Told from the split viewpoints of Liv and Jory, Kate A. Boorman’s What We Buried is a psychological thrill ride that deftly explores how memories can lie, how time can bend, and how reconciling the truth can be a matter of life or death. “Do you ever just want to be believed?” Siblings Liv and Jory Brewer have grown up resenting each another. Liv–former pageant queen and reality TV star–was … queen and reality TV star–was groomed for a life in the spotlight, while her older brother, Jory, born with a partial facial paralysis, was left in the shadows. The only thing they have in common is contempt for their parents.
Now Liv is suing her mom and dad for emancipation, and Jory views the whole thing as yet another attention-getting spectacle. But on the day of the hearing, their parents mysteriously vanish, and the siblings are forced to work together. Liv feels certain she knows where they are and suspects that Jory knows more than he’s telling…which is true.
What starts as a simple overnight road trip soon takes a turn for the dangerous and surreal. And as the duo speeds through the deserts of Nevada, brother and sister will unearth deep family secrets that force them to relive their pasts as they try to retain a grip on the present.
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There are so many things I loved about this book, but I think I can manage to break it down to three main categories: 1. Characters: I love the dueling POVs and seeing how their shared memories are viewed differently through each character’s eyes. 2. Atmosphere: along with evocative imagery, there is a dark, looping repetition in the prose that gives the story the same sort of mysterious and hypnotic quality of the creepy desert road they are traveling down for much of the novel. 3. Ambiguity: this story is thought-provoking—not easy or tidy. The ending isn’t completely spelled out, but if you are someone who likes books that keep you thinking about them long after the last page, this is the story for you. It’s been two weeks and I have thought about it so much and it keeps calling out for a reread. This is a story I read going in blind and it was a pretty perfect way to experience the story so feel free to stop reading here. But if you want to know more, I also have a ton to say about it. I’ll keep it spoiler free but if you don’t really want to know my every thought on why this book is so awesome feel free to skip the rest. I completely understand. We don’t all have two hours to get through one book review.
1. The characters. I found them fascinating, with very distinct voices, and as the book goes along you start to see all the dimensions of their personalities emerge. Which to me is more interesting than a character you know completely from the very start. Jory had so many little sarcastic thoughts that made me laugh out loud. But he wasn’t a perfectly nice person and Liv wasn’t the selfless kind of heroine that puts everyone’s needs before her own. These are not perfect people. They have faults, they have defenses, they have obsessions and eccentricities. But it was all very understandable considering what each had been through. One was exposed and one was hidden away, but both of them had to fight for agency and a voice. And I think the fact that they had trouble really seeing what the other had been through is also extremely true to life. I love the dueling POVs, not only because of the distinct voices, but because it ratchets up the tension with every switch. Each time a viewpoint ended I was thinking, hurry up and get back to Jory, but by the time the Liv section was over I wanted to know what was going on with her and back and forth. It added to the looping, hypnotic feel of the novel. Which brings me to my next category:
2. The atmosphere: There is an APB on the radio that we keep hearing snippets of and though it takes a bit before you have any idea how it is connected to the story, it starts things off on uneven footing. For most, if not the entire, novel you feel as unsettled as the characters. Even when you can’t quite put your finger on it, you know from Kate A. Boorman’s masterful writing that things are not what they seem and nothing that can be seen should be trusted. There is a line that’s used to describe driving in the desert at night but it could be used just as well to describe the way this story is told: “Our sight was basically confined to the tunnel cast by the headlight of the car.”
Jory has an ouroboros tattoo and there are several allusions to the looping infinity symbolism of the snake eating his own tail. A lot of the philosophy that the story hangs on, like thread through a loom, comes from Jory’s internal monologue. His interest in film also leads him to ask questions about reality and illusion. This all made me question what more was happening in the story than just what I saw at first, and I could see why the story started with Jory’s POV.
Liv and Jory both have mantra-like elements that repeat in their sections. Even though the repeated punctuations of “You want to see a monster” or “Horror show” are often exactly the same, the context in which they are said reveals a new slant of light on what they mean to the characters and the story as a whole. It’s like when you are driving on a textured road and it all sounds the same until after a while you hear nuances and changes in it and you’re not sure which one is real. The atmosphere of this book is like that, it envelopes you so completely that everything starts to look different. And I think that is truly powerful writing.
3. The ambiguity: You have to really think about what your interpretation of the end is. If you like David Lynch and Christopher Nolan’s early movies where you really have to marinate in them, go over them in your mind, and then come to your own conclusions about what exactly you think happened, then this book is for you 100 percent. I love Mulholland Drive and this book reminded me of it so I recommended it to my mom who also loves that movie. She finished it in one day and was equally blown away. I had a feeling that we’d both be totally sure we knew what really had happened but that there was at least a 50 percent chance we’d be on opposite sides. But we ended up having pretty much the same interpretations. So I think if you are looking for the answers, you can see them. But you are also free to see them your own way. Which I think is amazing.
What a wonderful book! I stayed up till three-thirty last night reading it and finished it this afternoon, doing almost nothing else, and then I spent an hour talking to my daughter about it. It was that kind of enthralling read.
It doesn’t fit neatly into a genre. I think it’s classified as YA but its appeal is not age-specific. The cover has a horror look, but while it definitely has weird and mind-bending elements, I didn’t find it very scary, maybe a couple of goosebump moments. There’s a mystery that you really want to get to the bottom of, but it isn’t a typical searching-for-clues format. It’s thought-provoking without being boring. It’s insightful without being preachy. And it is very much a page-turner while also exploring issues about relationships and family and communication and perceptions. The ending is perhaps open to interpretation, but it nevertheless provides closure, as well as giving you something to think about and discuss.
I don’t want to give anything away, so all I’ll say about the plot is that it concerns a brother and sister searching for their parents.