[Hudson] unravels her stories with a slow, measured pace; she is equally fascinated with the quotidian as she is with magic; and her plots and sentences twist in ways the reader rarely sees coming ... Hudson, originally from Alabama, paints the setting with absolute care and richness ... The setting is lush, and the protagonist is lived-in, but I had some trouble keeping track of the many boys in young Max’s orbit. The football team is made up of Boone, Lorne, Wes, and Knox—monosyllabic boys who feel mostly interchangeable. I wish they could have been shaded as deeply as Max’s artist mother ... Hudson writes about these boys with more than an anthropological interest; she writes about them with awe ... The conclusion might be anticlimactic, but I guess literary fiction doesn’t owe its readers the same resolution as a straightforward superhero story, and Hudson more than makes up for a lack of plot with a memorable main character and a unique spin on the coming-of-age story ... Watching Max come to terms with his differences, watching him yearn for understanding, meaning, and a place in the world is a joy, despite the heartbreak that is inevitable in adolescence.
... complex and beautifully rendered ... both utterly realistic and full of magic ... Hudson’s novel hums with danger, violence and tension ... The Judge easily could veer toward the comical, but in him Hudson creates a terrifying symbol of oppression, close-minded religiosity, and horrific yet alluring power ... a fantastic book and a difficult read that is brutal, potent, and full of sadness and passion. Contrasting doubt and belief, will and passivity, fear and strength, it is insightful, weird and mysterious, containing just the right amount of sweetness and wonder amidst what is otherwise quite scary
... powerful, poetic ... a beautiful book that carries the reader along on a tide of rich, eloquent language. We experience Alabama through all of Max’s senses. It can be beautiful or ugly, fragrant or putrid, depending on his mood. He has the sensitivity of a poet or artist, and Alabama native Genevieve Hudson’s intense, rich imagery captures the light and dark, color and drabness of the Alabama Max experiences. Through his eyes and Hudson’s language we see the malignancy of a perverted Christianity and brutal masculinity festering in the deep South.
... [a] unique coming-of-age tale ... ension escalates, the novel’s tone becomes foreboding—but the ending is still a shocker. This is a little southern gothic, a little supernatural, and a little reminiscent of Wiley Cash’s suspensful A Land More Kind than Home (2012).
Because of the need for fiction about queer love in the conservative evangelical South, this debut novel feels necessary. Unfortunately, it is not a good book ... it relies on short, choppy sentences and overly descriptive passages exhibiting language that’s overwrought, florid, discordant, and distracting ... a local evangelical politician who looms over the town...is more trope than fully developed character, and Max’s Germanness seems to exist solely to allow stereotypes to stand in for character development. Max’s parents are also irrelevant, hastily sketched background characters ... Because Max is unfamiliar with the U.S. South, his experiences are described using clichés meant to represent the town’s views on gays, god, football, and liberals, with results that are both unrevealing and off-putting. Not recommended.
... luminous ... While the conclusion feels rushed, leveraging the characters’ strong bond in service of a melodramatic climax, Hudson writes tenderly about cultural displacement, toxic masculinity, and friendship. This complex tale achieves a startling variation on the theme of teenage rebellion.
... insightful ... Hudson invokes the tropes of Alabama to powerful effect: the bizarre fundamentalism; the religion of football; the cultlike unification of church and state. The tropes run the risk of feeling hackneyed, but this is Southern gothic territory, after all. Hudson brings something new to that terrain: an overt depiction of queer desire, welcome because writers such as Capote’s and McCullers’ depictions of queerness were so occluded. A magical, deeply felt novel that breathes new life into an old genre.
