Lost Girls

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY MAY 28, 2012

When a plot involves castaway children, Lord of the Flies comparisons are inevitable, and Kelley (The Bower Bird) is upfront in claiming them. "We're much more civilized," 14-year-old narrator Bonnie boasts. The setting is an American airbase in Thailand during the Vietnam War, though details anchoring this time and place are scant. Bonnie and Jas are seniors in the Amelia Earhart Cadets, chaperoned by a young "kept" woman, Mrs. Campbell. Intending a weekend camping trip on one nearby island, the group winds up at another. No problem until a typhoon sweeps over, killing a girl and decimating supplies. When no one retrieves them after the weekend, the veneer of self-reliance and camaraderie disintegrates. While Bonnie's experience is traumatic, the emotional center of the novel is Mrs. Campbell, who passes from a subject of adoration to a person with feet of clay. The notion that the cool 20-something with the guitar isn't as admirable as the 40-year-old mother who reads Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance or as reliable as oneself is well taken, but it's unclear why Piggy and Vietnam are invoked to make that point. Ages 12 up.