Wild Things

Wild Things, by Clay Carmichael, is a story about the human heart and finding a home and a family after a life of hardship and uncertainty.
      Zoe Royster's mother has just died, and she's been sent to live with her half-uncle, a recluse who hasn't integrated with society after his wife's death.  One of the US's top metal-working artists, he spends all day in his workshop, and Zoe fears that he will want to get rid of her too, just like all of her mother's boyfriends have over the years. 
      But with the help of a kindly old husband and wife, a preacher whose view of what he preaches is not as strong as one would think it would be, two arists from New York City, a lady who has blood connections to Zoe, and a cat who hasn't shown the tip of his nose since the tragedy happened so long ago, can Zoe save a wild boy and his snow-white deer from the lying mayor and his sons?  And what will come of the family that Zoe wants so deperately she won't even admit it to herself?

This book was good.  I picked it up thinking it was something by Patrick Carmen, because I was just looking at the first three letters of the author's last name, so I got a bit of a suprise when I got it home and looked in the front flap and read the description.  It is a moving story, though, about courage and what it takes to stand up for what you love.  I might've cried. 
        Zoe is a girl who is used to taking care of herself, and she tries to tell herself that she will always be able to take care of herself.  Deprived of a childhood, her two loves are books and animals.  The communtiy of people she meets has about the same affect on her as she has on them.  And I believe that would constitute a lot of affecting going around on both sides.  But there are still somethings haunting her about her past, two people in particular--her unknown father and her mother's last boyfriend. 
        Uncle Henry is harder to figure out.  We don't know anything about his childhood, why he even wants Zoe with him, and until about the end of the book we don't even know how he knew she existed. I pretty much liked him after the scene at the grocery store, though it took a while for Zoe to warm up to him. 
         The wild boy she meets in the woods and his snow-white deer, and I won't say more, are my favorite characters.  Personally, I would love to run wild and lawless through the woods for 17 years.  They have had their own share of troubles, ones we learn as we observe the world through the cat's eyes, but we know very little else about them. 
        One thing I didn't like about this book was that it ended to soon.  Or, that it ended at all.  I want to know more of the story, more of what happened.  I suppose you could sort of say it was a cliff-hanger, but it isn't at a point of dramatic tensions.  It's one of those instances, where everything has just fallen into place, but then someone picks up a piece and hides it, leaving the story unfinished.  the book can be very disappointing like that, but very much like real life in the same way:  bittersweet and unfufilling.