Customer Reviews

The Absence of Nectar

5 star:		(51)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Warning: Before you start reading this book, you better make sure you don't have anything else planned for the next several hours, like household chores, dinner, sleep, that kind of thing. You will find it that hard to put this book down.

'The Absence of Nectar' is told from the point of view of 12-year-old Alice, whose life is turned upside down by two seemingly unrelated events. Her older brother Boone is writing to Perseley, an often-escaping teenage girl locked up for poisoning her parents with Tang. Meanwhile, the mysterious Simon Jester has entered the picture, saving their mother from drowning, marrying her, and seeming as intent to poison his step children, now that his own child is on the way, as Perseley was to poison her parents.

Though some of the plot twists are predictable, others are not, leaving the reader guessing the outcome until the very end. But more than a mystery, 'The Absence of Nectar' is a moving coming-of-age story about first love, conflicting loyalties between families and lovers, God versus fate. Definitely a page turner on many levels, this is a great selection for book clubs as well as for general reading. Oprah, are you listening?

What a terrific book about a family that has gone wrong. 11 year old Alice telling the story about her mom, older brother and horrible stepfather who is out to get his stepkids since they "arent his kids." Their mom, who they call Meg, doesnt believe them until the day comes where she tells them to "RUN."

The drama kept me guessing all the way through and the plot twists and turns until the last page. I highly recommend this book; now I want to read her first!

You won't be able to put this book down. Kathy Hepinstall knows how to tell a story, and she won't let you escape.

Eleven year old Alice and her older brother Boone fear for their lives. Their stepfather Simon has a murky past and a mean streak, though their mother Meg is oblivious because she is happy to be loved by a man again. Wise and skeptical Alice sees the inconsistencies in Simon's stories and the frightening line of rage between his eyes. When Simon discovers Boone's correspondance with an infamous teen who periodically escapes from the local mental institution, he threatens to poison them. Alice and Boone have no defense against him other than memorizing details about the various poisons so they can avoid being tricked. They know they are headed for a grisly end, even though they can not yet fathom what it might be.

The pacing of the novel is nearly flawless, and the prose carrries the reader effortlessly through this world of treachery. Part thriller, part literary novel, this book expertly weaves the ordinary with the extraordinary, making the fear of being poisoned seem possible in a house that has Kool-Aid in the refrigerator and a not-so-bright dog in the yard. The characters are deftly drawn, with personalities that seem all too real despite their idiosyncrasies. Alice, although often seeming far older than her years, is consistently herself, with her smart aleck comments and instinct to survive. Boone is less convincing as a Bible-quoting fourteen year old who "falls in love" with Persely Snow, the mental patient. Dreamy and dependent Meg, though not a woman of substnace, has presence here, as does Simon and his mercurial personality. Even the twins across the street are unforgettable, though they do not do much more than teach Alice's dog tricks and snitch on Boone.

The main flaw in this book - and believe me, it shouldn't keep you from reading it - is a few forced turns of the plot. Although Alice never seems 11 (more like 16), I found this distracting only when the author reminded me that she was younger than her brother. These weaknesses pale in the hands of such an expert storyteller.

I highly recommend this book for anyone searching for an engrossing read.

Its nice to read novels by up and comming novelists. This one certainly is quite captivating. Kathy Hepinstall surely knows how to interweave many twists and turns in the story. Its interesting how Boone and Persley influence each other. The description of Simon Jetser's manipulating ways surely sets the tone throughout the book. Meg surely has her weaknesses as a person but definitely surprises the reader in the end. A good account on how children can be trapped in a bad situation. This story certainly gets my seal of approval.

When I reviewed Kathy Hepinstall's first novel, House of Gentle Men, I remarked that I didn't know how she could top herself. Well, having completed her newest, The Absence of Nectar, I can confidently say that miracles do happen. Kathy's sophomore release is a true testament to her amazing talent.

Eleven-year-old Alice Fendar has a very cynical view of the world now that her father, a man she loved and trusted, left her family. So when Simon Jester, her new stepfather, enters her life, Alice can't help but see him with a wary eye. Mystery surrounds Simon and his first family, a wife and three-year-old son who died in a drowning accident. And along with Simon's temper, crazy ideals about God, and discipline tactics, Alice increasingly become distrustful and hateful. With her mother, Meg, turning a blind eye to everything regarding Simon, Alice's older brother, Boone, is the only one left to join her on her quest to discover the truth about Simon and his past.

The Absence of Nectar is a remarkable effort. Each paragraph had the tendency to make you laugh but also chill you to the bone as only a thriller can. The story line was captivating and had me riveted to my seat for hours. Kathy Hepinstall is truly brilliant and one of the greatest masters of fiction that I've ever read. Her books always seem to have some eerie quality or bizarre twist of fate that is utterly addictive. If you've read House of Gentle Men, then prepare to be totally blown away again. If The Absence of Nectar is your first Hepinstall experience, then congratulate yourself for discovering this treasure. Kudos, kudos and more kudos.

