The lost girls of Camp Forevermore

Review by New York Times Review

WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE? Essays, by Marilynne Robinson. (Picador, $18.) In a collection of lectures and other writing, the Pulitzer Prizewinning novelist and critic dwells on the current political and cultural climate, and defends the importance of the public university. Above all, Robinson returns to prominent themes across her work: the moral dimension of intellectual development, and the relationship between faith and reason. THE LOST GIRLS OF CAMP FOREVERMORE, by Kim Fu. (Mariner, $14.99.) An overnight kayaking trip becomes tragic one summer at a camp in the Pacific Northwest, and reverberates throughout the lives of the campers for years to come. Our reviewer, Lisa ??, praised the novel, writing that Fu is "a propulsive storyteller, using clear and cutting prose to move seamlessly through time." ASK ME ABOUT MY UTERUS: A Quest to Make Doctors Believe in Women's Pain, by Abby Norman. (Bold Type, $16.99.) Norman is one of millions of women across the world with endometriosis, and uses her experience as a jumping-off point to argue that women's discomfort is routinely dismissed by doctors. Along the way, she interweaves revealing anecdotes - spanning everything from Freud to recent scientific debates. DOWN THE RIVER UNTO THE SEA, by Walter Mosley. (Mulholland/Little, Brown, $15.99.) Joe King Oliver was once one of the N.Y.P.D.'s top investigators, until he was framed for sexual assault and imprisoned. Years later, he's trying to recover from the horrors he faced in jail and running a private detective agency with his teenage daughter, when he hears from the woman who accused him: She found religion and wants to clear her conscience. King then begins the tricky process of looking into who wanted him off the police force - and why. THE NINE OF US: Growing Up Kennedy, by Jean Kennedy Smith. (Harper Perennial, $16.99.) The eighth of nine children, Jean is the last surviving Kennedy sibling, and writes fondly about her experiences with the clan. Some notable episodes are absent from this slim memoir, but her recollections - especially those of a young child witnessing her father's politicking - are a sweet tribute, and give a more personal dimension to a highly public family. THE HOUSE OF BROKEN ANGELS, by Luis Alberto Urrea. (Back Bay/Little, Brown, $16.99.) This bighearted book tells the story of the La Cruzes, an exuberant Mexican-American family in San Diego, who gather as the patriarch is dying of cancer. "The novel disrespects borders," our reviewer, Viet Thanh Nguyen, wrote, calling it "a Mexican-American novel that is also an American novel."

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 9, 2019]

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Review by Booklist Review

Camp Forevermore was a beacon of empowerment for young women in the Pacific Northwest. Parents from all over Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia would send their daughters here to transform them from meek mice into fire-building, pine-needle-tea-drinking warriors. One fateful summer, five girls were taken out on a overnight canoe trip with counselor Jan. The sexagenarian camp employee died in her sleeping bag in the middle of the night, leaving the girls stranded on a remote island with no adults, and no way of communicating with the outside world. In addition to recounting the nightmarish debacle, Fu's sharp book is a study of the five girls later in life; in separate sections, she examines Nita, Andee, Dina, Isabel, and Siobhan as they become doctors, mothers, orphans, and widows. The way the women cope with adulthood trauma is informed by their first brush with tragedy: that sick morning when they woke up next to a corpse in their tent. Readers will delight in the complicated, brash, ugly, and sincere presentation of Fu's characters.--Eathorne, Courtney Copyright 2018 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

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. Agent: Jackie Kaiser, Westwood Creative Artists. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

For five preteen Camp Forevermore girls, a simple overnight kayaking trip turns horrifying when their group leader dies mysteriously and the girls must find their way back alone. One insists on remaining with the corpse; the others leave and promise to send help. Interspersed with their dramatic quest are the girls' individual stories-each voiced by a separate narrator-before and after their Forevermore experience. -Soneela Nankani is precocious medical student Nita, who becomes a troubled mother of two. Andee's story, read by Tavia Gilbert, is told by her sister Kayla, who chronicles the peripatetic childhood driven by their self-absorbed single mother's whims. Nicol Zanzarella is Isabel, who finds brief happiness in marriage. Emily Woo Zeller chases Dina, who finds only disappointment in Los Angeles. Sophie Amoss is Siobhan, who narrates the camp ordeal and elliptically reveals her adulthood as a psychology researcher. Fu's (For Today I Am a Boy) exploration of the harrowing intersecting moment among young people who barely know each other is a fascinating puzzle of reactions and reverberations. -VERDICT Libraries should encourage the broader audiences Fu's work so deserves by providing her titles in all formats.-Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by School Library Journal Review

