The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore
A compelling campsite crime thriller
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Kim Fu skillfully measures how long and loudly one formative moment can reverberate' - Celeste Ng
A group of young girls descend on a sleep-away camp where their days are filled with swimming lessons, friendship bracelets, and songs by the fire. Filled with excitement and nervous energy, they set off on an overnight kayaking trip to a nearby island. But before the night is over, they find themselves stranded, with no adults to help them survive or guide them home.The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore traces these five girls through and beyond this fateful trip. We see them through successes and failures, loving relationships and heartbreaks; we see what it means to find, and define, oneself, and the ways in which the same experience is refracted through different people. A portrait of friendship and of the families we build for ourselves, and the pasts we can't escape.
What Reviewers and Readers Say:
'A propulsive storyteller, using clear and cutting prose' - The New York Times
'Fu precisely renders the banal humiliations of childhood, the chilling steps humans take to survive, and the way time warps memory' - Publishers Weekly
'An ambitious and dynamic portrayal of the harm humans - even young girls - can do' - Kirkus Review'
The first truly great novel I've read in 2018... As intricately fashioned and as bold-hearted as books by novelists who've been publishing for decades' - Seattle Review of Books
'Fu offers an unblinking view of the social and emotional survival of the fittest that all too often marks the female coming of age' - Toronto Star
'These portraits of sisterhood, motherhood, daughterhood, wifehood, girlfriendhood, independent womanhood, and other female-identified-hoods sing and groan and scream with complexity and nuance, and they make me want to read her next ten books' - The Stranger
'To say this is a story of survival is too simple... Fu avoids the obvious and tidy, allowing us to imagine what happens next' - Winnipeg Free Press
'I loved it for its portrayal of each of the girls... and for showing that a single incident can colour your entire life' - Canadian Living
'A thoroughly entertaining, complex novel full of intricate insights into human nature' - Quill & Quire
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the latest from Fu (For Today I Am a Boy), which reads like a collection of linked short stories, a summer-camp accident changes the lives of five girls, all between the ages of nine and 11. Nita, Andee, Isabel, Siobhan, and Dina arrive at Camp Forevermore in the Pacific Northwest for different reasons entranced by brochures featuring girls with "bold smiles of uneven teeth and no-nonsense braids," or eager to escape the strictures of their monotonous upbringings. At first occupied by swimming tests and self-conscious friendships, the campers soon embark on an overnight kayaking trip to a nearby island to become "capable, knowledgeable outdoorswomen." When group leader Jan falls ill, the girls are forced to traverse the island's dense woods seeking rescue, and must contend with the elements and one other. In sections that alternate between the events of the trip and the sweep of each character's adult life, effects of the trauma linger; from Dina's eating disorder and failed modeling career to Nita's sublimated, near-rabid need for her son to Siobhan's mistrust of children. Fu precisely renders the banal humiliations of childhood, the chilling steps humans take to survive, and the way time warps memory.
