By: Emily Murdoch
Release Date: March 26, 2013
Description:
There are some things you can’t leave behind…
A broken-down camper hidden deep in a national forest is the only home fifteen year-old Carey can remember. The trees keep guard over her threadbare existence, with the one bright spot being Carey’s younger sister, Jenessa, who depends on Carey for her very survival. All they have is each other, as their mentally ill mother comes and goes with greater frequency. Until that one fateful day their mother disappears for good, and two strangers arrive. Suddenly, the girls are taken from the woods and thrust into a bright and perplexing new world of high school, clothes and boys.
Now, Carey must face the truth of why her mother abducted her ten years ago, while haunted by a past that won’t let her go… a dark past that hides many a secret, including the reason Jenessa hasn’t spoken a word in over a year. Carey knows she must keep her sister close, and her secrets even closer, or risk watching her new life come crashing down
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Review:
This book was very real, raw and emotional through and through. You couldn't imagine the things the characters went through in the book and hope that you never have to know someone who this stuff has happened to. It's sad and enlightening all at once. This book was addicting and made you root for the main character in this book. Made you feel like you wanted her to finally have some happiness in her life. It's still open ended but I have a feeling only good things can come of their new situation.
Carey and Jenessa are living in the woods when they hear someone coming through the clearing looking for them. They are not to good people searching for them but they are weary until Carey sees who it is and is automatically recognized that it's her father who has come looking for her. She's been told throughout her whose life that her father was a bad man and that's why they had to run away an hide in the woods so even though she was leery of this she went with him because she had no choice. Her mother had disappeared and left her and her sister in the woods to fend for themselves for a much longer time then she is used to.
Hence the story begins of Jenessa and Carey trying to cope with civilization after living in the woods for more years then they should have. new amenities that we take for granted on a daily basis like running water, television and food not coming from a can. It's a wonder to see them go through these experiences especially when they get to school. Everyone knows that school is not the easiest thing in the world sometimes especially high school because kids can be so cruel for no reason. Not even Carey's own stepsister wants to acknowledge that they are somehow related in any way. She makes a friend who turns out to be more than just a friend, hes actually someone from her past that new her before she lived in the woods.
The awkwardness of their relationship is interesting to watch, after all she doesn't really know how to interact with other people especially boys. Only knowing men who have used and abused her for money or meth for her mother. It's a hard life that she has lead and she's trying to move on. There are new reconciliations she needs to have and of course there's the ever heavy secret that weighs Carey down, a secret she thought she would never tell a soul.
The book is definitely worth the read, it's not your typical YA book about happiness and love, it's not your dystopian book about the future or rough societies, this is a book about realities that happen to people and especially young people that is so unnecessary. It's about the raw and realness about addiction and what that causes and how that hurts other people. This is definitely a must read.
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Disclaimer:
I received this book from NetGalley and St. Martin's Griffin, so that I may give my honest opinion and a review. Whether it is good or not please do not let it discourage you from purchasing/reading the book yourself and forming your own opinion. What might be good for me may not be good for you and vice versa. With that said, Happy Reading Everyone!!!
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