I was drawn to Karen
Brown’s The Longings of Wayward Girls
because of the many similarities to Jennifer McMahon’s Island of Lost Girls. Both
have a very similar synopsis about missing children; even their titles and
covers resemble each other. However, while
McMahon to me is a master at creating an eerie sense of dread in her books,
Brown doesn’t quite write with the same effect.
For a debut, the story is well told, but I could definitely take or
leave the plot.
On the surface,
twelve-year-old Sadie Hawkins is a normal suburban girl growing up in the
1970s. However, the reader only needs to
dig a little deeper to discover that things are not all what they seem. A local girl, Laura Loomis, disappeared a few
years prior, keeping the town’s residents continually on edge. Sadie’s mother has deep psychological issues
that affect her family in exponential ways.
To escape the problems at her house, Sadie connives a plan with her best
friend, Betty. Together, they begin to
write letters to a lonely schoolmate, Francine, pretending to be a boy. As the pen pal “relationship” continues,
things take a dangerous turn when Francine goes missing; only when Sadie has
grown up with her own children does she discover the truth behind what
happened.
I so wanted to love this
book and was hoping that Brown would pen a really suspenseful tale. However, I found Sadie’s actions to be quite
unbelievable, particularly something she does as a grown adult (not to give
anything away). At times I couldn’t stop
reading, and at other times, I just shook my head in disbelief. For that, I’m going to give it an average
rating.
