Review ~ LOST GIRLS by Ann Kelley

No parents. No rules. No way home.

Fourteen-year-old Bonnie MacDonald couldn't be more excited for a camping trip on an island off the coast of Thailand with her fellow Amelia Earhart Cadets-the daughters of the men and women stationed there during the Vietnam War. But when a strong current deposits the girls on what their boatman calls the "forbidden island," things take a turn for the worse: A powerful storm comes to destroy their campsite, the smallest of the junior cadets is found dead, and their boatman never returns. What once seemed like a vacation in paradise has become a battle against the elements.

Peppered with short, frantic entries from Bonnie's journal, Lost Girls is a page-turning, heart-pounding adventure story about a group of teen girls fighting for their lives. ~From GoodReads

I'll just come out and say it, I didn't like LOST GIRLS. So, to spare you and myself, I'll make this short.

I can't even give a definite reason to back that up, either, which makes me feel like a jerk. It's odd, really, since I typically love survival stories. LOST is maybe my favorite show ever, and I even loved Castaway. I think the reason I didn't like LOST GIRLS is the narrative. The entire story is told through the eyes of Bonnie, a teenage girl living in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. The story read as a "stream of consciousness" which is a hit-or-miss for me.  Bonnie is by turns horrified, hysterical, numb, detached and angry. All of those reactions are understandable, but it made reading the story a chore for me. Oh, and there was a scene that was total "WTF"-ery for me. It was bizarre, surreal, and unexplained.

I will say this for LOST GIRLS, the author didn't sugar coat the story at all. The girls endured horrific circumstances, realistic dangers, and extreme brutality in their living conditions. So while this made for fairly gross scenarios, I appreciate the author made the story as realistic as possible.

LOST GIRLS just wasn't the book for me. If this had been a book that I happened to pick up, rather than received from the publisher, I wouldn't have finished it. I also kept reading because I wanted to know if the girls were rescued, and who survived. This was not due to an investment in the characters, but simple curiosity. I hate that I felt that way, since I'm usually an empathetic reader, but there you have it.

**There are a lot of readers who enjoyed  LOST GIRLS. For an alternate point-of-view, check out this review I found at GoodReads. **


Favorite Quote:

"I'll start at the beginning. I remember when my journal was new and pristine, with clean white pages and a sky-blue hardback cover. Now it looks the way I feel - dirty, battered, torn, ripped, shattered, falling apart." (pg xii)

Published July 10th 2012 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

You can purchase LOST GIRLS at:
Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble  |  Book Depository


Source: Received from publisher in exchange for an honest review.