I love reading about cults but this was kind of too disjointed and confusing to be actually enjoyable to read.

This was a compelling, yet disturbing read. I couldn't stop reading it because the characters were so fascinating, but the action, decision, and secrets and twists left me shaking my head more than once.

I wanted SO MUCH to love this one - it seemed practically written just for me. Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be.

Not one I really liked and not for my high school library.

Green has always lived at Foxlowe, a place from the Outside, where Freya's rituals rule. But as she and her sister grow, they begin to realize that the world is not as simple as it appears...

Review: FOXLOWE by Eleanor Wasserberg


FOXLOWE is a complex work of literary fiction which delves deep into its characters, peeling back their layers to reveal their natures. It is also an English stately house, set on the moors a short distance from standing stones. Foxlowe House is also the setting of a commune, semi-hippieish in its drive to sustainability, and semi-pagan in its emphasis on meditation and healing, and the essential importance of the Summer and Winter Solstices. The story is narrated by Green, a young girl who cannot remember "life outside," as Foxlowe' s inhabitants term all the world not Foxlowe and the Standing Stones. As Green grows, she narrates the microcosm that comprises life at Foxlowe.

This was very good. I thought it was going to be a typical haunted house kind of story, but it turned out to be something very different, yet equally haunting!

he first part of this book takes place in a home called Foxlowe, where people take new names and live in one big group, and people who leave are called Leavers and never again mentioned by name. The community lives in extreme poverty and cold, and in fear of a woman called Freya who seems to be the leader. The child Green grows up during this period. It is atmospheric, feels like it should hold some kind of magic, but then all of the sudden the characters and the reader are jolted into reality and into the future without knowing what has happened. (Well, the characters know more than the reader.) Some questions are answered through this storytelling tactic but I still felt at the end that I had a lot of questions. And I'm not sure the combination of settings and moods worked for me, it was like I wanted it to go farther in one direction or another.

Interesting debut novel though, and I would try the next book this author writes.

Received an advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review. 3.5 stars!
Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Books for the opportunity to read and review Foxlowe by Eleanor Wasserberg. The prologue starts with past events that will be explained later by the narrator. The prologue also gives the reader a glimpse into the past, present and future lives of some of the characters. The story is told in parts - Part One "Green"(past), Part Two "Jess" (present), Part Three "Green" (past). Green and Jess are different names for the same person and she is the narrator of the story. The people that live at Foxlowe all have two names; their Outside name that they came to Foxlowe with and their new name that they were given when they arrived at Foxlowe. The people that reside at Foxlowe are a cult type of society with initiation that causes injury. This initiation is also used as enlightenment, which I see as punishment and it involves stabbing your skin with multiple nails until bleeding occurs. The controlling leaders are strange and have insecurity issues and possible psychological issues. The details of the story are vague at some points and, as a reader, I am not sure how the people came to Foxlowe and how they keep getting members, such as Blue (the infant that shows up in the story). The author's prose is beautiful and descriptive with the characters' attributes and the surroundings of Foxlowe, but the point of the lifestyle was never explained. The tone is dark and abusive and I am sure more evil occurred behind the scenes due to the way the leaders treated the children. The Epilogue was a nice conclusion showing the future of Green and how Foxlowe had become a tourist spot. Beautiful writing but a very odd story- 3.5 stars.

Foxlowe by Eleanor Wasserberg has been chosen as a Marvelous Upcoming Novel by The Marvelous Site! The following review is a reviewaka, which is based on an ancient Japanese poetry form.

Foxlowe /
by Eleanor Wasserberg /
c2017 //

young girl’s perspective /
moorland commune disaster /
before & after //

strange residuum unfolds /
in darkly compelling ways //

MM

This was one of those books that kinda stay with you even after you finish it. I am not sure sure I loved the book, but I did enjoy it. I do wish the author had given us a bit more. I felt the story started right in the middle of the book. I would have loved a bit more background information. I kept reading thinking that I would find out more about what shaped each character to become the way they did...but that was never included in the book. So I always felt like I had an incomplete story.

