Beautifully written, tragic, heart-wrenching. For fans of A.S. King, Sawkill Girls, Sadie, Maggot Moon,

You know how when we’re living life, it’s just right there on the surface, but there is also this feeling that there is more to it—that things are going on beneath the surface, and things are maybe more connected than they seem? That’s what A. S. King’s <i>Dig.</i> is about, and it’s also how it feels to read it.

The characters have secrets, some of which they are keeping, some of which are kept from them. One girl deals drugs from the Arby’s drive-thru. Another girl pretends her life is a movie set. Still another girl—The Freak—“flickers,” moving through time and space as she pleases. One boy doesn’t know who his father is. Another boy spends weeks painting the house of an elderly couple. Nothing is exactly what is seems. And there are a lot of potatoes.

A. S. King books have always brought the weird, and <i>Dig.</i> is no exception. If readers do what the title commands though, the literary experience of reading this novel is both satisfying and rewarding.

(This review will also eventually appear on my blog: whatsnotwrong.wordpress.com)

Thank you to Penguin Random House | Dutton Books for Young Readers for allowing me to read this! I will be participating in a blog tour, and that will on my blog April 2nd.
I very much enjoy Kings writing style. It's always so unique. The stories are always very real, but with a subtle hint of surrealism. It can get confusing in the beginning, but it always ends up making sense.
This was about a very large, broken family. You don't know this in the beginning unless you read the synopsis. Even if you do read the synopsis, it'll probably still confuse you. They all have their many, many flaws. You don't even know the real names of some of the characters until much further into the novel. Honestly, I just wanted to give everyone a big hug, especially the grandchildren. Malcolm was definitely my favorite of all of them. His story will tug on your heartstrings.
This novel does not shy away from social commentary. It's very raw, and real. This was one of the many reasons I loved it so much. I agreed with everything. I'm glad I'm not alone when it comes to the topics discussed in this novel.
The only negative I have is that I was confused a lot of the time. That's it. I'm sure the writing style will not be for everyone, but I recommend it still.

Whenever I pick up an A.S. King book, I expect a story that takes on tough issues without flinching in an originally odd way, and we get that in spades in Dig.

The books was told via The Shoveler, Malcolm, The Freak, Loretta, and CanIHelpYou? - five very different teens, who were connected in some way. Their stories were all imbued with pain and heartbreak, as each was dealing with one or more social ills. Death of a parent, terminal illness, poverty, physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, addiction, racism, and white privilege were all explored. So, not a light read, but something that made me uncomfortable, and left me with a lot to think about.

The beauty of any King book is her amazing storytelling. It took me a while to see where this was going, the pieces slowly snapping into place, but WOW! What a payoff. And, I found myself driven by the need to figure out and confirm each and every connection and suspicion.

Though this book was pretty dark and intense, it was somewhat hopeful. The story examined the beliefs of three different age groups. Gottfried and Marla were an older couple. I found Gottfried's crime to be that he was weak and he let his wife destroy their children, while Marla was just sort of horrible altogether. The teens were the most "woke", which showed that with each generation, we were improving are humans, even if we weren't all the way there yet. The teens refused to let the mistakes of their parents color their future, thus giving us hope that each generation will continue to be better than the last.

Overall: This was classic King, in that it was trippy, and the story wonderfully wound around itself as she took on a great many social issues. It was probably the intense book I have read from her to date. It was dark. It was sad. I was meant to make people feel uncomfortable. But, I was left with a glimmer of hope, that if we work hard, we can dig ourselves out from under this legacy.