Lucretia and the Kroons (Novella)

by Victor LaValle

• ISBN10: 0812984374
• ISBN13: 9780812984378
• Publish Date: 10 May 2014 (first published 1 January 2012)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Spiegel & Grau
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 76
• Language: English

Reviews

[celinenyx]

Lucretia and the Kroons is the story of twelve year-old Lucretia (Loochie) dealing with her best friend Sunny dying. It also features under-age smoking, zombies and flying rats.

Even though this novella is quite enjoyable, it just doesn't work for me. I don't see for what audience Lucretia and the Kroons is written. I wouldn't let my kid read this: at one point Loochie exclaims "Thank God for cigarettes!". At no point in the story it is even remotely made clear that smoking is unhealthy and that it kills people. Who advocates smoking in a children's book? On the other hand, it doesn't seem written for adults either. The writing is terribly stilted and simplistic:

Alice grunted with the exertion but she made it. All the way across. Where Sunny crouched. (at about 69%)

This would have been excusable had the novella been written from the viewpoint of Loochie, but it isn't. There is absolutely no reason to simplify your language when you're talking about children.

Because Lucretia and the Kroons seemed to have no purpose, I wasn't gripped by the story and didn't very much care about Loochie's perils. If you get killed by some hallucination you got from getting stoned while you're twelve, well, I'm not sure I care that much.

This paragraph contains spoilers for the ending.

I found the ending extremely unrealistic and it bugged me to no end. I'm not talking about the fact that there is "proof" everything really happened. I'm talking about Loochie's mom committing her to a mental hospital just because she had one hallucination. What the hell? Who does that? Couldn't she just say, "Oh hun, I'm sure you fell asleep and you lost my wig some other time". She's just a kid! Kids do weird stuff and think they see weird stuff all the time. She's not bipolar. Hallucinating isn't even the main symptom of bipolarity, having manic and depressed episodes is.

Gah. The ending drags the whole novella down.

I wouldn't know who to recommend this to. You could pick it up if you're bored and you're looking for some zombie action? Or maybe this novella is meant to "push boundaries" and be "groundbreaking", which I don't see personally, but maybe you will.

[Linda]

*ARC received from Netgalley for review purposes*

This - and other reviews - can be found on my blog (un)Conventional Bookviews

Lucretia - Loochie - Gardner is twelve years old, and her best friend, Sunny is very sick with cancer.

[elvinagb]

Lucretia and the Kroons by Victor LaValle, Spiegel & Grau for Random House, 2012, 164 pages. ARC, eBook
For twelve year old Lucretia “Loochie” Gardner a perfect birthday party would be to have all her best friends come to her party. But her very best friend, Sunny, is in Memphis at St. Jude’s Hospital getting treatment for cancer. Three of her other friends have come the small, two bedroom apartment that Lucretia shares with her mom for a small party. Loochie, as she is known to her family, saves some birthday cake to share with her friend when she returns from her hospital stay so they can have their own party after Christmas. The two girls plan on spending a quiet afternoon together to celebrate as Loochie’s mom goes to spend the afternoon with Louis, Loochie’s older brother.
She tires of waiting for Sunny and goes upstairs via the fire escape so see what his taking her friend so long and is shocked to see how weak and ill her friend is. She goes back downstairs to wait. It isn’t long before disaster strikes and Loochie must put aside all her fears and brave going into what can only be described as hell to try and rescue her best friend from the Kroons, the monsters in apartment 6D.
Sometimes children must face some terrors that no one should have to face at a young age. Losing a dear, close friend to cancer and the trauma of having to go on without them is almost too much to bear. This novella is great look at the power of friendship and the courage that a child can have when coming face to face with real monsters.