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Wednesday, April 13, 2016

This just might be one of the best books that you’ll ever read (My thoughts on The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner)


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Before I get into my review of Jeff Zentner’s book The Serpent King, I’d like to start off by briefly talking about how I found out about this book. While I originally saw The Serpent King when I was looking around at Barnes & Noble one day and both the cover and the title of the book caught my attention, I didn’t buy the book at that point in time. I ended up getting it in the March OwlCrate box. In case you don’t know what OwlCrate is, it’s a monthly YA book box. There’s a different theme for the box each month, for example the theme for March was “Writer’s Block”. Each month the box includes a recently released hardback YA book, along with three to five items centered around the theme for that month. Here’s a picture of everything that came in the March box that I posted on Instagram to give you an idea of what kind of stuff they put in the boxes each month.



This past December was my first month of OwlCrate, and the February box is probably my favorite of the boxes that I’ve gotten so far. The theme for that month was “Sci-fi Love”. Plans start at $29.99, plus shipping. The people who run OwlCrate are really nice, and they’re very good at answering any questions that people may have about OwlCrate on Twitter. I highly recommend signing up for OwlCrate, especially if you’re a fan of YA books. If you’re interested in learning more about OwlCrate or signing up for it, you can check out their website here. For the record, I wasn’t asked by the people who run OwlCrate to promote their business on my blog; I’m only mentioning OwlCrate here because I’m really loving OwlCrate, especially now that I’m mostly reviewing books for my blog instead of TV shows. With all that said, here are my thoughts on Jeff Zentner’s book The Serpent King.



As you may or may not have figured out from the headline of this review, I think The Serpent King is quite possibly one of the best books that I’ve ever read. Just to give a bit of a summary of what the book is about, it’s about three seniors in high school who’re bullied a lot and are basically considered outcasts by their classmates. First and foremost, there’s Dill who’s having to deal with the fact that his family was involved in a very public scandal after his dad, who was a preacher, was arrested and sent to jail for having child pornography on his computer. Next, there’s Travis who’s really into fantasy books, namely a book series called “Blood Fall”. There’s a girl named Amelia that he met on a forum devoted to Blood Fall, and throughout the book they talk online and eventually discussed the possibility of meeting in person at some point. I should probably mention that Travis has a staff that he likes to take with him when he goes places, which is something that both Dill and Lydia kind of tease him about. Finally, there’s Lydia who has a popular blog and is apparently somewhat of an Internet celebrity, but she’s still gets bullied and teased by her classmates at school.

As far as I’m concerned, while this book is about three different characters, and the book alternates between Dill, Travis, and Lydia’s points of view, The Serpent King is ultimately Dill’s story. Dill definitely gets the most focus and the most character development throughout the book. Plus, the title of the book is a reference to his family’s past.

The Serpent King is definitely a rare example of a book or story where I honestly like all of the main characters. One of the reasons why I’d say that this is one of the best books that I’ve ever read is because I was able to relate to each of the characters in some way. I was especially able to really relate to Dill, Travis and Lydia when it comes to the fact that they were bullied a lot by their classmates, because I was bullied a lot throughout high school. However, they definitely handled being bullied very differently from how I dealt with being bullied. In some ways, I’d say that they handled being bullied a lot better than I did. While my relationship with my own dad isn’t even close to being as strained and broken as the relationship that Dill has with his dad, it’s still pretty strained in a lot of ways, so I could definitely relate to the fact that Dill wasn’t very close to his dad. I feel like I should also mention that I thought Dill’s dad was incredibly creepy every time he was featured in the book. The way Dill’s dad acted whenever he and Dill were talking actually kind of made me cringe in fear and discomfort.

I’ve always gotten along with my mom pretty well, but our attitudes towards God, church and religion in general are definitely somewhat different, so that’s something my mom and I have argued about from time to time. I’ve definitely argued with my dad about those things even more than I have with my mom over the years, so the fact that Dill’s attitude towards church, God and religion really clashed with his parents’ own beliefs was something that really resonated with me personally. However, the way Dill’s parents were written really made them come across as kind of being religious extremists. I could definitely relate to some of the problems that Dill was dealing with in terms of his family, but at the same time, his parents really came across as an extreme version of what I’ve dealt with over the years when it comes to my family.

When it comes to Travis and how I’m able to relate to him, I can definitely relate to the fact that his father didn’t treat him very well at all, but again, the way his father treated him was also an extreme case compared to what my own father was like as I was growing up. I could definitely relate to Travis’ love of fantasy, and I could also kind of relate to how he used his love of fantasy books as a means to escape the problems that he had to deal with in his personal life. However, where Travis and I differ in that sense is that I haven’t necessarily ever used fantasy as a means to escape problems that I’ve had to deal with in my life. When I was younger, I did journal a lot, and I constantly used my writing as a way to try and work through my problems and overcome them, rather than try to avoid them like Travis seemed to.