Kathy Hepinstall wowed me with her debut novel "The House of Gentle Men". While this book is completely different than her first, it is equally as good.

The cast of characters in this story evoke varying emotions. Alice is the wise 11 year old daughter who is rebellious and aware of her surroundings. She misses very little and her remarks and sarcasm throughout the book gave the story some well needed comic relief. Her brother, Boone, while older than Alice, is the innocent one. He believes in God and truly wants to see the good in everyone. Their stepfather Simon is evil personified and their mother Meg is completely blind to her situation. She has no idea how to go about protecting herself or her children. Persely Snow is a well written, complex character. She is both tough and sweet, allowing only glimpses of her soft side to poke through, most notably when she enters Boone's life.

At times this story is hard to read. The psychological terror that Simon imposes on this family is gut wrenching to say the least. The way in which the story is told however is incredibly well done. Her prose and use of characters is top notch, her ability to build suspense is also first rate.

This is a book not to be missed.

As complex as the mind of an eleven year old could be, Alice tells us of her childhood terror... Simon Jester. She realizes immediately that he was beginning to slowly drain the nectar from her family. Who was her stepfather really and why was he trying to kill her and her brother? His frightening antics and his obsession with poison was driving her to live in paranoia. She even tries sacrificing her most sacred and special treasures to her god of the bush in hopes of getting rid of Simon. She also tells us of her older brother, Boone, and his famous but loony girlfriend, Persely Snow. And how these four people's fate was tied tightly to a deep and dark lake. And through them, Alice finds out how monsters are made and eventually realizes how hate and fear drive them. Kathy Hepinstall brings us Alice. A young girl who is about to discover herself and the meaning of loyalty from her simple family. The complicated love of her mother and hatred of a man. She brings us Alice with her smart-alecky mouth who brings humor even during the darkest moments.

From the very beginning, even from the short synopsis on the inside cover, the story of Alice Fendar's coming-of-age story captured me, bound me and reeled me in. The suspense of something deep and dark of Alice's tale in THE ABSENCE OF NECTAR got me from cover to cover.

Meet Alice & Boone-two young siblings living with their mother & their new step-father Simon Jester. Simon will have you shaking in your boots-as he has the children. Convinced that Simon is out to kill them, Alice & Simon live in fear of having their food poisoned or any other tactics Simon might use to get rid of them. This book has the reader in true suspense. Is Simon really trying to kill them, or are the children's imaginations running wild? Not only is Hepinstall's writing fantastic, she creates Alice & Boone into two children who are not only smart and witty, but have incredible character depth. This novel has a chilling element of suspense but also a great demonstration on the bonds of sibling love and loyalty. There are also some laugh out loud moments as Alice and Boone have some witty wise-cracks and sarcasm that they play off of one another that provides a little comic relief throughout the novel. I couldn't put this book down!

If you like fast-paced action, sitting-on-the-edge of your seat excitement, and nail-biting suspense, you'll enjoy Kathy Hepinstall's newest novel. Eleven-year-old Alice, the most precocious and endearing pre-teen narrator to come along since Scout in "To Kill A Mockingbird," tells the story in first-person. Alice is daring, loyal, spunky, but most of all she is cynical. And she is most cynical of her new stepfather Simon Jester, a car salesman who claims he could no longer deceive people, so has instead appointed himself "God's megaphone." Convinced that Simon murdered his first family, Alice and her brother Boone become convinced Simon is trying to poison their food. She fights him in the only ways she knows---putting hair remover in his shampoo, Tabasco in his lemondade, scratches on his car---all the while trying to convince her mother of the man's true intentions. At first, her mother brushes these allegations off, but when one night she tells Alice and Boone to run, they do indeed run. When they team up with the notorious girl whom Boone has loved from afar, the parent-poisoning Persely Snow, their lives become one mind-boggling adventure after another. But all is not what it seems, and before Alice can come to terms with her many traumas and enjoy the sweet nectar life has to offer, she must deal with a brain-damaged neighbor, twins who prey on helpless creatures, a dimwitted dog, dead bees, and alienation from the brother she adores.

You won't find another young narrator as appealing as Alice and her telling of this story makes this dark comedy a pure joy to read.

