Not a good book to read when you are down. It won’t cheer you up. Marvelously well-written, though. From page one there is such atmosphere: what a pretty town – wouldn’t you love to live here? But also, foreboding in the air like an approaching storm, religious zealotry blinding people to the ineffectiveness of their own actions, horrible secrets in every other heart, and at the center of it all, a poorly-closed EPA superfund site like a giant cancerous lesion, leaching evil and sickness into every lovely happy home around it. Also, this book has one of the best goddamn covers I’ve ever seen: both eye-catching and subtle. ( )

Thanks to GoodReads and Penguin for the free copy of this book!

Friendswood by Rene Steinke is a beautiful book. It is devastating, and horrifying, and amazingly-written, and hopeful.

The novel follows the lives of several characters: a mother trying to stop a new subdivision, an alcoholic real estate agent, a girl plagued with visions, a high school boy full of regret. What connects them is their proximity to a chemically-contaminated site -- one that could be causing cancers, chemical burns, and birth defects, but that the EPA still claims is safe.

And, let me tell you. I grew up a couple streets over from what turned out to be a chemical contamination zone, so that hit close to home. The thought of something toxic seeping out of the ground where you live is terrifying, and Steinke conveys that so well.

The writing is beautiful, poetic, and evocative. The characters all felt realistic. Some of them I hated, some of them I loved, and the relationships between them were messy and believable.

This book has multiple point-of-view characters, and I will admit that it was tricky to keep some of the characters straight at first. However, as the book went on, the characters became more clearly differentiated. For me, seeing how the characters interacted and how their stories intertwined helped keep them distinct in my mind.

The main point being, the characters might be confusing at first, but if you keep reading, this book is so worth it.

My one complaint is that the novel seemed to end too quickly -- especially where Willa was concerned. Parts of her story wrapped up too neatly for my liking; parts were left hanging, leaving me so worried about her. But, I mean, I loved her character and would've read an entire novel's worth of extra chapters about her, so take from that what you will.

Overall, this is easily one of my favourite books I've read this year.

And finally, I read Friendswood under the assumption that it was all fictional -- fictional setting, fictional events, etc. But I just googled out of curiosity, and it turns out there is actually a Friendswood, Texas, and it was actually the site of massive chemical contamination. And now I feel a little bit like I've been hit in the stomach with a bowling ball. ( )

A former refinery site spewing forth lethal chemicals and a teenage party and rape provide the backdrop to the exploration of a community of characters as they each find their own way to deal with their tragedies. It is very descriptively written and engrossing. ( )

I won this as a Goodreads First Reads Giveaway.

I really wanted to like this book. It had different plots going on at the same time and I don't think they worked well together. There were many parts that I just skimmed through, I found them to be irrelevant. ( )

I lived Friendswood. From the minute I first saw this book on the Coming Soon section of blogs, as soon as I saw it dealt in part with the Superfund toxic waste site just outside the real town of Friendswood, Texas, I knew I had to read it. In the early eighties, I was a teacher at the school right in the middle of the subdivision built on top of the toxic waste site. Yep. And I was pregnant. So this was a have-to-read book for me. How did I like it? It was uneven, I thought. More like a weak attempt to throw together several loosely connected short stories. I liked it, but I didn't love it. It may have just been me, but I'd really like to ask the author a few questions. Why, for example, did she keep the names of some places and change the names of others? Did she really need to change the name of Beamer Road, where the toxic waste site was located? Odd, I thought. The Friendswood she depicts is a more redneck view than the one I experienced, and I'm curious about that. All in all, a solid story, and one you should definitely read if you have any connection to this area. ( )