he writing in A Room Away From The Wolves was beautiful.



This is such an odd book and it’s hard to review without giving away the secrets. Bina’s mom makes her leave her home. She says it’s just for a month with friends, but Bina has another idea. She remembers stories her mom told her about a boarding house in New York. Her mom lived there while auditioning to be an actress. Her stories of freedom and having her own room appealed to Bina. After leaving her father, Bina’s mom met a man right away and moved in with him. He also had two daughters and Bina didn’t get along with them. There were lies and fights. Bina had enough and left after getting beat up at a party.



When she arrived at The Catherine House, there was a girl that Bina was drawn to. Monet was different and she told stories like Bina did. There were rules in the house including a strict curfew and no men upstairs. The house started to almost feel alive. Catherine’s ghost was there and the girls were determined to get her to speak to them. They believed Bina was the key. When away close to curfew, Bina could feel the house pulling her back. She didn’t see anyone prepare her food. And the girls started talking to her like she should know more than she did.



Things were odd and I could figure out that this was a ghost story. But I wasn’t sure who or what was real. Parts of the story were a bit slow paced, but there were other parts that I didn’t want to put down. I couldn’t wait to get to the ending to figure out if I was right on anything that I thought.



I gave this book 4 stars for a beautifully written ghost story. I loved the setting of The Catherine House.



Thank you to the publisher for sending me a copy for review.

This was an amazing read! I loved the fantasy/paranomral plot! This was beautifully written, and refreshing. I did get confused while reading this book and had to start over. This was a lot information at once but I got through it. I found myself questioning what I was reding but Nova made this book worth while. Bina was an interseting character, she was adealt an awful hand at life. Horrible father, and her mother decides to leave but only to marry someone else and his daughters hate her. But no one noties how the girls treat Bina, just how Bina reacts. Her mother was quited frustating, I mean she basically believed everything her step-daughters said about Bina, and never stood up for her, It was something to read about, if you have a chance to read this book please do!!

Deceptively realistic, yet deliciously disturbing. Readers will hang on the details and be oblivious to the direction the story will take them until they arrive at their destination.

I honestly don't even know what to think about this book! While I've read several short stories by Nova Ren Suma, this is my first time reading one of her novels. What I love about the short stories is the gorgeous imagery and heartbreaking stories. And I got some of that here. But it's much more surrealist than I expected. I admire her ability to write that. It's also hard to read. Yet, I was compelled to read. I needed to know what was going on even though in the end, most of what I thought was going on was indeed true. It sorta read as weirder than it actually was, if that makes sense?

So, this is a ghost story. It's a YA novel, but an easy crossover to adult. It's...weird. But a good weird.

3.5/5

{I'm working on a 'horror reads for the squeamish' post for Book Riot, and plan on including this one. It will post in October.]

“Somtimes a person can’t tell you what you already know,” she said. “Somestimes you have to see it for yourself. Then you’ll believe.”

Bina has had a pretty complicated upbrining. Leaving her crap father with her mother and hitchhiking only to be thrust into this new step-family where her step-sisters are basically scum of the earth. So many things happened, including getting a massive black eye the night before she left to go to Catherine House. She was a fun character to read about. I enjoyed her personality and reading through her adventures while living in Catherine House.

All of the other characters added to the mystery of the novel. Their half-answers and weird stares only made things even more haunting. Monet was an interesting character. I was definitely as captivated by her and what she was up to as Bina was.

Nova Ren Suma is an incredible writer. Everything about this book was so dark and atmospheric and I loved it. I could imagine all the haunting this being presented to me as a reader and I enjoyed it.

My smallest issue was the plot. I felt like for a lot of the book I was questioning where it was supposed to be going and what I was supposed to be expecting. The one good thing is that it wasn’t predictable. I had a strong sense of what the ending was going to be concercing what was going on with Bina, and I was glad to be wrong. Everything did tie together at the end, but I still had a lot of questions. To be fair, this is my first time diving into magical realism, so maybe it’s because it’s a new genre to me that I’m not used to how things are supposed to go.

The pacing of the novel was great. It took place over the course of a month and all of the events flowed together so well. Nothing was rushed and nothing was slow. The pacing definitely added to the dark atmosphere of the novel in the most positive way.

A Room Away from the Wolves is the perfect dark book to settle in with on a cold autumn evening. Get a warm blanket, light a couple candles, make a latte, and immerse yourself in this wonderfully haunting novel.

So, A Room Away from the Wolves is like the most confusing book.. ever.. for me. I am still not sure about my feelings. Did I hate it? Did I enjoy this? I seriously don’t have a clear answer to both these questions. For half of the book, I was like “wait, what’s happening? It’s so confusing” and for the other half, I was like “I can’t put it down. I have to know what’s going to happen”.

