A review by caitlinxmartin
The Longings of Wayward Girls, by Karen Brown
5.0
I was shocked by how much I loved this book. I usually go into a book with just a few preconceived notions - usually formed from the plot description and a bit by the cover and genre, sometimes through the book's buzz. I didn't know anything about The Longings of Wayward Girls when I grabbed it. The plot sounded decent, the cover wasn't all that interesting, I figured it would be a mid-range thriller - fun to read and entertaining. What I did not expect was the depth that this novel conveys - I was captured in the first few pages and both couldn't put it down and was torn by reading it too fast because I knew I'd be sad when it ended.
The Longings of Wayward Girls is all love, lust, loss, and memory. In the wake of the delivery of a stillborn child, Sadie Watkins is trying to hold on to herself and her identity. Her grief is enormous and colors everything she does making it difficult for her to be a mother to her living children, a partner to her husband, alive in her own life. She is a well of sorrow and into this emptiness comes Ray Filley, a childhood crush returned to town with whom Sadie begins an affair. The affair triggers Sadie's memory back to her childhood and a prank she and a friend played on another girl - that girl disappeared shortly after the denouement of the prank and this sense that she may have played a part in the girl's disappearance is yet another grief that Sadie has carried around and that has disconnected her from her life. Layer upon layer Ms. Brown reveals the affect of loss on a place and on people - everyone is effected by what happened whether they were there at the time or not because that's how tragedy works - its traces linger in the people touched by it and through them it touches everyone.
Time and narrative shift as Ms. Brown untangles all the elements of this sad and compelling story - everyone here is disconnected in some way, moving jerkily through events that are too detailed to truly see. Tragedy and loss and grief inform, but so does lust and joy and the hope for connection. Throughout it all we see the bright summer days of childhood and of motherhood - the seventies drinks (Harvey Wallbanger, anyone?), the desire for adventure - for anything, just anything, to happen. I loved this book - highly recommended.
The Longings of Wayward Girls is all love, lust, loss, and memory. In the wake of the delivery of a stillborn child, Sadie Watkins is trying to hold on to herself and her identity. Her grief is enormous and colors everything she does making it difficult for her to be a mother to her living children, a partner to her husband, alive in her own life. She is a well of sorrow and into this emptiness comes Ray Filley, a childhood crush returned to town with whom Sadie begins an affair. The affair triggers Sadie's memory back to her childhood and a prank she and a friend played on another girl - that girl disappeared shortly after the denouement of the prank and this sense that she may have played a part in the girl's disappearance is yet another grief that Sadie has carried around and that has disconnected her from her life. Layer upon layer Ms. Brown reveals the affect of loss on a place and on people - everyone is effected by what happened whether they were there at the time or not because that's how tragedy works - its traces linger in the people touched by it and through them it touches everyone.
Time and narrative shift as Ms. Brown untangles all the elements of this sad and compelling story - everyone here is disconnected in some way, moving jerkily through events that are too detailed to truly see. Tragedy and loss and grief inform, but so does lust and joy and the hope for connection. Throughout it all we see the bright summer days of childhood and of motherhood - the seventies drinks (Harvey Wallbanger, anyone?), the desire for adventure - for anything, just anything, to happen. I loved this book - highly recommended.