Colleen Mondor Reviews Tender Beasts by Liselle Sambury
Tender Beasts, Liselle Sambury (McElderry Books 978-1-665-90352-3, $19.99, 404pp, hc) February 2024. Cover by Elena Masci.
I strongly advise you block out a weekend for reading Liselle Sambury’s Tender Beasts, because once you start down this multi-layered family drama, murder mystery, possible deal-with-a-demon cautionary tale, you are not going to be able to set it aside. At the center of the propulsive narrative are a lot (A LOT) of lies. There are parents who lie, friends who lie, siblings who lie, and trying to untangle all the many lies that have resulted in the current murderous mess is a major reason behind this epic page-turner. I did not know for sure how things were going to go until the very end and Sambury had me reeling even as I blew through the final pages. So, settle in, get yourself a tray of necessary food and drink, tell everyone to leave you alone, and give yourself over to the trials and travails of the Behre family.
The story begins with the interior rumination of Ainsley Behre, mother of five, supremely successful private school administrator, and lately, the parent of a young teen under investigation for the death of his girlfriend. Ainsley is a woman who does everything quick, smart, and with laser-like precision. She is determined to save her son, Dom, to prevent her husband from screwing up again, and to keep her family in perfect order. She is dead by page five and over the next 400 pages, her husband and children must reckon with the mess that Ainsley left behind.
Sunny thought she was the one her mother was grooming to lead the family at some nebulous, distant point in the future after Ainsley was gone. She is the fourth of the five Behre children, but eldest sister Karter is Type A and controlling and, in Sunny’s view, lacks all perspective. Darren and Kiley, the ‘‘middles,’’ are joined at the hip, the creatives, the ones who dance on the fringe with seemingly less responsibilities to deal with. And Dom, the youngest, is well, Sunny is not sure why Dom has always been separate. Everyone has kept Dom apart, kept him away from his siblings, isolated, secluded, a member of the family and yet the one who always is on the other side of the room. Sunny is the fixer, and the last time she saw her mother, Ainsley charged her with taking care of Dom. Now that her mother is dead, Sunny puts a smile on her face, embraces her even temper, arms herself with proper dress and manners, and sets out to hold the family together, continue her stellar studies, maintain an acceptable relationship with her acceptable boyfriend, and get Dom through what she is certain is a railroading from the local police. Then she sees him standing over an obviously murdered classmate and is suddenly struck with not only Dom’s possible guilt as a serial murderer, but wondering just what in the world her mother actually meant with the words ‘‘take care of Dom.’’
So here’s what you need to know about Tender Beasts: You are not going to know what the heck is 100% truly-for-sure going-on with this novel until the end. Yes, Sambury drops hints, especially from excerpts of Ainsley’s decades-old journal that are peppered throughout the text. (It was supposed to go to Sunny upon her death but ended up being side-tracked for some time by one of her siblings. It does eventually get to her, but Sambury preps the reader for that moment with excerpts.) Everyone has something to hide, from the obvious to the banal, so it’s impossible to be certain what Sunny (and Dom) need to know to figure out what matters. Sambury gets you there, though, and each startling development drops as more significant than the last.
The siblings lie because their parents, especially their mother, taught them to. Most are small lies, the kind to smooth things over, keep everyone going along; the necessaries to present as privileged children whose parents run a pricey school. But as Sunny discovers, the culmination of those lies has resulted in serious repercussions for her siblings such as illness, paralyzing fear, and whatever is going on with Dom. For herself, there is a habitual lack of sincerity, a dedication to the ‘‘good kid’’ facade that has left Sunny forced to consider that not one single relationship in her life is actually true. On top of all of that, which is plenty, there is also the strange woman who keeps appearing to warn her of the ‘‘Milk Man,’’ who has a vendetta against her family. And don’t forget that murdered classmate – he won’t be the only one to die. Forced to consider just how much her mother has kept from her and what her father is willing to do to maintain those secrets, Sunny must challenge every single member of her family to get to the truth. And then the book gets reallllllllllllly good!
Dark, desperate, and smart on so many levels, Liselle Sambury’s latest is a helluva literary ride. YA readers are in for a unique and wicked treat with Tender Beasts which tackles many aspects of the teen experience. Sunny is a girl detective for the current messy era we are living in and more than up to every challenge any Big Bad (or lying Behre) can toss her way.
This review and more like it in the February 2024 issue of Locus.
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