The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore

Description

‘Kim Fu skillfully measures how long and loudly one formative moment can reverberate’ Celeste Ng A group of young girls descend on a sleepaway 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 show more