pentecostal preacher faces his personal demons as he and his two outcast friends try to make it through their senior year of high school in rural Forrestville, Tennessee, without letting the small-town culture destroy their creative spirits and sense of self.

A Novel

Julia Lotz

WARUM WOLLTE ICH ES LESEN? Das englische Original - The Scorpion King - hatte ich schon länger im Blick, da es auf Goodreads hoch gelobt wurde. Obwohl diese zeitgenössichen und tendentiell traurigen Geschichten sonst nicht das sind, was ich bevorzugt lese, haben mich die Anpreisungen neugierig gemacht.

HAT ES MEINE ERWARTUNGEN ERFÜLLT? Auch hier: Ja und nein. Meine Erwartungen waren unglaublich hoch und somit war es sehr schwer, mich zu überzeugen. Das hat das Buch auch nur zu großen Teilen, aber nicht komplett geschafft.

WAS HAT MIR GUT GEFALLEN? Das Buch ist brutal ehrlich. Nichts wird beschönigt und das tat manchmal sehr weh. Jeff Zentner spielt mit den Gefühlen des Lesers und konsturiert Charaktere, die tief unter die Haut gehen. Wow. Dazu finde ich den Schreibstil wahnsinnig gut. Man möchte gar nicht mehr mit dem Lesen aufhören.

WAS HAT MICH GESTÖRT? Der Anfang. Mich hat das Buch in der zweiten Hälfte schwer beeindruckt und begeistert aber ebenso enttäuscht war ich vom Anfang. Ich kam nicht ins Buch hinein, kam nicht an die Charaktere heran und wusste erst einmal nicht, wohin die Story gehen sollte. Das ist auch der kleine Wehmutstropfen, der mit in die Bewertung einfließen musste.

FAZIT. Trotz eines wirklich schweren Anfangs mit dem Buch, konnte mich Zusammen sind wir Helden am Ende doch schwer begeistern. Die Thematik ist brutal ehrlich und traurig aber zugleich tief beeindruckend und wunderschön, die Charaktere gehen tief unter die Haut und man möchte seine Augen nicht mehr vom Geschriebenen lösen. | ★★★★☆

jess

Serpent King

Hannah Derzanovich

3 1/2 stars.
I've tried writing this review three different times. I give up. I'm confused.

I loved the writing, liked the plot and settings, and wasn't a huge fan of the characters. I couldn't find a way to relate to ANY of them, which was odd because they all seemed fairly diverse in personality. Travis was my favorite of the three, his kindness letting me enjoy his narrative the most (view spoiler)[but he dies, sooo. (hide spoiler)] Lydia struck me as too pushy. She had good intentions, but something about the way she treated her friends felt wrong to me. I really only liked Dill for his family, but even that didn't feel as fleshed out as it could've been. I mean... the book is called The Serpent King. And was it just me or was it slightly... predictable? If it had seemed intentional, I would've called it foreshadowing, but instead it felt like the author emphasized certain things SO much that you knew they would be effected later on.

I'm not as bitter as I sound, I swear. I really did enjoy the book and I'd recommend it! It just wasn't really for me.

Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal Winner of the American Library Association Morris Award for best debut YA Winner of the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award for Young Adult Fiction A Buzzfeed Best of 2016 book Goodreads Choice Awards finalist A Barnes & Noble Best Book of 2016 Publishers Weekly Best of 2016 Dill is a misfit in his small, religious Tennessee town. His dad is in prison for a shocking crime, and his mom is struggling to make ends meet. The only things getting Dill through senior year are his guitar and his fellow outcasts, Travis and Lydia. Travis is an oddball who finds comfort from his violent home life in an epic fantasy book series. And Lydia is like no one else: fast-talking, creative and fiercely protective. Dill fears his heart will break when she escapes to a better life elsewhere. What Dill needs now is some bravery to tell Lydia how he feels, to go somewhere with his music – and to face the hardest test of all when tragedy strikes.

Sara Kruszka

The Serpent King takes place in the fictional Forrestville, Tennessee, based on a real life city close by to me. Zentner's writing is honest and genuine, and even a couple decades older than the characters in the book, I felt their experiences. 

Beautiful story. I shouldn't have put off reading this so long.

Vera Sokolyanskaya

** spoiler alert **
           I really liked scenes when three friends hang out together (dialogues and humor) and then everything else - not so much. "Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way", I remember that from high school, thank you very much. I should have known that debut author will try to pull a George Martin if his book has a character in love with Game of Thrones-type fantasy. I mean, come on, do you really have to kill off a character to make another guy decide he needs to go to college? Debut authors, stop abusing death as a plot device.