At the exclusive Camp Forevermore, upper-middle-class girls, as well as a few scholarship recipients, are given the opportunity to explore nature and "rough it" in the woods. When Nita, Andee, Siobhan, Isabel, and Dina are unexpectedly left alone on an island when their counselor dies, they must do everything they can to save themselves and maintain their sanity. Spanning decades, this tale examines the lives of the girls before the events at Camp Forevermore and after. Each chapter is written from the point of view of a different character, with Siobhan serving as the narrator for the events at Camp Forevermore. Andee's sister Kayla, who does not attend the camp, narrates Andee's story, providing a unique point of view. The cast of characters are racially, socially, and economically diverse. Themes such as cliques, adolescent insecurities, and the pressure to fit in will resonate with readers. VERDICT Purchase where realistic fiction is in high demand.-Ashley Leffel, Griffin Middle School, Frisco, TX © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Five women are forever shaped by a harrowing experience they shared as girls at summer camp.It's 1994 at Forevermore, a sleep-away camp in the Pacific Northwest. The first days are filled with singalongs and preparations for an overnight kayaking trip. Siobhan, a new camper, tries to adapt to the strange social dynamics. One magnetic girl named Dina receives desperate offerings of daisy chains and chocolate milk, while Andee, a tough girl, nearly fails the swim test as everyone gathers to watch her struggle. Someone in the crowd whispers a name for what Andee is: "One of the scholarship girls." Siobhan is stung and confused by the small cruelties of Nita, a veteran camper. Isabel, meanwhile, has remained largely invisible and silent until the third day, when the kayaking trip sets off. Fu (For Today I Am a Boy, 2014, etc.) alternates between short chapters about the kayaking trip and long, expansive sections following each of the girls far into the future. We see the ripple effects of this summer before the specifics of what happened unfold. The trip becomes a predictable, though nightmarish, tale of survival, but Fu's characters are rich, real, and distinct. What happened at Forevermore is not, we see, the worst tragedy of most of their livesbut it is formative. With rawness and objectivity, Fu depicts the women these girls become along with their struggles, both cosmic and mundane. Ultimately, Siobhan is the axis of the novel. Her story is given fewer pages and saved until last, but it resonates deeply and gives sharp focus to what came before.An ambitious and dynamic portrayal of the harm humanseven young girlscan do. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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CAMP FOREVERMORE The girls stood on the dock and sang the camp song, "Camp Forevermore." They sang in voices at worst bored or dutiful, but more often thrilled, chests swelling with unity and conviction, that feeling of being part of something larger than themselves, their brash, off-key voices combined into one grand instrument: "And I shall love my sisters/for-ev-er-more." In 1994, the song had echoed out over the Pacific Ocean for six decades. They stood straight-backed and solemn-faced as soldiers in formation, even the ones who itched to squirm, to collapse into their natural, slumped posture, who were rolling their toes in their shoes and humming to themselves, squeezing their lips in their fingers to suppress a bubble of nervous laughter. Counselors dragged plastic bins of orange life jackets from one of the storehouses adjacent to the dock. The life jackets varied in size and some had broken buckles and split seams. The girls picked through to find intact jackets that fit, the process both hurried and cautious, drawing attention to their newly divergent bodies. Ten-year-old Siobhan Dougherty snatched one and slid her arms through the holes. Would it reveal her to be too tall, too wide, too infantile, anything other than the universal girl-size implied by the unsorted bins? She fumbled to adjust the buckles and lengthen the straps, her fingers cold and stiff, until finally the jacket clicked shut. Satisfying clicks echoed up and down the dock. By some miracle, no one was left behind. Two days earlier, Siobhan had stepped through the wooden gates of Camp Forevermore for the first time. The group of low log buildings in a man-made clearing, at the nexus of forest and sea, looked just the way it had in the brochure. Upper-middle-class girls (and, as of 1976, a small group of need-based essay-contest winners) from up and down the northwest coast of North America, including both sides of the U.S.