I just finished The Hum and The Shiver by Alex Bledsoe. It was an excellent book. Alex certainly has a grasp of the East Tennessee life, and small town fun and games. The characters are really good, and with the exception of one moment with the Army, I could buy all of it. I liked the plot, as it had a nice slow growth, being mostly character driven and about rediscovering their roots. The atmosphere that he created was great, with excellent description of the landscape and surrounding nature without bogging down the text.

The Tufa, as a group of characters to write about, seem like a fun subject. They have a lot of interesting characteristics and their subculture is fascinating. The heavily music driven nature of their culture comes across easily with the sheer number of songs and musical references thrown into the text. Watching them use their music in different ways was really interesting.

I highly recommend the book, as it is a fun read. We even pimped it out to a waitress here in Vermont whose name was Buffy, “like the vampire slayer” in her own words. I absolutely look forward to diving into the rest of the Tufa novels and am glad that Alex is working on his fifth.