DEEP

Two wildly dissimilar teenage girls find themselves thrown together on a Caribbean island, fighting for their lives. Birdie, 13, has grown up in Oregon, the bright and bubbly only daughter of loving and protective parents. Morgan, 17, has grown up on a sailboat, the bright but in no way bubbly daughter of unconventional and emotionally distant parents. Birdie and her parents have left Oregon, intending to live for a year on a small tropical island; Morgan has abandoned her alcoholic parents in Panama, charting an independent course to a neighboring island. They both run afoul of the highly dangerous Nick, to whom Morgan applies for false papers and who first charms and then kidnaps Birdie. This rather preposterous plot is bolstered by the development of two engaging voices, each telling her own story in alternating chapters, and revealing unexpected similarities. Birdie’s gregariousness masks her keen loneliness; Morgan’s self-inflicted solitude does the same. While the story could have been cut considerably and a key subplot is left hanging, this offering nevertheless presents readers with both high drama and compelling characterization. (Fiction. 12+)