Josie and Jack

I have never read this author so I thought I’d give it a try. The book was good. Kinda weird. Didn’t expect the ending. Hope there’s a second one.

This was such a good book! I can't express how much I loved it-I can't wait for Kelly Braffet's new novel to come out. You get so involved with the book you won't want to put it down-I literally had to tear myself away from it just to do regular things like eat and sleep! I reccomend Josie and Jack to anyone! Terrific Read!

Isolated and incestuous, Josie and Jack are inseparable teenage siblings who when faced with the necessity to function in a larger world stumble disastrously. Their story of hermetic love fueled by wanton self-indulgence of epic proportionality takes place in the almost complete absence of parenting. Mother, whose elusive presence in the lives of her children is magnified by her absence, has obliterated herself suicidally when Josie and Jack are four and six years of age respectively. And their frighteningly abusive, megalomaniacal father is home only on weekends throughout the years when guidance and care are so critical to the development of character and the values by which to structure one's life. Furthermore, the children are excused from attending school as father delusionally believes that what he has to impart in the way of grandiose instruction of esoteric, paranoidly tinged subject matter somehow suffices as a curriculum with which to prepare his offspring for their future lives. The mix of perverse love kindled in a vacuum, prodigious amounts of alcohol and pharmaceuticals, and misguided efforts to promote and protect a precious sense of overweening self-importance in this truncated family of three inevitably detonates in Kelly Braffet's first novel in ways that never fail to surprise and astonish. Braffert has crafted an exhilarating narrative that speeds toward its explosive conclusion just as a car driven by an intoxicated madman might careen down the wrong direction of a six lane superhighway. To say the least, Josie And Jack is keenly observed, psychologically astute, and deadly accurate in its depiction of what will transpire when children are led to buy into the lie that they are so special they can function outside of natural law. Transgression as an expression of disdain for basic limits in interpersonal relations almost always ends in exquisite suffering and emotional chaos. With Kelly Braffet we encounter a master at delineating this splintered terrain of pain and ineluctable sorrow.

In the west is a scraggly. scratchy bush that snags as you walk by it- and holds you within its grasp- we jokingly call it a "Wait a minute" bush...Josie and Jack is a "Wait a minute" book for the same reasons- it snags you from the first paragraph- holds you securely and won't let you go til you finish the book as quickly as possible. Darkly consuming and very addictive- Kelly Braffet is the new literary drug! A very good read proving story telling is still alive and well. Bravo!!

I originally bought this book for my friend on her birthday. I began to read the first few pages in the bookstore and was instantly hooked. I took it home, plopped down on my bed and stayed there until I was finished with the entire book; it was impossible to put down. It is a twisted, sadistic and engrossing first novel. I reccomend it to anyone who loves a good page-turner.

Kelly Braffet's debut novel is the kind of book you remember for a long time after you've put it down. It's creepy and dark, but the central character, Josie, puts a remarkably level-headed spin on the madness around her. Josie is one of the most weirdly endearing characters I've met in fiction in quite some time - and her sexy, twisted brother Jack is one of the most indelible. Josie and Jack is a must read!