This was my first read by Nova Ren Suma so I was not sure what to expect from her writing. I am still confused if I understood the book completely. The whole time while reading it, I was asking questions like why it’s happening, what actually happened etc. but still I was hooked on reading it and finished it in just 3 days (which is quite fast for me). I just wanted to finish the book so that I can get all the answers which kept me guessing throughout the stories. I have to confess that Nova Ren Suma's writing is magical. She can keep the reader hooked till the end, doesn’t matter where the story is going or if it is making any sense to you.

WHAT I LIKED
=> I loved the overall weird atmosphere that this book created. For the kind of story, this book was portraying it was perfect. The mysterious atmosphere makes you want to keep going. Everything seems kind of relaxing and a backdrop story. While reading you would feel that something is not right but you won’t be able to figure it out 😀
=> I loved Bina’s character. She is troublesome and creates chaos everywhere she goes. She was unreliable but you will get attached to her. I loved how she wanted to re-live the life her mother lived while staying in Catherine house.
=> One unique aspect of the story is that almost every character in the book is female! Can you imagine a book with no male character of importance and no romance? Well, giving the type of story, I would have been more pissed if the romance was included. But not having a romance aspect certainly felt fresh.
=> I loved the complicated mother-daughter relationship. Though her mother loved Bina, she was also trying to adjust in her current family for her survival.
=> Monet’s character was well-done. She was fit to her role exactly. She was always mysterious and remained so till the end. No matter how much Bina tried to get closer to her, she always kept a mysterious distance.
=> As I said earlier, I loved the writing style of the author. I think it was amazing. It kept me hooked till the end and maintained the mystery throughout the book.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE
=> My biggest problem was that there were a bunch of loose ends left in this book. There were a lot of things which remained unexplained even when the book ended. Not knowing the things was definitely annoying.
=> There were many characters in the book. As in characters, I mean the girls living in Catherine house. I often forget their names and was so confused who was who and living on which floor.
=> The title didn’t make any sense to me, not till now. There are no wolves in the story, not a single one and I am not sure if ‘wolves’ meant something else here. But the cover and the title definitely mislead the reader.


All in all, this book is suitable for a particular group of readers, in my opinion. The writing and atmosphere keep you hooked till the end but having so many unanswered questions definitely confuses you and make you annoyed. This book is definitely hard to put down but the mystical aspect could’ve been done better. If you like ghost stories and unreliable narrator, you may enjoy this book.

This wonderful story has one step inside reality, and the other is deep inside somewhere quite otherworldly, which is also somewhere that Nova Ren Suma’s writing sits. Her writing is what gives this simple tale of a young girl ‘Bina’, who runs away from home to a boarding house in New York City, so much character, originality, and mystery.

Bina and her mother fled their home once before, last time to escape her cruel father. They never made it beyond the home Bina has to share now with a stepfather and two stepsisters that eventually has become a new hell she’s decided she must escape on her own. Bruised inside and out, she feels betrayed and let down by her mom, and sees no other way.

Eight years after her and mother once ran from her father, she heads for Catherine House, the place she heard so many stories about from her mom, and asks for the very room that she stayed in.
From the moment Bina arrives in Greenwich Village, something is strange, and somehow connected to the opal ring her mother gave her, and to the original owner of the house, Catherine herself.

I don’t want to go into too much explanation of the story because there would be too much given away. I’ll lead this by saying that if you like your stories served up on a platter, without beautiful prose laden with wonderful imagery, this may not be the book for you. Suma writes with so much mesmerizing imagery wrapped in every sentence, that you’ll miss half of the tale she’s written for you if you don’t dig a little deeper.

This is a modern ghost story as well as a heart-breaking tale about the connection between mother and daughter, and how families make mistakes and let each other down. This part of the book is the guts of why Bina ends up Catherine House, and made me long for my own mom who is thousands of miles away.

Bina feels betrayed by her mom and looks to her mother’s past for answers, but there’s so much that’s tragic about this; reading the book it felt like Bina carries such a weight for a young girl, but doesn’t truly complain. It’s especially tragic because her father has already let her down, and she’s now being bullied by her stepsisters.

The other characters in the novel bring out all sorts of thoughts and memories for her: Monet is the girl in the room below, and is a fascinating character and one who Bina is drawn to, without explanation. She makes Bina question everything and gives her clues as to what is really happening.

There are twists and portals and thrills in this novel that make it a page-turner, and it’s as beautiful as it is heart-wrenching.

[su_quote style="modern-orange" cite="Goodreads"]

Bina has never forgotten the time she and her mother ran away from home. Her mother promised they would hitchhike to the city to escape Bina’s cruel father and start over. But before they could even leave town, Bina had a new stepfather and two new stepsisters, and a humming sense of betrayal pulling apart the bond with her mother—a bond Bina thought was unbreakable.

