Adam Rapp's THE CHILDREN AND THE WOLVES is not necessarily the kind of book you want to cuddle up with over a steaming mug of hot chocolate. In fact, some scenes might cause readers to lose their appetites entirely. There is absolutely nothing cozy or comfortable about this book.

But that's kind of the point. Adam Rapp sets out in his latest novel --- as he did in his groundbreaking and award-winning 33 SNOWFISH --- to deliberately shake up readers, to show them scenes and images and a kind of life that is both foreign and, in fact, invisible to most of them. In THE CHILDREN AND THE WOLVES, he does so via four haunting and distinct voices, in language that is as lyrical and lovely as it can be brutal and obscene.

"Adam Rapp's new novel is not an easy read, but it’s an unforgettable one, showing readers exactly the kind of nearly-unimaginable circumstances that can engender violence and abuse among young people who can't see any other choices for themselves."

At the center of the novel is Wiggins, a 13-year-old boy who, like his friend Orange, has been drawn almost without realizing it into the hyper-magnetic orbit of a slightly older girl known as Bounce. Bounce, a freakishly (and often cruelly) intelligent girl, has ready access to the pharmaceuticals her parents travel the world promoting, even if she has virtually no access --- physically or certainly emotionally --- to her parents themselves.

If Bounce finds any joy in love (and that's certainly questionable), it would be the pleasure of having these two "chuckleheads," as she calls them, follow her every order, no matter how bizarre or how extreme. Before the novel opens, for example, Bounce has convinced Wiggins and Orange to kidnap a three-year-old girl they nickname Frog. The kids then go door-to-door in their town, collecting spare change (and the odd $20 bill) to aid in the campaign to find the little girl. In reality, Bounce has far darker intentions for the money they collect.

Why do Wiggins and Orange follow Bounce so unquestioningly? With her charismatic confidence (not to mention her steady supply of Oxycontin), Bounce offers these lost boys the authority and guidance --- warped though it may be --- that they have never found in their troubled homes.

And what of poor Frog? She spends most of the book locked in Orange's basement, chained to the furniture and obsessively playing a video game in which wolves and children battle each other --- and gradually become less and less distinguishable.

The theme here is probably obvious, but the way in which Rapp discloses it is anything but. He gives each of the four major players their own voices in which to disclose their own often nightmarish experiences of neglect and failure. Bounce's voice is harsh and cynical, Frog's is poetic and mysterious, and Wiggins's becomes more and more abstracted as he begins to question his complicity --- and possibly even his sanity.

Adam Rapp's new novel is not an easy read, but it’s an unforgettable one, showing readers exactly the kind of nearly-unimaginable circumstances that can engender violence and abuse among young people who can't see any other choices for themselves.