Sinkhole

A Novel

De: Davida G. Breier

Narrado por: Anna Caputo

Boiled peanuts, lovebugs, and murder.

Lies from the past and a dangerous present collide when, after fifteen years in exile, Michelle Miller returns to her tiny hometown of Lorida, Florida. With her mother in the hospital, she’s forced to reckon with the broken relationships she left behind: with her family, with friends, and with herself.

As a teenager, Michelle felt isolated and invisible until she met Sissy, a dynamic and wealthy classmate. Their sudden, intense friendship was all-consuming. Punk rocker Morrison later joins their clique, and they become an inseparable trio. They were the perfect high school friends, bound by dysfunction, bad TV, and boredom—until one of them ends up dead.

Forced to confront the life she turned her back on fifteen years ago, she begins questioning what was truth and what were lies. Now at a distance, Michelle begins to see how dangerous Sissy truly was.

An ingenious debut from editor and publisher Davida Breier, Sinkhole is a mesmerizing, darkly comic coming-of-age novel immersed in 1980s central Florida. A disturbing and skillful exploration of home, friendship, selfhood, and grief set amidst golf courses, mobile homes, and alligators.

©2022 by Davida G. Breier (P)2022 by Blackstone Publishing

First rate

Well written with fully realized characters and a wonderful sense of place and time. You really believe and can visualize this odd world in central Florida.

The ending was disappointing

It was a bit slow at first, but had me hooked around a fourth of the way in. I was riveted all the way up to the very anticlimactic ending.

Masterful, atmospheric debut novel

Sinkhole: A Novel, Davida G. Breier’s beautifully written, atmospheric novel is a masterful debut. Breier’s coming-of-age novel is structured around two alternating timelines written in the first person alternating between the past and the present. Breier also weaves an authentic 80s aesthetic that I haven’t seen since the first season of Stranger Things. I connected deeply to the exploration of class politics in teenage friendships, and how those power dynamics bleed and the formation of one’s identity into adulthood. Like Tana French, Breier details Central Florida so palpably you can feel the sticky, humid, oppressive heat. The narrator does an excellent job bringing Breier’s characters to life. Highly recommend!

I thought the story could be told in less chapters

The story was a bit frustrating. Seemed to take a long time to get to an obvious point. I almost stopped, but I was invested. I wouldn’t reccomend it.

Mediocre

This novel is just ok, in an After School Special kind of way. I can’t say I’d recommend it.