Eight years later, after too many lies and with trouble on her heels, Bina finds herself on the side of the road again, the city of her dreams calling for her. She has an old suitcase, a fresh black eye, and a room waiting for her at Catherine House, a young women’s residence in Greenwich Village with a tragic history, a vow of confidentiality, and dark, magical secrets. There, Bina is drawn to her enigmatic downstairs neighbor Monet, a girl who is equal parts intriguing and dangerous. As Bina’s lease begins to run out, and nightmare and memory get tangled, she will be forced to face the terrible truth of why she’s come to Catherine House and what it will take for her to leave...

[/su_quote]

I received an eARC of A Room Away From the Wolves through Netgalley as part of a blog tour with The Fantastic Flying Book Club in exchange for an honest review.
I wasn't entirely sure what to expect going into A Room Away From the Wolves. That didn't stop it from blowing my mind. This story is partly a coming-of-age tale and partly a haunted house story, but it was completely beautiful. It was also more than a little bit heartbreaking.

It needs some trigger warnings for several suicide attempts (one by the main character, one by a side character), hitchhiking, compulsive Christianity, physical abuse, mental abuse, gaslighting, abusive husband, and anti-semitic comments.

A Room Away From The Wolves will keep you on the edge of your seat the whole time you read. I really don't want to say much about the plot. However, there's a lot that I enjoyed about the way it unfolded.

I was particularly intrigued by the uneasy friendship that develops between Bina and Monet, and the small relationships with the other girls at Catherine House.

I highly recommend giving this a read if this sounds up your alley. I'll certainly be looking forward to reading more of Nova Ren Suma's work.  You can pick up a copy on Amazon or Indiebound.

[su_box title="ABOUT A ROOM AWAY FROM THE WOLVES" style="default" box_color="#ff4400" title_color="#f2f2f2" radius="3" class=""]

Title:  A Room Away From The Wolves

Author: Nova Ren Suma

Publisher: Algonquin Young Readers

Length: 304 Pages

Release Date: Sept. 4, 2018

Rating: ★★★★★ / Five stars

Genre: Contemporary Fantasy

Representation: Queer main character, non-practicing Jewish main character



[/su_box]



Want to help support Let's Fox About It and help it go ad-free? Subscribe to our Patreon!

Disclaimer: All links to Indiebound and Amazon are affiliate links. If you buy through those links, LFAI will make a small amount of money off of the sale.

I adored Nova Ren Suma's last book, The Walls Around Us, so I was anxious to get to read this one. It has the same mysterious atmosphere and lingering questions. I really enjoyed it! I feel like it left a few too many threads unanswered at the end, but I'm sure that was on purpose. I will continue to read and recommend her books!

It’s hard for a story to surprise me as much as this one did. The author did a wonderful job of weaving a tale that keeps the reader confused but understanding that the confusion has a purpose. It was fun to keep trying, as the reader, to understand what was going on and to feel affirmed as things became clearer little by little. This story kept me engaged from beginning to end and I could not put it down until I knew what was going on. I think that Teens and YA fans will enjoy this fresh story and the characters in it. I strongly suggest giving this book a try.

A Room Away From The Wolves is a twisty, unpredictable story about Bina, a teenager who runs away from her mother and step family and decides to take up residence at Catherine House, a women's home with its fair share of secrets. Catherine House was once home to Bina's mother, and the connection is enough to let her in to a place marked by mystery and tragedy.
This book definitely makes you think. The writing is absolutely gorgeous, albeit hard to follow at times, and it really sweeps you into Bina's world. The narrative is rooted strongly in gothic literature which made it a bit more understandable to me, but overall I did find that the pacing was a bit slow for my liking and I admittedly never fully understood what the underlying secret of the narrative was. Hints seemed to be thrown in randomly throughout the story but by the end there was never an "Aha!" moment where the whole thing became crystal clear to me. In that sense, it's a bit convoluted for my taste, but for the right reader willing to pick apart the narrative I think this story really shines. Nonetheless, it's an elegant, spooky book with intriguing female characters and ghosts (real or otherwise) around every corner.

I tried so very hard to love this book, but I really struggled with it.

Nova Ren Suma's writing and stories are always somewhere between gorgeous and completely what-the-actual-fuck bonkers. Despite its weirdness, I really enjoyed The Walls Around Us, but I confess that was the first of her books I was able to finish. This one, I feel, was so hard to get through because I spent the majority of the story clueless as to what was going on.

