The Serpent King
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4.5 • 59 Ratings
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Named to ten BEST OF THE YEAR lists and selected as a William C. Morris Award Winner,The Serpent King is the critically acclaimed, much-beloved story of three teens who find themselves--and each other--while on the cusp of graduating from high school with hopes of leaving their small-town behind. Perfect for fans of John Green's Turtles All the Way Down.
"Move over, John Green; Zentner is coming for you." —The New York Public Library
“Will fill the infinite space that was left in your chest after you finished The Perks of Being a Wallflower.” —BookRiot.com
Dill isn't the most popular kid at his rural Tennessee high school. After his father fell from grace in a public scandal that reverberated throughout their small town, Dill became a target. Fortunately, his two fellow misfits and best friends, Travis and Lydia, have his back.
But as they begin their senior year, Dill feels the coils of his future tightening around him. His only escapes are music and his secret feelings for Lydia--neither of which he is brave enough to share. Graduation feels more like an ending to Dill than a beginning. But even before then, he must cope with another ending--one that will rock his life to the core.
Debut novelist Jeff Zentner provides an unblinking and at times comic view of the hard realities of growing up in the Bible belt, and an intimate look at the struggles to find one’s true self in the wreckage of the past.
“A story about friendship, family and forgiveness, it’s as funny and witty as it is utterly heartbreaking.” —PasteMagazine.com
“A brutally honest portrayal of teen life . . . [and] a love letter to the South from a man who really understands it.” —Mashable.com
“I adored all three of these characters and the way they talked to and loved one another.”—New York Times
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Guitarist Jeff Zentner—who has played with Iggy Pop and Debbie Harry, among others—has a heart full of love for the characters of his first novel. The Serpent King follows three high school seniors, Dill, Lydia and Travis, trying to find their way in the small town of Forrestville, Tennessee. Aspiring musician Dill is crushingly poor and an outcast on account of his preacher father’s imprisonable transgression. The intimidatingly large Travis is a fantasy geek who’s a disappointment to his beer-swilling, football-crazy dad. And Lydia is an enthusiastic style blogger whose loyalty to these boys is sometimes at odds with the image she’s trying to present. We loved this real, soulful young adult novel.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Forrestville, Tenn., named after Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest, isn't exactly a welcome place for slightly ouside-the-mainstream folks like friends Dillard, Lydia, and Travis. Dill is a high school senior whose snake-handling preacher father is currently incarcerated; Lydia, a successful fashion blogger, plans on attending NYU after graduation; and Travis, large of body and gentle of soul, loses himself (and the pain of his father's physical and emotional abuse) in a fantasy series called Bloodfall. While Dill finds comfort and beauty in music, Travis's innate kindness belies his circumstances, and Lydia's incandescent, gleefully offbeat personality draws them together. As the novel, Zentner's debut, builds to a shocking act of violence that shatters the friends' world, this sepia-toned portrait of small-town life serves as a moving testament to love, loyalty, faith, and reaching through the darkness to find light and hope. Zentner explores difficult themes head on including the desire to escape the sins of the father and the fragility of happiness while tempering them with the saving grace of enduring friendship. Ages 14 up.
Customer Reviews
Amazing
The Serpent King is about three teenagers Lydia and Dill and Travis. They all three outcasts. Come from three different ways of living. But they remain friends. I could really relate to Dill and the things he went through with his mother and father. Travis my heart ache for him. I felt like i wanted be there for Travis. Lydia I understood her. I didn't think I would get into this book due to what it was about. But I enjoyed and couldn't put in down. It will be a book that I reread one day again.
Absolutely Incredible.
I walked into this book cynical. I had been forced to read it for English and thought, “I hope this one’s at least decent.”
And it was more than decent. Zentner really captured the perfect small town feel I love in a book. Along with the “three best friends navigating the world together” dynamic I absolutely adore.
Besides basic elements like that, the premise of the story; Dillard’s family name being dirtied plenty of times in the past and present, Lydia battling between fame and her friends, and Travis’ difficulties expressing himself around his father, we’re all extremely interesting and well done.
You can tell these three people dearly love each other no matter the differences.
This book made me sob harder than it should’ve. It had me balled up on the end of my couch crying like a baby. It had me sitting on the edge of my seat, audibly gasping in public like a maniac, and scrambling to tell one of my closest friends all about it. I felt myself really relating to it in a way I haven’t seen in a book before.
The way it addressed the grief of losing a loved one, the fear of growing up and growing away, and especially suicide was extremely interesting. This book explains these topics in a new light I haven’t seen before, and one I can relate to.
This book was extremely well done and I recommend it to anyone looking for a good read that’ll keep you on the edge of your seat and reading until you can’t read anymore.
Serpent King Bites...in a good way
Zentner marvelously captures the stinging angst of every teen blossoming between the weighty concrete sidewalk cracks of their own Forestville (one R).