But what I like about books like this is that they are easy to read on the bus and I don't have to go back in the book to make sure I didn't miss anything important.

I'd rank this as 2.5 stars but Goodreads doesn't let you do half stars.

laura

** spoiler alert **
           I did enjoy this book. I think I would have enjoyed this book more if the book did not kill one of my favorite characters. But i understand why it had to happen for story stake. I enjoy how the book that took place during the school year did not really rely on school as focus and it was great read about senior year and what happens when you might be moving on but some of your friends are not. Thanks owl crate!

Emily C Peterson

Jawahir M

Description Summary: An equally harrowing yet comforting tale of friendship, first loves, and the courage to step out of the shadows. Ethereal, contemporary, and haunting. 

Score: 5/5 

Few books allow you to feel the anguish and despair that makes up this life, while also lingering in the triumphs and spurts of happiness that warms the human soul and makes everything okay even if it's for a little while. Zentner excels in playing with the reader’s emotions in delivering raw storytelling. The Serpent King is a prime example of that.

Book Summary: In their final year of high school best friends, Dill, Lydia, and Travis aim to figure out where life will take them after graduation; well mainly Lydia. You see Delilah “Lydia” Blankenship has her life figured out, her blog Dollywould is quickly a national rising star in the making in the world of fashion and pop culture. Lydia can’t wait to get out of small town Forrestville to head to NYU, the city of opportunities and haven for aspiring creatives like her.

Travis Bohannon is a 6ft giant that has the softest heart. He never cared much to where he’ll end up being and what he’ll end up doing, as long as he can escape reality by indulging himself in the epic fantasy world of Bloodfall where he likes to think of himself as a glorious warrior who is deemed worthy. Especially since his father thinks he’s worthless.

Dillard “Dill” Early Jr is like a young version of Snape from the HP series. Cast as the town’s shame and outlaw after his father was arrested and sent to prison for church related scandals, Dill doesn’t look at the future with the bright prospect that Lydia has nor does he have the wild imagination to escape like Travis. Figuratively and literally he is stuck. 

How was it possible for love of a place and hatred of it to exist so comfortably side by side?

As the school year nears to the end, their friendships are put to the test, harsh conversations will be spoken and bitter truths will come out. Hidden true loves will be exposed and a second chance at life will be provided. But first, Who is the Serpent King? And why is he attached to Dill like a bloodstain that cannot be wiped? End of Summary.

I am completely torn, broken apart, stripped down by this book. And.I.do.not.mind.one.bit. Zentner’s ability to present something that’s achingly real despite that personally I did not experience the same circumstances that these characters had nor did I even believe in the same religion. He has successfully made me feel exactly what they’re feeling and thinking through. 

I’m hugely impressed with the character development in this book. You can see that the characters came to actively change by themselves and by help from others. All this attributed to a well crafted plot and better written characters.

This is one of the few books that made my heart ache, like really ache. The kind where you feel the muscle is constricting itself and it’s being twisted like a rag towel.

Do I recommend? Absolutely, this is one of the best YA novels.

Southern Today Gone Tomorrow

Written by Jeff Zentner, is about three friends, high school outcasts, who are walking into their senior year from two different backgrounds. That's right, three friends two backgrounds. Two of the characters, Dill and Travis have different stories but they understand each other. They both come from families with hard fathers, not a lot of money, and the idea that there isn't any way for them to really work their way out. Lydia, the third friend, comes from an upper middle class family and runs her own blog that has over a hundred thousand followers. Yet, they are all friends. Dill considers Lydia his best friend. And, of course, he has a crush on her.

I had no idea what to expect walking into this book. It was on a book club list from a few months ago, and I didn't actually read it (I had a physical copy for months from the library) till I saw the audio book was available. Hello, long weekend drives.

This was a great audio book. The only complaint I have is that, because this story is told from three perspectives, each narrator would try and do the other character's voices themselves. I would have preferred for them to keep the same narrator with the corresponding voice, no matter who is narrating. It took something away from the story when they had each actor do all three voices.

Story wise, this was a great novel. Great not only from a YA perspective, but from a religious and adult perspective as well. What these kids go through isn't limited just to high schoolers, but happens to everyone. Which I will discuss on my site after the spoiler warning.

This is the kind of novel I would recommend to any, and probably every, teenager. Adults too. The Serpent King walks you through three different lives and how they interweave. It shows you a great example of how we don't always realize how what we do affects others. Honestly, its a book that is worth giving a shot every time.

The Serpent King

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