The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore

The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore

By Kim Fu

Located on the wild coast of British Columbia, Camp Forevermore is a place that girls dream of going.  A week away from parents while hiking, swimming, doing archery and kayaking is a thrilling experience for most.  No one imagines what can go wrong.

Nita, Andee, Dina, Siobhan and Isabel are an average group of pre-teen girls.  Nita and Andee bond immediately. They are tough girls, quick to make the others feel small.  Dina is beautiful and popular – a coveted friend.  Siobhan senses her own deficits and is desperate not to be the outcast.  Tiny Isabel says almost nothing.  As the other girls go about their business, she is not even a consideration.

The five girls are assigned to Jan for their overnight trek to a nearby island.  Jan is older than the average counselor – more like a grandmother.  But she’s tough, no-nonsense and knowledgeable.  Jan deftly leads the girls, each in her own kayak, across the coastal waters to a nearby island.  Each girl worries about this trip but Jan’s take-charge attitude assuages their fears.

Away from the main camp, the unthinkable happens.  Nita, Andee, Dina, Siobhan and Isabel must make some decisions.  On the surface, they come together as a team.  Underneath, their individual survival instincts are bubbling up.  With little food and water, can the girls keep each other alive?  Or will survival of the fittest win the day?

The unfolding tragedy at Forevermore and its aftermath is interspersed with the lives of the girls as they become women.  They are all very different, but all are deeply affected by their terrifying ordeal on a lonely island.  Loves gained and lost, family complications, career triumphs and disappointments, all lie in the future but give us insight into the girls that exist on that fateful outing from Forevermore.

Kim Fu’s novel explores the darkness that lies beneath the surface of every human being.  Lying in wait, the darkness appears when one is torn away from the day to day niceties of civilization.  Each girl experiences her own darkness and learns what she is capable of.

Fu also skillfully examines the way that one incident can weave its way into future lives, forever informing one’s choices.

Readable and absorbing, The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore is a must-read.

Eruption

by Steve Olson

I was just a baby when Mount St. Helens blew up.  I remember my parents telling me about the ash fall, but I always wondered how that could be: the mountain is 500 km away.  After reading Eruption: the Untold Story of Mount St. Helens by Steve Olson, now I get it.  It was a very big explosion, certainly largest seen in North America in any of our lifetimes.

 

Just like the mountain’s explosion, Eruption starts off slowly: if you were ever interested in the history of the forestry company Weyerhaeuser, the whole first half of this book is a good place to start.  We learn the long, detailed story of how Weyerhaeuser was established in the American Midwest, how the owner went through several business ventures, how Weyerhaeuser expanded to set the pattern of settlement and land ownership throughout Washington State and the immediate areas surrounding Mount St. Helens.

 

Eventually Eruption gets to the meat of the story:  Mount St. Helens starts to stir; the concerns that loggers had through the years about the little earthquakes, steam jets, mini-spouts of ash; and how the company refused to put much thought into the potential dangers of having a volcano in their backyard.  However, even with these details we’re halfway through the book. I wanted to know what really happened and what the consequences of such a huge explosion were. 

 

We do get there, but it’s a surprisingly short part of the story. As soon as the description of events finishes (and they were exciting events), the story moves to conservation and preservation.  It is a little disappointing.  With a title like “Eruption” I was expecting something much more exciting.

 

Having said all that, another volcanic event in the Pacific Northwest is pretty likely. As dry as the first part of this book was there are lessons to learn about how government and companies, as well as individual landowners, dealt with the Mount St. Helens eruption.  It’s worth a read just for that information alone.  Just don’t expect it to blow your mind.

 

Where'd You Go, Bernadette

By Maria Semple 

This bestselling novel is a great pick if you are looking for a quick read. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and became quite attached to the characters. It's funny, quirky, and there's a bit of a mystery. Where'd You Go, Bernadette is set in Seattle so reflections on the weather and West Coast culture may seem familiar. The format put me off at first – it’s mostly in the form of different correspondences from what seem like unrelated people but I soon got used to it and found the book to be quite clever.