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Reviewer
Jean Longo is a Research & Learning Librarian at the University of Central Oklahoma.
Review
Crissy Van Meter’s debut novel is intelligent and beautifully written. In the novel Creatures the main character, Evie, has some unlikely problems just before her upcoming wedding. She has a missing fiancé, the unwanted arrival of her absent mother and a dead rotting whale near the wedding site.
Evie lives on Winter Island off the coast of southern California. She was raised by a charming but neglectful father who raises her like a boy feeding her mostly macaroni and cheese from a box and hotdogs. Sometimes they had money and sometimes they did not. He made money selling Winter Wonderland, marijuana he grew in their most desolate woods.
Interspersed within the story are entries written in second person that reference a marine life question. In these sections you will find the more sensitive and less protected side of Evie. The story moves back and forth in time addressing fragile issues of family, livelihood, betrayal and love.