-Canada border, were sent to Forevermore, the name meant, like its religious and pseudo-Native American competitors, to project ancient knowledge. Nine-to-eleven-year-old girls would leave home fretful and finicky and return as capable, knowledgeable outdoorswomen, remade in the wholesomeness of woods and sisterhood. The best of its kind, crowed the brochure. Siobhan wanted to be more like the heroines of the books she liked, about girl detectives and girl adventurers: tomboyish, scrappy, and resourceful, able to outsmart adults and survive without them, her body sun-brown and waiflike. She was, instead, a freckled, blue-eyed redhead, pale and dense as a block of shortening, who wasn't allowed to use the stove. The one time she'd been left alone at home after dark, she'd turned on all the lamps, the TV, and the stereo, needing a protective shell of voices and light. Above all, she was looking forward to the kayaking trip, the central adventure of the first week. In small groups, the girls would kayak to a remote island and camp overnight. The brochure had stressed to parents that the overnight would build character and an appreciation of the outdoors within safe boundaries, but none of the pictures had adults in them. Just the campers, posing in their kayaks with their paddles triumphantly raised. Carrying firewood and military-style duffel bags in their twiggy arms, holding hands and jumping into the ocean. Bearing bold smiles of uneven teeth and no-nonsense braids and ponytails, these were girl pirates, girl spaceship captains, warrior princesses--the thrilling, independent societies of children that had existed only in Siobhan's books. Even on that first, clear afternoon, the dark earth between the gravel paths and the deep green of towering pine, fir, and spruce trees contained the memory of recent snow and rain. The ocean at the far end of the camp was the color of slate. Everything Siobhan was wearing was brand new: a black fleece she'd chosen for its silver heart-shaped zipper pull, her first pair of hiking boots, even her underwear. She felt a thrilling, terrifying dissolution of self. She was far from her parents, her classmates, anyone who had ever known her. She was curious to find out who she would be. The first day passed in a blur. The girls were shuffled from place to place, given a lecture and a quick meal, hurried to an early bedtime and an awkward silence in the cabins with their counselor-chaperones. The morning of the second day, they faced a swimming test, shivering and exposed as they eyed one another on the dock, then timed as they swam for fifty meters parallel to the shore. In sporty Speedo one-pieces, in childish frills and sea-creature patterns, the girls first noticed Dina Chang, a nine-year-old from Vancouver Island. There was nothing precisely remarkable about her appearance, her wholly prepubescent chest and legs and golden-brown skin in a black-and-white two-piece, but they could not keep their eyes off of her. Her every movement was magnetic. Girls brought her tied-together daisies, plastic bracelets, and toys they'd brought from home. Someone offered her the carton of chocolate milk from her morning snack. Dina shrugged and twirled a strand of her glossy black hair, like the attention was nothing new, no big deal. During one of the swim tests, the girls' conversations trailed off as one by one they stopped talking to watch. The girl in the water was struggling. She kept stopping to tread and change strokes, from a frantic, ineffectual crawl--kicking up geysers of water without gaining any forward momentum--to a pathetic-looking doggie paddle, fighting to keep her head up, a tangle of dirty-blond hair plastered across her face. Andee Allen was ten years old and from Seattle, Washington. "One of the scholarship girls," someone stage-whispered. One of the girls they should feel sorry for and be extra kind to. As the minutes ticked by and Andee continued to flounder in the water, the girls turned their attention to the counselors administering the test, particularly the one holding a stopwatch. They hadn't failed anyone, no matter how slow or poor her technique, as long as the camper could cross the distance somehow. But surely this was too much, and any minute now, they would jump in and tow or carry Andee to shore, and she wouldn't be allowed on the kayak trip. The adults looked transfixed by Andee. When Andee finally swam a little closer, Siobhan could see why: the determined set of her mouth, the ferocity in her eyes. How much she wanted to finish. She would finish, no matter what. It would be cruel to stop her. And more to the point, if they ever were stranded in the ocean, Andee--who had been in the water for what felt like an eternity--would be the last to go down. When Andee's hand slapped the far pillar of the dock, the counselors cheered. Two of them reached in and pulled her out by her forearms and the back of her swimsuit. Andee lay gasping on the planks like a fish in the open air. They had kayak lessons for the rest of the day, their first tangle with the life jackets. At the outset, their neon-green kayaks crowded the shallows of the beach, knocking against one another like rubber ducks let loose in a bathtub. By late afternoon, each girl could escape a rollover, do a forward paddle stroke, and self-propel in a straight line. At dinner, Siobhan was among the girls assigned to set the tables. Nita Prithi--eleven years old, from a midsize town in central California, in her third and final year at Forevermore--bossily led the group around, making the expansive gestures of a magician's assistant. "Here's where the forks and spoons are. Here are the cups. Here are the pitchers for water," she said. Nita was intimidating-looking, broad-shouldered with a heavy, clomping step, an oversize sweatshirt pulled down over early breasts, a wide mouth, and dark, expressive eyebrows. Another group of girls carried the steamer trays of food from the kitchen. Excerpted from The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore by Kim Fu All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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