This story was about a cult, a group of people who chose to live in a house removed from society and isolated. It was interesting and at times quite chilling to see how group mentality is shaped. (how other people's behavior can affect your own even when it seems beyond impossibility.)

I received an ebook from Netgalley.com.

'Fowlowe' set a sinister, chilling tone right from the beginning and never let up. Wasserberg creates an interesting dynamic within the family, with abused and neglected Green, mercurial Freya, and the other members of the family who only want to continue their idea of an idyllic existence. The conflicts she sets up within the family keep the pace of the novel moving, and I found myself both wanting Foxlowe to succeed and wanting to someone to intervene before tragedy fell upon them. All in all, an interesting study of a utopia gone wrong, and a worthwhile read.

Inside a Commune through a Child’s Eyes

Green has always lived at Foxlowe. The crumbling old house is a little scary, but the fields are beautiful. Nine adults and three children live at Foxlowe. The founders, Richard, whose house it is, Freya, the leader, and Libby, are the main adults. Freya is the most powerful, meting out punishment and keeping the Family together.

Inside the Family, she tells them, life is safe. Outside is the Bad. People outside are corrupted by money and power, not in the family. Green and the other children know no other world. Theirs is a world steeped in Family and the trappings of pagan religion.

But the Family crumbles. In the second part of the novel, Green is out in the world struggling to understand how very different it is. Since she can barely read or write, it’s a significant shock to be outside. At the very end, we find out what happened to drive the Family apart. It’s a horrifying story.

The book is filled with strange settings, child abuse, and pagan religion. For the first part of the book the child’s view and the eerie setting suck you in, but when Green joins the world outside Foxlowe, the story loses some of it’s charm.

I found the book difficult to read. Because the first half of the novel is told through the eyes of a young child, it is told in simple sentences and some of the words don’t make a great deal of sense until you become familiar with the jargon of the commune. For me, the intimations of child abuse were difficult to read. These children were completely under the adult’s influence with no outside interference. Punishment was easy and there as no accounting.

The underlying story of how the mind of a child is affected by it’s up-bringing is interesting. There is a great deal to discuss within the confines of the novel. I think it would make an excellent choice for a reading group.

I received this book from Penguin for this review.

I knew Foxlowe was going to be dark, gothic novels (whenever they were written) almost always are but this went deep into the human psyche, down into a never ending pit that would not let you out again. Green was born and raised at Foxlowe, indoctrinated into Freya's way of thinking before she even knew she had toes. The rules of the house are all she knows and the Outside is a mythical place where the Bad thrives in the people who live in the square houses and don't understand what the solstices really mean.

Flashing between Green in her childhood and as a broken adult, we see the damage Foxlowe can do. It is almost reminiscent of prisoners being released after a twenty year sentence. Neither knows how to deal with the outside world and throw themselves into coping methods which can ultimately destroy them. The reader sees what Green sees but without the glossy layover which is her love for Freya and the nostalgia of what things were.

Wasserberg succeeded in disturbing me, making me squirm in my seat as the children took the Spike walk, as Freya smacked Green, as Toby and Green pinched each other until they drew blood. Over all of this horror there is a mysticism, something that if you look for truth it is obscured by the rituals and dust hovering over Foxlowe. Though it is nice to think Fowlowe is the haven it was intended to be, it is prudent to recognize that the Bad might be in the house, not just outside of it.

Foxlowe is the name of the commune (cult?) where Green lives. Green is the only child born into the commune, and therefore the only one who doesn’t have two names – a name from before and a Foxlowe name. The young members are called the Ungrown, adults are the Grown, and three of them are known as the Founders. Like most cults, access to history and knowledge are denied, and Green grows up with an absolute faith in everything she’s been taught. But others are Foxlowe remember their life before, and sometimes recount their old lives and the ways things were in the outside world. This book is scary in the sense that all mind control and access to knowledge is scary, the tension is heightened by the creepy old house the group lives in, but I had a hard time feeling any intimacy with the characters. The story is good technically, but I felt it lacked heart