An engrossing tale of survival and redemption in the Pacific Northwest.
In this novel, the lives of two girls intersect in the woods of Washington state.
Ten-year-old Agate “Aggie” Hayes loves nothing more than climbing the massive fir trees that stand near her family’s home and sketching the bird nests she finds there. But her mother has instructed the girl to remain on the ground—climbing is too dangerous—and Aggie is wary of tempting her unstable parent’s anger. Sulking over a recent punishment, Aggie lights a small campfire that unintentionally torches the woods by her family’s cabin and burns it to the ground. Believing her parents dead in the blaze, Aggie flees into the wilderness, afraid of what might happen if she’s blamed for the crime. Meanwhile, 16-year-old Celia Burke is left by her father at her grandmother’s house for an indeterminate amount of time, far away from her friends back in Houston. She plans to skip town at the first opportunity, but when she hears of the fire at the Hayes home—and the fact that the daughter, Aggie, is missing—she can’t help but get invested. (Particularly after getting a peek at one of the other searchers, the handsome Cabot Dulcie.) As Aggie tries to stay alive and Celia attempts to find her, their stories become increasingly intertwined. Bostrom’s prose is propulsive and detailed, as here where Aggie cleans up after a scavenged lunch to avoid detection: “Rousing, she poured the rest of her seed into the bottle with the milk, pushed the waxy lid back into place, and scattered duff over her makeshift kitchen to erase it. No walkers or riders or dogs would stumble over her.” Aggie is a wonderfully magnetic character: a scrappy, stubborn preteen whose father has taught her to survive off the land. Celia balances out the tale with her suburban angst and sarcasm, but the supporting characters are equally strong, including the teenager’s bird biologist grandmother and Aggie’s autistic brother, Burnaby. The book contains an unexpected villain as well, who provides some added danger to the mix. While not always completely believable, the story is a true page-turner all the way to the end.
An engrossing tale of survival and redemption in the Pacific Northwest.Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64742-068-0
Page Count: 328
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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