The Gospel of Winter

Today’s post is on The Gospel of Winter by Brendan Kiely. It is 296 pages long and is published by Margaret K. McElderry Books. The cover is grey with a shadow of a young man behind the title which is red. The intended reader is someone who is interesting in issues books, books about dealing with sexual abuse, or are interesting the Catholic priest scandal from the eyes of a victim. There is mild foul language, drug use, talk of sex and sexual abuse, and no violence in this novel. The story is told from the first person perspective of the main character Aidan. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the back of the book- As sixteen-year-old Aidan Donovan’s fractured family disintegrates around him, he searches for solace in a few bumps on Adderall, his father’s wet bar, and the attentions of his local priest, Father Greg- the only adult who actually listens to him.
When Christmas hits, Aidan’s world collapses in a crisis of trust when he recognizes of Father Greg’s affections. He turns to a crew of new friends to help make sense of his life: Josie, the girls he just might love; Sophie, who’s a little wild; and Mark, the charismatic swim team captain whose own secret agonies converge with Aidan’s.

Review- With a topic this intense it could be easy to mishandle it but Kiely does not do that. He handles this story with concern but he does not tone down the seriousness of the topic. It is not graphic but the reader knows what is happening when Aidan has a flashback or when he hears Father Greg with his new boy. Aidan is very troubled and has no idea about what to do. He does not want to deal with it, he wants to pretend that nothing happened to him, and then just move on with his life. But as we travel with Aidan, we see just how much Aidan is suffering from his past.  Aidan is trying forget doing that with Adderall and alcohol but he is just drowning in his pain and it's not working. When he starts to make some friends who all having problems too that’s when things start to unravel for his inner life. Mark was once Father Greg’s boy too and he is trying to deal with that and being gay. Aidan and Mark are both dancing around what happened to them and they have different ways of dealing with it. The story does not have a real resolution but more of an open ended close and that feels accurate to real life. I do recommend this book for older teens and adults who want to look at the Catholic sex scandal from a different angle.

I give this novel a Four out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and borrowed this book from my local library.