Shiner was a DNF for me. I read about half, and was impressed by some beautiful writing, and the characters were fascinating…but I swear I just kept thinking about a video I saw recently, interviewing people at a diner in WV, and they went around the table talking to these nice folks who were nearly all planning to vote for the current President in the upcoming election…so, maybe fictional people are better to focus on?

Wren is a teenage girl who lives with her snake handling lunatic father and his beaten-down wife Ruby in a mountainous area of West Virginia with a history of moonshining (hence the title, not the black eye that first popped into my mind). Ruby and her lifetime BFF Ivy help one another stay sane, but one day Ivy is visiting Ruby (who is busily making soap, as in boiling hot tallow and lye) and somehow Ivy falls into the cauldron and is one fire, as her kids watch. Ruby and Wren try to stop the fire, then Wren rushes to the shack where her disgusting pig of a father wallows all day doing who knows what — prepare for the sermons he spouts on Sundays maybe? Or is he a victim of the opiod epidemic, sitting in there like a zombie? Or?

Frankly, I couldn’t bring myself to care. I am quite sure that the book is meant to be hopeful, in the same way that The Glass Castle and Educated (both nonfiction) were. Teenage girl resolves to get out, education is the key, blah blah blah. I’m also fairly sure that the relationship between Ruby and Ivy is a strong example of what women bonding together can do to begin to forge an escape route which possibly their child(ren) can follow. And I’m thinking it is all done with beautiful language. I just couldn’t bring myself to read it. Maybe next year, or even later this year (after November 3), I will be feeling less like the country is going to hell and I will pick it up again. In the meantime, I would recommend it based on the portion I read, recommendations from friends, and some reviews I sought trying to figure out if it was just me. BTW, it WAS just me, so Im giving it four stars, with thanks to Penguin Group/Riverhead and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review .