Warning! Spoilers for In the Tall Trees ahead. If you haven’t read In the Tall Trees, this review will sort of give away the ending. I feel a little silly starting with a spoiler alert considering that the mere existence of this book gives away the ending of the last one, but I have seen people comment about the title of a book (They Both Die at the End) being a spoiler, so you never know.

A couple months ago, I read a bleak story about a little girl who was being held captive in a little house in the woods with her mother and baby brother. It was told from the perspective of the little girl, Mella, and the audiobook narrator nailed the performance. I have read books written from the perspective of children before and they tend to come off as pretty unbelievable (and annoying), but Angel Van Atta writes from a place of knowing and managed to write a character with whom the indie horror community fell in love. In the Tall Trees was bleak, heartbreaking, and somehow still hopeful. Mella’s resilience is a beacon of hope for us all.

In the Tall world picks up where Trees left off. Mella, Momma, and Petey are in the hospital recovering from their harrowing escape from Daddy and the little house in the woods. Momma has a long recovery ahead of her and Petey has zero immunities, so they have to stay longer while Mella goes home with her Papa to be reunited with her twin sister and to meet Papa’s new family. Papa and Megs are wonderful and welcoming, but his fiance and other daughter don’t seem to like Mella much. She is learning that the tall world away from the little house in the woods harbors more shadows and bad people, and despite Daddy being locked up, Mella is not out of the woods yet. There is so much more going on than any little girl should have to deal with. She finds herself playing the role of protector and savior again, this time sharing her hard learned lessons with her twin sister.

Once again, Van Atta flawlessly delivers a heart wrenching tale from the eyes of a child who sees and hears things she doesn’t quite understand. You will know what’s going on before she really figures it out, but I started reading this before bed one night and didn’t put my kindle down until I was done. I couldn’t even guess at how many times the words oh no left my lips. There are a lot of plot points that I want to talk about, but I also don’t want to spoil it for you. In the Tall Trees is a BoH Indie Brawl contender that you should definitely read. But don’t stop there. Pre-order In the Tall World now (release date 5/22/24) to have your heart and stomach doing flips all over again while you fall in love with brave little Mella all over again.