When it comes to Lydia and how I can relate to her as a character, I’d say that the way I can relate to her is much more superficial compared to my ability to relate to Dill and Travis. I can relate to Lydia in the sense that we both have blogs, and we both like to spend a lot of time working on our blogs. Other than that, I couldn’t relate to Lydia all that much, and honestly, even though I do like Lydia as a character, she kind of annoyed me at times.

Despite everything that Dill’s father did and how it has impacted their family, Dill’s mom continues to deeply religious through it all. Personally, I really have to give Zentner a lot of credit for completely subverting my expectations when it comes to parents’ attitude towards their kids going to school and getting an education. I had never encountered any parents, both fictional and in real life, that actively encouraged their kids to not only not go to college, but who also encourage them to drop out of high school and just get a job somewhere. I was genuinely shocked that that was the attitude towards education that Dill’s mom had. Sure, a lot of her attitude towards going to school and getting an education was influenced by her religious beliefs and her thinking that the things that he would learn in college would conflict with her and Dill’s father’s own religious beliefs. It was also established that Dill’s mom had dropped out of high school in order to marry Dill’s father, and she mentioned that whenever she was trying to encourage Dill to drop out of school; however, her thinking was awfully shortsighted in my opinion.

For starters, not having a college degree in this day and age really limits a person’s job options, and I think it’s pretty safe to say that not even having a high school diploma would limit a person’s job options even more, which is a big part of why Dill’s mom completely baffles me as a character. I should probably mention that it was established that Dill’s mom had dropped out of high school in order to marry Dill’s father. Personally, I’m used to the idea of parents who didn’t go to college wanting better for their kids, and encouraging their kids to further their education by going to college and getting a degree in something. That’s why I find the attitude that Dill’s mom had towards education rather bizarre and somewhat original in an incredibly weird sense from a storytelling standpoint.

There are two big moments in the book that impacted the story in a huge way that I was genuinely surprised by, and they really provoked a pretty strong emotional reaction from me. If this book is any indication, Zentner definitely has a knack for writing books that can really provoke strong emotions from the reader to the point where there were times when I found myself physically reacting to what was going on in the story. I don’t really want to spoil the moments from the book that I’m referring to for anybody who reads this review and hasn’t already read the book, so I don’t want to go into too much detail regarding this aspect of The Serpent King. However, I’ll say that the two moments in the story that I’m referring to definitely contribute a lot to this book being rather sad and depressing at times. I really want people to be as surprised as I was at times when I was reading The Serpent King.

As I said in my reviews for Sustained and Appealed from Emma Chase’s Legal Briefs series, when it comes to books, for whatever reason, books very rarely actually make me cry. However, there were times when I definitely cried or got a little emotional when I was reading Sustained and Appealed. This book didn’t make me cry, but I can definitely see this book making other people cry while they’re reading it. If you’re somebody who cries when you’re reading a book, and you decide to read The Serpent King, you might want to stock up on a bulk supply of Kleenexes. That being said, I thought those “big moments” that were rather emotional were very well handled by Zentner.

Despite the fact that this book is definitely very dramatic and sad at times, I still think that The Serpent King ends on a very positive and hopeful note, especially when it comes to Dill. Without giving away too many details regarding the ending of the book, I was very happy with the way Dill confronted both his father and his mother, separately. I thought it was great that he really stood up to them and finally refused to let his parents continue to have an emotional hold over his life like they both had had throughout the book. Dill’s dad in particular really seemed to get to Dill at times.

If you ask me, Dill’s dad is a truly horrible, rather creepy person. It’s really disturbing to think that his dad was actually a pastor before he was sent to prison. Dill’s mother was also pretty crazy when it came to her religious beliefs, and I thought that it was really messed up that she apparently blames Dill, at least partially if not entirely, for his dad being sent to prison since it was established that Dill had had to testify at his dad’s trial. It’s not Dill’s fault that his father chose to look at porn featuring people who were underage. It was his father’s own decision to do that, but I guess some people like to blame other people for their own bad choices or the mistakes of others instead of holding the person who’s actually the guilty party accountable.

As much as I love The Serpent King, I do have a few issues with the book, and pretty much all of the issues that I have with the book involve Lydia. Don’t get me wrong; I think that Lydia is a very well written and likable character. However, I also think that she’s a character who had potential that sadly went somewhat unfulfilled and unexplored by Zentner. At the risk of seeming like a horrible person who wishes ill will towards other people, I really feel like Lydia should have had to face more adversity throughout the book than she did. Sure, Lydia was bullied and teased by her classmates like Dill and Travis were, but it never really seemed to get to her. She always did a pretty good job of standing up to her classmates when they bullied and teased her.

