Book Review: 'You Belong Here' speaks of the dangers of going home again

San Francisco Chronicle​

4 days ago

Megan Miranda treads overly familiar territory in 'You Belong Here,' the story of a woman forced to return to the town that once suspected her of involvement in a terrible crime — a plot that echoes too closely the themes of her previous novels.
Twenty years ago, Beckett Bowery's college roommate lit a fire that killed two young men during a hazing ritual, and then seemingly vanished. Adalyn Vale's whereabouts remain a mystery in Wyatt Valley; a town divided between those connected to the elite college and the locals who know little about life behind its gates. Beckett embodied that divide — her parents were professors at the school, but she grew up as a local until deciding to enroll herself. After the fire, she was suspected of being an accomplice and forced to leave her home. Now, two decades later, her daughter, Delilah, enrolls at the school, drawing Beckett back into Wyatt Valley's web.
Miranda is an author who always writes to her strengths, but in this book, she is sticking too close to them. Her 2016 adult debut, 'All the Missing Girls,' was a rewardingly twisty take on the genre that pulled off the story being told in reverse and provided a genuinely shocking conclusion. It also introduced Miranda's signature plot device: a woman haunted by tragedy, reluctantly returning to the scene of the crime, still the subject of small-town whispers and accusations. This book feels like a recycle of that plot, and one that fails to grasp the electric undercurrent of intense female friendship Miranda usually has a knack for.
The reader never feels the magnetism of Adalyn or the emotional weight of Beckett's relationship with her, to the point where Beckett is still haunted by Adalyn's absence two decades later. More time spent in the past with their friendship and its effect on Beckett's identity might explain why Adalyn's hold remains so strong.
Miranda's description of the sinister-sounding hazing tradition called 'the howling,' where co-eds are chased through the woods by their peers, adds a sense of creeping danger to both timelines of the book. However, Miranda fails to make the consequences of being caught explicit, leaving some confusion as to why Adalyn took such drastic action. If the implication is meant to be sexual violence, the story would be more powerful in addressing that and giving Adalyn's act a purpose.
Miranda's ability to establish the settings of her novels as characters is present here and remains effective. Her portrayal of icy tensions in close-knit mountain towns is comparable to Shirley Jackson's grip on the eeriness of rigid New England villages. The novel also hits a peak when exploring Beckett's anxiety over her daughter's safety in Wyatt Valley, and her fear of Delilah being harmed in retribution for her own suspected guilt.
The revelations in the last third of the book are rushed, hollow attempts at twists and lessen the impact of an ending that struck a genuinely poignant, tragic note. Miranda is a genuinely compelling thriller writer, but my hope is that she breaks her traditions and tries something new with the next book she writes.
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