Thomas's Reviews > Something Wild

Okay this book destroyed me and I can’t recommend it enough. The novel follows Tanya and Nessa Bloom, two adult sisters who return to their childhood home for a weekend and realize that their mother, Lorraine, is in a violent relationship. Tanya urges Lorraine to get a restraining order while Nessa struggles to reconcile her fondness for their stepfather with his cruelty toward their mother. Seeing Lorraine’s suffering triggers painful memories for both Nessa and Tanya, related to the abuse they faced in their adolescence. As Lorraine’s situation escalates, Tanya and Nessa are forced to grapple with the legacy of trauma and hurt that follows the women in their family.

First, I found Hanna Halperin’s portrayal of domestic abuse so real and so harrowing. I can see that she worked as a domestic violence counselor because she wrote about the cycle of abuse in so vividly and honestly – the violence, the begging for forgiveness and gifts and false promises of change, the lack of accountability, the violence again, and so on. Halperin writes about the issue without sugarcoating it or glamorizing unhealthy relationships. Her descriptions of how Jesse, the sisters’ stepfather, abuses Lorraine are raw, horrifying, and I think ultimately necessary to shed light on this issue of domestic violence.

I also loved Nessa and Tanya as characters. They’re both so well-written, with distinct personalities that come alive on the page. Nessa is more insecure, shy, and patient with their mother, whereas Tanya is more confident and quicker to anger. My heart broke for both of them as they navigated seeing Jesse abuse their mother. I thought Halperin wrote about the complexity of their bond so well and captured the messy care and hurt that can occur between sisters. She highlights how both of their lives are shaped by various struggles such as their parents’ divorce, sexual violence, and patriarchy broadly. There’s not a convenient or easy ending for either of these characters, though Halperin leaves us with just the tiniest sliver of hope that made my chest literally loosen in relief as I read the final pages of this powerful novel.

Overall, I am so impressed with this debut. I read Halperin’s second book, I Could Live Here Forever , and I gave it four stars. With this book though, I couldn’t rate it any less than five. It’s dark, with brutal depictions of physical abuse and sexual assault. At the same time, by the end of the book I felt so much care for the characters, and I wanted to be updated about their whereabouts and their (hopefully healing) journeys. As someone who’s experienced and witnessed abuse both in my personal and professional live, and as someone who’s worked with survivors of trauma and abuse, this book moved me deeply. It exposes an important issue we need to talk about and work to prevent.