Wolf Hollow

I spent the first third of Wolf Hollow with a knot in my stomach because of the bully. I hate reading about bullies. This one made me uncomfortable and incredulous.  I kept silently yelling, 'Tell your parents, Annabelle!' And when she finally did, a weight lifted off my shoulders. I genuinely enjoyed the rest of the book.

Annabelle is my kind of heroine. I'm currently reading a best-selling YA series with a female protagonist who so many men are in love with (this series goes beyond the usual 2-suitor dilemma and gives her 3) and it's unrealistic to me since she doesn't seem all that cool. Contrasted with this somewhat empty heroine, Annabelle, who is wise and compassionate and courageous and clever, is inspiringly imitable. I love that she sneaks out to find and save Toby, that she asks him simple questions in the barn to help him feel at ease and trust her, that she has and implements the idea to hide him as a deer in plain sight, that she heeds the whispers to ultimately find Betty (the bully) in the well, and that she makes that risky but genius phone call to Andy.

The ending was sad and hopeful and it had a strange, powerful effect on me. But seriously, I actually felt a physical sensation in my chest last night while reading the last few paragraphs that went beyond an emotionally positive response to something somewhat spiritual? I read my scriptures just after I finished and the feeling stayed with me. Now, when I re-read these paragraphs by themselves in the daylight, they don't have the same effect on me. Clearly, my response was the result of the book in its entirety and the message, but I'll include the final passage here just to remember:

But Wolf Hollow was also where I learned to tell the truth in that year before I turned twelve: about things from which refuge was impossible. Wrong, even. No matter how tempting.

I told Toby as much, though I also said that I didn't blame him for fleeing the greater evils he'd known. And I thanked him for letting me try to right any number of wrongs, regardless of his own surrenders.

But the wind always swept my words away like cloud shadows, as if it mattered more that I said them, than who heard them.

And that was all right with me.