by Daniel Kraus
Published on February 25, 2020 by Henry Holt and Co.
Format: ARC
Pages: 304
Genres: Science Fiction, Young Adult
Liv Fleming's father went missing more than two years ago, not long after he claimed to have been abducted by aliens. Liv has long accepted that he's dead, though that doesn't mean she has given up their traditions. Every Sunday, she and her lifelong friend Doug Monk trudge through the woods to check the traps Lee left behind, traps he set to catch the aliens he so desperately believed were after him.
But Liv is done with childhood fantasies. Done pretending she believes her father's absurd theories. Done going through the motions for Doug's sake. However, on the very day she chooses to destroy the traps, she discovers in one of them a creature so inhuman it can only be one thing. In that moment, she's faced with a painful realization: her dad was telling the truth. And no one believed him.
Now, she and Doug have a choice to make. They can turn the alien over to the authorities...or they can take matters into their own hands.
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Bent Heavens is the perfect example of why I advocate for trigger and content warnings on books. If this book had included TWs I might have steered clear, but as it is I didn’t. I’ve had to really think about this review, because my feelings toward this book are very complicated. I think it’s a great story, with average writing but excellent moments. I just didn’t enjoy reading it.
The pacing in Bent Heavens is off. The beginning is awfully slow, to the point where I almost DNFed it. It started to finally pick up at around 100 pages(I think) and really took off from there, but it was a lot to slog through at first. The sad part is that when the pace finally started to pick up was when I faced my biggest personal issue with the book.
I so wish I had known there would be torture in this book. If there were trigger warnings somewhere then I wish they’d been better advertised. If there weren’t, well then that really sucks. Because the minute a torture scene started playing out on the page it completely took me by surprise, and not in a good way. It became a theme of the book, and while the author was definitely presenting torture as a bad thing, I wasn’t in a place where I could read about it. This led to me having to skim portions of the book and feeling a bit disconnected from it.
Another thing Bent Heavens had going against it was the writing itself. It’s just not that good. The author cam up with this really great story, but the writing didn’t suit it. It felt lackluster and uninspired throughout, bordering on robotic at points.
I will say, though, despite its many flaws, Bent Heavens is a great story once it really kicks in. I thought the twists the author threw in were really great, keeping me on my toes and genuinely taking me by surprise at times. It all built to a fantastic climax, which was easily the best part of the book. It had all of the emotion that was missing elsewhere. The ending was simultaneously thought-provoking and gut-wrenching and it made me glad I had stuck it out after having so many other issues with the book.
My feelings about Bent Heavens are just so complicated. On one hand I hated how the triggering content took me by surprise and make me view the entire book through a negative lens. And even when I’m about to look past that lens, this book has an abundance of problems. But on the other hand, I know I can be a pickier reader that a lot of other readers, and I find myself thinking of people I would recommend this book to. It has a truly intriguing story, thought-provoking messages, and a spectacular ending. And maybe, if I’d seen a trigger warning before I’d started reading, I could have gone in prepared and enjoyed this one a lot more. I just have to accept that my feelings toward this book will always be complicated and hope that other readers can enjoy it more than I did.
About Katie
I'm a twenty-something aspiring writer who really, really needs to get back to revisions. I've been reviewing books since 2014, and am determined to somehow make stories my day job. I truly think that every book out there contains something good and is meant for somebody.
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