Review: His Favorites by Kate Walbert

His Favorites by Kate Walbert

Published: August 14, 2018

Publisher: Scriber

Format: audiobook via Overdrive

Rating: 4/5

Synopsis

They were on a lark, three teenaged girls speeding across the greens on a “borrowed” golf cart, at night, drunk. The cart crashes and one of the girls lands violently in the rough killed instantly. The driver, Jo, flees the hometown that has turned against her and enrolls at a prestigious boarding school. Her past weighs on her. She is responsible for the death of her best friend. She has tipped her parents’ rocky marriage into demise. She is ready to begin again, far away from the accident.

Taut, propulsive and devastating, His Favorites reveals the interior life of a young woman determined to navigate the treachery in a new world. Told from her perspective many years later, the story coolly describes a series of shattering events and the system that failed to protect her. Walbert, who brilliantly explored a century of women’s struggles for rights and recognition in her award-winning A Short History of Women, limns the all-too-common violations of vulnerability and aspiration in the lives of young women in this suspenseful short novel.

My Thoughts

His Favorites is a story that is very relative to what’s going on at this moment. After a night of drinking Jo crashes a golf cart and kills her best friend and soon she decides to leave her school and hometown and goes to a private school. Thinking that this school will protect her she soon learns this is far from the truth, the ones that are there to protect her are the ones that hurt her the most.

This short novel gives us complex characters that are raw and flawed but no matter how messed up someone is that doesn’t give others the right to violate them. You feel for these girls who are taken advantage of but they won't let this define them. This is one jam-packed read that is very important, while it is sad and messed up it also shows you that you can be strong and stand up for yourself no matter what. His Favorites is a huge read despite its small size.