{"id":669,"date":"2018-12-31T13:19:47","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T13:19:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=669"},"modified":"2018-12-31T13:19:47","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T13:19:47","slug":"lone-star-book-reviewsby-michelle-newby-nbcccontributing-editor-67","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=669","title":{"rendered":"Lone Star Book ReviewsBy Michelle Newby, NBCCContributing Editor"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span>Michelle Newby<\/span> is contributing editor at Lone Star Literary Life, reviewer for Kirkus, <\/span>freelance writer, member of the National Book Critics Circle, blogger at www.TexasBookLover.com, and a moderator at the 20th annual Texas Book Festival. Her reviews appear in Pleiades Magazine, Rain Taxi, World Literature Today, High Country News, South85 Journal, The Review Review, Concho River Review, Monkeybicycle, Mosaic Literary Magazine, Atticus Review, <\/span>and The Collagist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lone Star Book Reviews
of Texas books appear weekly
at LoneStarLiterary.com<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n
\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/span>YA FICTION<\/p>\n

Joe Jim\u00e9nez<\/span><\/p>\n

Bloodline<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Pi\u00f1ata Books (an imprint of Arte P\u00fablico Press)<\/p>\n

Paperback, 978-1-55885-828-2, 132 pgs., $11.95<\/p>\n

May 30, 2016<\/p>\n

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?<\/span> \u2014Mary Oliver<\/p>\n

Abram is seventeen, living with his grandmother in San Antonio. <\/span>His father died when he was three years old \u2014 no one will tell him how or why \u2014 and his devastated and overwhelmed mother left soon after. Abram has had four fights and two suspensions this school year, and it\u2019s not yet Thanksgiving. His grandmother is distraught; she worries that Abram needs a man to model male adulthood for him, that her example, love, and care cannot suffice. She lost Abram\u2019s father; she will not lose him, too. Enter T\u00edo Claudio, bombastic, volatile, manipulative, and avaricious.<\/p>\n

Bloodline<\/span> is the debut novel from Joe Jim\u00e9nez.<\/span> This slim volume of young adult fiction is rich in emotion and language, diving deep into the perilous psychological territory of violence, harboring a final plot twist that caused me to fall silent and still.<\/p>\n

The plot of Bloodline<\/span> is simple, the pace steady. Jim\u00e9nez employs a second-person point of view for Abram\u2019s narrative, for reasons that aren\u2019t clear until near the end of the story. It\u2019s a difficult narrative mode, but elegant and haunting in this writer\u2019s hand. The characters are relatable and complex \u2014 notably Abram and his girlfriend, the smart, red-headed Ophelia \u2014 and allowed a good deal of further development. Jim\u00e9nez portrays the essence of Abram\u2019s grandmother through her physicality, her \u201cvoice like a hand smoothing out a bedsheet.\u201d We can gauge the atmosphere in the house by the grandmother\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n

Jim\u00e9nez is a poet, which is evident on almost every page of Bloodline.<\/span> Abram was so young when his father died that he has very few memories of him. Trying to remember is like \u201cdigging far into the memories,\u201d Jim\u00e9nez writes, \u201cwith nothing but the spoon of your want.\u201d Ophelia\u2019s smile \u201cis a valise in which so much is held.\u201d Jim\u00e9nez\u2019 work is for lovers of language.<\/p>\n

On a wall in the hallway of the small house hangs a painting of St. Michael conquering a demon. This painting serves as a metaphor for Abram\u2019s struggle. Is he St. Michael or the demon? Abram is alternately petrified and excited by approaching manhood, aching to know the mystery of his father and his death. Was he a good man? Was he a bad man? Abram is terrified of the answer and what it means for his future. Which is paramount: nature or nurture?<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michelle Newby is contributing editor at Lone Star Literary Life, reviewer for Kirkus, freelance writer, member of the National Book Critics Circle, blogger at www.TexasBookLover.com, and a moderator at the 20th annual Texas Book Festival. Her reviews appear in Pleiades Magazine, Rain Taxi, World Literature Today, High Country News, South85 Journal, The Review Review, Concho […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}