by Erin Saldin
Arthur A Levine Books
2012
352 pages
Deep, dark, disturbing, and dysfunctional, this story of friendships and secrets, knives and threats, wilderness and survival is totally engrossing and addictive.
Lida Wallace is being sent away by her parents "for her own good." Living at a boarding school in the middle of the wilderness in Idaho with other "disturbed" girls doesn't sound like much fun. They aren't allowed to bring a cell phone, a computer, an I-pad, or I-pod, oh, and no guns or ammo, no knives, no cigarettes, no drugs, no fireworks and no bows and arrows. Lida just wants to get it over with!
She meets her cabinmates and somehow gets through the first few days at Alice Marshall School. Enter runway model beautiful and exciting, exotic Gia Longchamps. The other girls are all enthralled by her very presence. Like an exotic hothouse bloom--Gia beguiles and seduces each of them--each of them except Boone who says to Gia, "Everything you do is a fascade, a performance."
Boone and Gia continue to hate each other building eventually to a reckoning. Lida will have to choose which girl to trust. Will she turn her back on Gia--Gia who is selfish and a liar--and a fake? Will she stick by Boone who tells it like it really is? Boone who is the most "real" person Lida has ever known?
The exciting climax will have readers racing through the last pages. The characters of Boone and Lida are spot on, and Gia is the perfect chameleon, beautiful user,and wickedly sadistic abuser of other people's hearts and minds.
The Girls of No Return is a great girl read. Anyone who loves a tragic story about problems that real girls face will love this book. The cover art is wonderfully fitting--a lone girl in a canoe looking out at a deserted lake--grayish tones fit the somber title and plot.
Recommended grades 9-up. Language, mature situations, dark behavior, sex.
FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.
Haven't previously heard of this one, but it sounds like something I'd enjoy reading lol :)
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