The Absence of Nectar has a typical villain as its antagonist. This typical villian, Simon Jester, is also a typical evil stepfather. The stereotypical character roles in The Absence of Nectar end here, howeer. The main character, eleven-year-old Alice, is extremely intelligent, and her intelligence extends to witty sarcasm and humorous wise-cracking. She has a close relationship with her thirteen-year-old brother Boone, who in turn has an unhealthy obsession with Persely Snow, a child crinimal from their town who is famous for poisoning her parents. Alice and Boone's mother, Meg, has one unique quality- she is a beekeeper. Other than that, she is a plays the stereotypical weak woman role, and does not know how to subsist without a man by her side.

After Boone's and Alice's father leaves their mother for another woman, she becomes bedridden and unresponsive for weeks. As Boone turns to his collection of Persely's newspaper clippings and Alice to her witty sarcasm, their mother slowly begins to recover. On one particularly good day, the three of them go to the lake. It is there that Meg almost drowns when a storm comes while they are on a boat. The man who rescued her, Simon Jester, will become her loer, and her children's nightmare. Although he claims to have almost been a drowning victim himself, and says that his wife and child drowned, it soon becomes clear to Alice and Boone that there is more to his story, and that they want to be as far away from him as possible.

Although not advertised as such, The Absence of Nectar is very much like a mystery book, and a good one at that. As the story goes on, there are more and more plot twists, and all of them tie the different characters - Alice, Boone, Persely, Meg, Simon, and even minor characters- together more and more.

I did not like this book at first, because I found its language cloying and sickly sweet. I thought that Hepinstall was trying too hard to make Oprah's Book List, and that this was just another "Woe is me" coming-of-age story. However, once I got into the book, my opinion changed completely. The plot is sophisticated and very well laid out, and that kept me interested the whole way through. Many of the characters were easy to identify with. I found that Alice in particular was very three-dimensional, and that Hepinstall did a great job at creating a unique adolescent character, which is a hard task to do in the midst of so many carbon-copied preteens and teenagers appearing in books. She risked a lot by telling the story from Alice's point of view, but in my opinion it greatly paid off. Alice's tone is very convincing and sincere, her it was very easy to sympathesize with her plight. Her close relationship to her brother was also very believable. In the beginning of the book, she is a little sister who looks up to her brother. As the story progresses and both of them grow, it is she who looks after him and worries about him. Finally, she must find her own way to work out her mixed feelings about replacement, rejection, and confusion as she watches him fall in love for the first time. These complicated emotions make Alice a very real character that I felt like I know, or would like to know, in real life. I also admired her intelligence and courage. She brought humor into otherwise tense situations. For instance, Boone and Alice have a dog named Numbhead, because of how stupid he is. One day, however, Numbhead runs away, and ends up in town, where Alice's father lives with his new wife:
"'Isn't it a miracle,' said Boone, 'that Numbhead found Daddy's house?'
'He's like Lassie!' Meg chimed in.
'Oh please,' I said. 'Don't insult the memory of Lassie.'
Boone took my arm and led me into the living room so he could speak to me alone. His eyes were shining. 'Do you know what this means? Numbhead knows we're in trouble so he's asking Dad for help the only way he knows how. Maybe Numbhead is our savior.' 'Please don't compare Numbhead to Jesus again. Jesus doesn't press his big wet nose against people's windows at night.'"

An annoying aspect about the book is Hepinstall's tendency to over-foreshadow. For example, she occasionally writes things as, "I felt a sudden relief at the thought of this new escape routep one that would be cut off later." This takes away from the suspence of the book, and doesn't allow readers to find out this information on their own.

A fascinating aspect of the story, however, is its theme of God versus fate. Boone represents an innocent, almost naive belief in God. Alice knows him as her gentle and kind kid brother who wouldn't ever do anything wrong. Simon, on the other hand, represents religion when it becomes corrupted. He claims he is "God's megaphone", and a "shepherd to God's sheep". In reality, however, he is a bully who uses his influence to be cruel to people. At first his cruelty is subtle, as he does small things to Alice and Boone to let them know he doesn't like them. ("You should be mad at God", Alice tells Boone after Simon throws his treasured butterfly collection in the fire, "His megaphone burned your butterflies.") Then, it is revealed more and more as Alice and Boone find out more about his real story. Alice represents an intelligent reasoning for the truth, as she doesn't believe in Boone's God but does believe in living a moral life. Persely, on the other end of the spectrum, represents a disobedient and crazy unbeliever, so mad at the God she once believed in for not helping her when she needed it that she regularly denounces him and anyone else who dares to get in his way. All of this leads Boone to reevaluate his beliefs as he sees people whom he thought were good do bad things, and people whom he thought were bad do good things. The lesson of the book seems to be that there are no absolutes, and that everyone has a responsiblity to make their own destinay.

This novel is a good portrait of human emotions and struggles. Its main characters are children, but they are wiser than some adults and experience a lot more than most adults do. Although it is easy reading, it is witty and thought-provoking, and it will be hard to forget.