The History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund

This book, long listed for the Booker Prize, is a bit disturbing.  If you want something straight forward and well mannered, this is not it.  As is true on many of the nominees this year (I have read all or part of seven of the thirteen nominees and there is not a breezy read int he bunch).
This is disturbing because of the complexity with which Madeline aka Linda, the 15 year old main character of the novel, is portrayed.  She is at once predator and prey, hunter and hunted, mature woman and  naive child.  She is real, vulnerable, unlucky, and unprepared for the situations that she lands in.
Madeline is drawn to Mr. Grierson, a substitute history teacher, who she notices pays a lot of attention to Lily, a nubile cheerleaders.  So when Linda impulsively kisses Mr. Grierson in his car after her presentation on wolves at a local history competition, the reader  both can empathize with her jealous competitiveness with Lily and fear the consequences.  When Grierson is later discovered to be a pedophile on the run from a school in California, and Lily accuses him of molestation, the reader’s suspicions are confirmed even if Linda feels deceived.
Her next brush with disaster comes when she is hired on as the governess to a young boy, Paul, by a neighbor couple.  We get glimpses of the tragic turn of events throughout, with flashbacks and lints within the present and past.  It is gritty and real life and surprising and really well written.