The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner

 

The Serpent King

Bibliography

Zentner, Jeff.  2016.  The Serpent King. New York, NY: Ember.  ISBN 9780553524024

Plot Summary

This contemporary realistic novel takes place in small-town Forestville, Tennessee where Dill and his two best friends, Travis and Lydia, are seniors in high school.  Lydia is a vintage fashion influencer and writes a fairly popular fashion blog, and she comes from a wealthy family.  Travis is the son of an abusive father who cannot live up to the image of his deceased brother.  He works at the family lumberyard and escapes into a world of the fantasy novels he reads, going as far as to carry a staff with him when he and his friends go out.  Dillard Early, a talented musician, is the poorest of the three friends.  His father is in prison for possessing child pornography, and he was the former head of the local snake-handling, poison-drinking Pentecostal church.  His mother constantly hounds him to stay faithful and follow his father's wishes.  Although the three teens have very different lives, what they do have in common is that they don't fit in at school.  They all get teased, Dill especially for the sins of his father.  Lydia has a plan to get out of Forestville as soon as she can and head to NYU.  She tries to convince Dill and Travis to do the same, but they feel stuck in the lives they were born into and plan on staying in Forestville.  Everything changes after Travis gets into a fight with his father and moves out.  To make money he sold firewood on the highway, and he was robbed and murdered by druggies.  Dill spirals to the point of almost committing suicide, but instead of ending it all he decides to change his life with Lydia's help.  He gets accepted into college, gains recognition for the music he posted online, and finally ends up in the romantic relationship he always longed for with Lydia.  While things were never the same after Travis' death, it pushed Dill into action to stand up for himself and break himself free from the mold his family trapped him in.

Critical Analysis

Through most of the book, Dillard is driven by fear of letting his family down, and a sense of being trapped in his hometown.  He fails to see his worth even though Lydia constantly hounds him and Travis to get out of town and go to college.  Perhaps it is her middle-upper class upbringing that gives her more hope.  Travis feels much of the same hopelessness, but he is able to escape into the fantasy world of his novels and with his online girlfriend.  I think a variety of teens can relate to at least one of these characters: anyone who is an outsider and feels trapped in his or her life.  While readers feel the bleakness of Dill and Travis' situations, the novel's ending does offer hope to those who feel like all is lost.  After Travis' death, Dill nearly ends it all by jumping into a river, but he finally realizes his worth and potential and gets into college with the help of Lydia and her family.  He gains the strength to finally stand up to his parents and choose his own future, not the one they set out before him.

Awards & Review Excerpts

2017 William C. Morris Debut Award Winner

2017 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Winner

2017 Indies Choice Book Awards Honor

 

School Library Journal 1/1/2016 by Amanda C. Buschmann

"Zentner offers a contemporary young adult novel that explores many issues common with teenagers today—bullying, life after high school, and the coming together and breaking apart of high school friendships. Thorough characterization and artful prose allow readers to intimately experience the highs and lows of these three friends."

 

Publishers Weekly Starred 12/14/2015 by Charlie Olsen

"As the novel, Zentner’s debut, builds to a shocking act of violence that shatters the friends’ world, this sepia-toned portrait of small-town life serves as a moving testament to love, loyalty, faith, and reaching through the darkness to find light and hope. Zentner explores difficult themes head on—including the desire to escape the sins of the father and the fragility of happiness—while tempering them with the saving grace of enduring friendship."

 

Connections

Readers may enjoy Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen by Susan Gregg Gilmore, ISBN 9780307395023, about escaping from a hometown and the identity that goes with it, or Looking for Alaska by John Green, ISBN 9780142402511, also about friendship and loss.