The Serpent King, by Jeff Zentner, is the second book I read for the YA Book Club I joined at my library. (The last book I read for the book club was The Cruel Prince, by Holly Black).

I started The Serpent King at a tender time. I was spending a second weekend at the bedside of my grandmother, who was dying. Many of my most vivid memories of my time spent at her home were from my teenage years, when my friendships with my cousins were one of the most important things in my life and the summer visits, full of new experiences, were larger than life.

The house itself is full of senior photos of the cousins and grandkids, all of us gathered on shelves and side tables, frozen in time as 17 and 18-year-olds, and the home’s interior has barely changed over the course of the time I visited there from childhood until I was an adult.

I’ve visited many times since my high school years, but with so many kids in tow, those visits became a blur of overstimulation and overwhelm that blended together in a chaotic mess in my memory.

While we enjoyed our time with family on these trips, the long drive with a car full of people and the hot summer days spent in a house with a crazy busy road just outside the front door was stressful. There were moments of connection, but they felt too short and were often interrupted by my parenting responsibilities.

My most recent two trips to see my Grandma were solo trips, and the difference was stark. Quiet car rides were accompanied by podcasts, music, and audiobooks. The visits, a series of connections with different family members, while I worked on my hand sewing projects. And moments of being by myself, reading.

The Serpent King fit nicely into the time capsule that is visiting one’s grandmother. The story is evocative, with vivid descriptive passages and easy, believable dialogue between the characters that frequently had me laughing out loud, and reminded me of the conversations I had with my high school friends, one moment our thoughts serious and deep, and another, we were killing ourselves with our own wit.

Zentner weaves a tale of a pastor’s kid growing up in a tiny, rural community. I fell in love with the characters, and enjoyed spending time with them. The way they did life together resonated with me, as well as their experience of loss.

Most of the YA lit (perhaps all of it?) has been written by female authors, and I guess I just assumed this one was, too. I didn’t even read the author’s name, and then about 2/3 of the way through the book, I noticed it was a man. I was surprised at the sensitivity and perceptiveness he had demonstrated in telling the story – the way he expressed the complex emotions of both the male and female characters in the story. I realized by thinking that, I had totally stereotyped him. Has this ever happened to you? Do you assume things about an author based on what you read?

As I’ve mentioned, some of the YA lit I’ve read lately has been edgy. While this book does have some content, it is contextual, and not gratuitous. Themes of friendship, loyalty, grief, and obligation wound together to create a beautiful story that I enjoyed all the way through. While I’ll admit, I was pretty raw when I read this one, I suspect I would have laughed and cried through it the way I did whether or not I was feeling as tender as I was.