Spiders Song

Reviewed by Junior Booklover Emma-Lee

"Emo", cutter and enraged are all words which describe this protagonist. This work of fiction tackles the contemporary issue of a young girl trying to overcome the urge to cut herself.
AJ is a teenager who is full of rage and cannot tell anyone how she really feels. Her mother has abandoned her in Yellowknife with her grandma; her father left before she could talk. The only way she knows how to express her rage is to cut herself. AJ knows that she has to stop and begins channelling her rage through an internet blog. To AJ's surprise, it works. AJ writes about her life in her blog, how much she hates her mother and how she wishes she would be reunited with her father. Then one day, AJ meets a man at a music festival who she thinks may be her father. As she begins to spend more time with the musician, she learns about her past and what split her mother and father apart. However, can you put all your trust in a stranger?
Vivid and chilling, Spiders Song grabs you by your soul and leaves you feeling drained and emotionally tied to AJ. Anita Daher has taken a taboo and exposed it for what it is - a very heavy contemporary topic. A very complicated book, it is incredibly deep, poignant and introspective - an emotional rollercoaster. This novel deserves 4 stars.

I was smarter. I was always smarter. A little cut-cut, drip-drip, blood saved and sprinkled.

Stuck in Yellowknife with her crazy grandmother, AJ is one angry girl. She's lonely, too, and her blog has become her main source of contact with the world. It is there she reveals her innermost hurts-the absence of her mother, who has gone back to school; and of her father, who abandoned AJ when she was just a little girl; and the moving around she and her mother have had to do every few years for reasons she has never understood. And recently, she's begun to cut herself-a powerful habit and shame she is trying to overcome.

Then a festival is held in Yellowknife, and AJ is befriended by a travelling musician, a man to whom she finds herself instantly drawn. Soon, she realizes that he may be her father.

Or is he?

Anita Daher's chilling new novel will grip you completely from beginning to shocking end.

Anita Daher draws writing inspiration from the many places she's been fortunate enough to spend time, including Summerside, P.E.I.; Yellowknife, Northwest Territories; Churchill, Manitoba; and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. She's been entrenched in the book publishing industry for several years, writing books, articles, and reviews, and leading workshops and presentations. Anita currently lives in Winnipeg with her husband, two daughters, a basset hound, and an adopted Westfalia camper van named Mae.