It's really hard to become invested in a story arc when you have no idea where it's going, or what questions you should be asking. A Room Away from the Wolves presents us with what feels like a random mishmash of dropped clues and flashbacks, magical realism aspects, and - unless I am just confused, which is entirely possible - a lot of loose ends.

It starts with Bina being kicked out of her house by her mother, who trusts her new husband and his daughters over her own daughter. Bina is supposed to go stay with a friend but she instead decides to run away to New York City and find the mysterious Catherine House from her mother's stories. But... who is Catherine? Is something supernatural going on at the creepy boarding house? And what, exactly, happened to Bina before she came here?

Thrilling in concept; slow in execution. Much patience is required in order to get answers, and I'm just not really the kind of reader who can put up with anything for some big payoff. If I have to be bored for a couple hundred pages before I get to the goods, it's pretty much always going to be too little, too late.

I can't even decide if there were a number of threads that went nowhere, or if I was actually supposed to understand something about them but missed it because the plot was so confusing and all over the place. Still, it is creepy and atmospheric. I'm sure more patient or smarter readers than I will appreciate it.

I don't entirely know how to review this book. On one hand, it was breathtaking. It was haunting and atmospheric, I fell in love with it the same way I fell in love with Suma's other novel, The Walls Around Us. However, it also felt too like The Walls Around Us and for that reason I clearly saw the big reveal coming before even reading through half of the book. It was a disappointment to me that the ending was so like the last. It may be that I missed something along the way, but I also felt as if there were many threads left floating in the wind. I felt a feeling I can't remember feeling upon finishing a book: confusion. I kept thinking to myself, "it doesn't make sense because then how did this happen," etc. In that sense, I can't wait for others to read it so we can discuss it together and make sense of things.

I will say that I immediately spoke to two fellow readers and told them how much I love Nova Ren Suma's writing and that I didn't want to give away why I was disappointed as it would spoil TOO much of her novels but to run and read one as soon as possible! This was not a happy read, it was not full of hope, but it was fulfilling and haunting overall.

If you've read The Walls Between Us, you've already got a pretty good idea of what to expect here: Nova Ren Suma writes beautifully in this novel and keeps the reader guessing throughout.

I will say that I don't think I ever actually really *LIKED* Bina as a person, but as a character she's wonderfully complex and interesting. The supporting cast is... mostly supporting and doesn't get a whole lot of page-time, though I was absolutely charmed by Monet throughout the story.

This is definitely a ghost story. It's fairly creepy, but never SCARY. Atmospheric, though. I swear I could almost smell the must and the dust of the Catherine House. Suma also sprinkles a number of details and clues throughout the novel, so I can't wait to get my own copy and re-read it!

If you're a fan of YA books like We Were Liars, you'll most likely enjoy this as well!

This book is absolutely and completely a Nova Ren Suma book, while also being completely different from anything she's done before. It's a stunner that gripped me from the first page and sent me racing through. Gorgeously written, obviously. I don't want to say too much for those who haven't read it, but for anyone who HAS, I want to have an in-depth discussion immediately!

It's difficult for me to review this book because the writing was strong, but I had a hard time getting into it. I enjoyed the well-developed characters, but I felt myself waiting for something to happen in the book that just never did. Whilst I had a hard time getting into this book, I think others will enjoy it. Thanks for the opportunity to review this title.

4.5 Stars It wouldn't be a Nova Ren Suma book without a twist and while, in this case, the twist is predictable, the finely nuanced writing, the slow build, the ominous tone, the examination of mother/daughter relationships, and so much more are all the elements that make this the exceptional book that it is. There is no doubt in my mind that Suma has another home run in her repertoire, and this is one that will not only have wide appeal to a variety of readers, but it is also one that mothers and daughters can read and discuss together. A must have, without a doubt!

3 1/2 stars

This genre-bending, paranormal, realistic yet very trippy mystery is completely out of the box as per usual for Nova Ren Suma. It has rich, emotional writing and made me want to visit New York City again soon.

However, the mystery itself lost me somewhere along the way. It felt like the key details were strewn haphazardly across the story, leaving me to pick them up at random. I wanted the reveal to be tighter and more strategic – I wanted the tension to build in a purposeful way and then – AHA! I would step back from the mystery and everything would suddenly come into focus, leaving me stunned. The eventual reveal felt like a foregone conclusion, with no palpable tension at all.

Still, I think that the premise and beautiful writing are sure to spark the interest of mystery-lovers, particularly those who already love Nova Ren Suma.

This tantalizing and visceral novel is the perfect summer ghost story. You can feel the hot pavement and sweltering heat of New York City as Bina searches for answers about a mysterious boarding house and her own missing history. A Room Away From the Wolves feels both ancient and modern at the same time; a perfect combination for this bewildering and intoxicating novel.