Kelly Braffet

Kelly Braffet’s wonderful new book is about as dark and twisty as it gets . . . a creepy, squirmy, steamy, scary stew that simmers to its punishing but perfect conclusion.

There’s storytelling skill to burn here. Ms. Braffet has empathy for her working-class characters and brings neglected places to convincing life.

Kelly Braffet’s Save Yourself goes to the heart of small town life and how challenging it is to live in the shadows of other people’s assumptions, expectations and manipulations . . . a powerful novel.

Braffet’s captivating, realistically creepy third novel . . . uses graceful prose, astute dialogue, and vivid characters to carry the plot to an unexpected and believable finale.

Braffet compassionately but honestly portrays engaging, confused characters in light, uncluttered prose. But a sharp turn keeps this from being a simple meditation on grief. This is a probing and emotional read that does not rest easy.

Excruciatingly rendered characters and locomotive plotting…The plot is on a collision course that is going to end ugly—but also, in Braffet’s hands, beautifully…Perceptive, nervy, and with broad cross-genre appeal.

This summer’s must-read . . . Braffet expertly captures the suffocating confines of small-town life and the desperation of its outliers, with prose that simmers and thrums.