I sunk deeply into this book from the get-go because I am myself a former camper. Growing up, I spent summer after summer at a four-week-long sleepaway camp in the Texas Hill Country and that will never not partially define me. The weird traditions, the songs, the dining hall, the counselors who maybe hung on a little too long, that all hits me right where I live. So when it came to The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore, I honesty could have spent more time in the camp.
But Forevermore uses camp as a jumping off point to introduce us to four girls, first as preteens and then as women growing and grown. Never initially friends, they were grouped together with the camp director for the annual canoe-and-camp trip. A tragedy struck that would, in different ways, come to define each of them and guide their eventual transitions into adulthood.
Once again, I’m reviewing a book like a week after I finished it and it is already fading. But this one was fascinating, a quick read that I really enjoyed. I found each of the girls to be a compelling character – some moreso than others – and it was darkly intriguing to see how this single weekend would resurface and impact their lives down the line. The book is divided between them. There’s some backstory on a girl, then her perspective linearly moving the trigger events forward, and then how her life continued beyond that. It’s one I’ll recommend to friends even if I can’t quite put my finger on why.