As far as I’m concerned, Lydia was definitely the most fortunate of her friends. Admittedly, I don’t remember what, if anything, was said or established about Lydia’s mother, but her father seemed like a very nice, loving man. Plus, her family seemed to have plenty of money. Dill and Travis on the other hand definitely had incredibly tumultuous lives when it came to their families. While it wasn’t entirely clear what Travis’ family’s financial situation was, it was pretty clear that Dill and his mother struggled financially, especially now that his father was in prison.

Most of the conflict that Lydia dealt with throughout the book pretty much seemed to revolve around the fact that she came from a family that was definitely much more privileged than Dill, Travis, and their families were. She was constantly encouraging Dill to better himself when it came to the possibility of going to college and do more with his music, which caused tension between them because she definitely had more financial resources at her disposal than Dill did. There was also quite a bit of conflict between Lydia, Dill and Travis regarding the fact that she never mentioned or acknowledged that she was friends with them on her blog, which gave Dill the impression that she was embarrassed by them and didn’t think they were cool enough.

Lydia claimed that the reason she didn’t mention Dill on her blog was because she thought that it would draw a lot of bad attention to him due to everything that had happened with his father. I don’t remember her ever giving Dill or Travis a good explanation as to why she never acknowledged the fact that she was friends with Travis on her blog, though. However, I do think a big part of why she didn’t acknowledge her friendships with Dill and Travis on her blog was because she wanted people to think that she was cool and on some level, she was afraid of what her readers would think of her if they knew she was friends with two guys that were basically considered outcasts at school.

To be fair, Lydia does eventually admit on her blog to all of her readers that she hadn’t been entirely honest and sincere with them; and that she hadn’t mentioned Dill and Travis because she was afraid of what her readers would think of her if they knew she was friends with them. Unfortunately, we never got to find out if Lydia actually faced any backlash or criticism from the people who read her blog, as a result of her telling them about Dill and Travis. The fact that Zentner never mentioned or acknowledged the aftermath of Lydia’s confession is something that definitely bothered me about this book.

For the record, I don’t think that something truly terrible would have had to happen to Lydia in order to make her come across as a character that had lived up to their potential. I just wish that Lydia had had to face a somewhat major crisis at some point in the book. One idea that I came up with for a problem that Lydia could have had to work through was perhaps she could have ended up not getting accepted into New York University; since it was established that it was her dream to go to college at NYU. It would have forced her to face the unfortunate reality that sometimes people’s dreams don’t come true, which I think would have been very interesting to read about.

This isn’t necessarily a criticism that I have about The Serpent King itself, it’s more of a personal pet peeve of mine, but I’ve always found the concept of people being referred to as “Internet Celebrities” rather dumb. The reason people being referred to as some kind of Internet celebrity annoys me at times, is because often times it seems like people like that became popular and famous for rather vapid reasons. Admittedly, Zentner never had anybody specifically refer to Lydia as some kind of Internet celebrity at any point in the book, but given the way she was written, I just couldn’t help but think that that was what Zentner was portraying Lydia as throughout the book.

A big part of me wishes that Zentner had developed Lydia’s backstory more than he did, because I have so many questions regarding Lydia: What is it exactly about Lydia, and the fact that she has a very popular blog, that has led to her being treated like an outcast by her other classmates at school? What inspired her to start her blog in the first place? How did she become so popular when it comes to her blog and Twitter? Did it slowly gain popularity over time, or did she post something on her blog that led to it becoming very popular rather quickly? For the record, those are just a few of the questions that I kept asking myself about Lydia as I was reading The Serpent King. Personally, I found the scene where she convinced the clothing storeowner to give her and Dill a discount on some clothes for Dill after she promoted the store on Twitter and her tweet about the store instantly got a bunch of likes and retweets kind of ridiculous. Ultimately, the whole thing with Lydia being a popular blogger didn’t get in the way of my enjoyment of The Serpent King too much, but it did kind of annoy me at times.

All things considered, The Serpent King is a truly amazing book, and it’s definitely one of the best books that I’ve ever read. Even if you’re adult like me, and you wouldn’t ordinarily read YA books, or if you’re simply not usually a fan of YA books, don’t let that stop you from reading this book. I highly recommend reading The Serpent King. As far as I’m concerned, this is a must read book. Dill and Travis are both really great characters that are very well written. While I do have some issues with the writing for Lydia, I still like her, and I still think that she’s a well-written character with some great moments throughout the book that really stood out to me. Plus, as I said earlier, my issues with Lydia ultimately didn’t get in the way of my overall enjoyment of the book too much. Zentner really did an amazing job of writing The Serpent King in such a way that the book really provoked some powerful emotional reactions from me at times. I can definitely see The Serpent King proving to be a very memorable book for me in the long-term sense, and I’m very glad that OwlCrate helped bring it to my attention.

That being said, my final score for The Serpent King is 9.5 out of 10.

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