The Secret to Belonging, by Megan E Freeman

Living in the shadow of her drug-addicted brother, our unnamed protagonist is largely neglected by her parents.  Her brother acts up and all attention and resources are directed to "helping" him.  Time and time again, he breaks their hearts by relapsing and Mom and Dad forgive him again.  It's time to get away.  But when her college fund is stolen to pay for another round of rehab, it seems that any chance of getting away has disappeared.

Then her best friend suggests a study abroad program for high schoolers through Rotary.  With dreams of spending a year in Rome, she applies and is accepted.  But rather than getting to go to Italy as she requested, she is offered Norway.  And not just Norway, but far far in the north.  She doesn't even know where Norway is located but now she is about to live above the Arctic Circle.

It's remote and alien, but the change is transformative.  Freed from the destructive cycles of her family and presented with an alternative, she thrives and blooms.

Told in brisk verse, the story is both heartbreaking and empowering.  She is both terribly unlucky for the family she comes from and blessed by the family she moves to -- a beautiful fantasy of escape from hell. I laughed a lot, cried a little, and in the end was jealous as hell at how wonderful things turn out.  Who hasn't wanted to escape their lives to become someone else?

Chasing After Knight, by Heather Buchta

Alexa Brooks, valedictorian, track star, and general overachiever has a lot going for her.  But for the past four years, she's carried the weight of the one who got away and the boy whose heart she broke -- Carson Knight.  She wants to make amends but the problem is that he's now Cayden McKnight, an A-list movie heartthrob and Hollywood's best known bad boy.  The reputation doesn't suit him and Alexa knows in her heart that she bears some responsibility for him turning out that way.

Encouraged by her best friend, the girls hatch a plan to meet up with McKnight again and simultaneously to plot out a campaign to blow his cover and expose what a sweet guy he really is.  But Alexa has at least as many things wrong about Cayden as she has right and the further she pursues him, the more her own life falls into chaos.  She risks losing everything she's built up to pursue this one great obsession.

I really liked Buchta's first novel, Beyond the Break and picked up this one on that basis.  But they're very different books and while the heroine of the first novel had a very solid moral core, Alexa's priorities here seem more than a little off.  The discipline that gave her all of her accolades (athletic prowess, academic excellence, and leadership skills) are nowhere to be found when she's blowing her life savings on secret plane tickets to Los Angeles and sneaking into clubs.  And while I suppose there's something romantic about throwing away your life for the love of your life, it all seemed very very unnecessary and cringeworthy.

As with the first novel, it's all well written and easy to get through, but Alexa is a train wreck and it wasn't pleasant to sit on the sidelines and watch her screw up her life.  That there is a last minute deus ex machina moment that rescues her is nice, but hardly redeems a life poorly lived.

The Lions' Run by Sara Pennypacker

The other boys at the orphanage tease Lucas for being un petit eclair -- a soft pastry, a coward -- but Lucas isn't afraid to stand up to defend the weak against the strong.  And when he rescues a bag of kittens that have been tossed into the river to drown, the act sets of a chain of events.

The Second World War is entering its final days and in occupied France, little acts of bravery will get you the bad sort of notice.  Any one who wants to survive lays low.  But Lucas has a hard time doing that.  Searching for a safe place to stash the kittens, he stumbles over a young English girl who is trying to smuggle her horse out of France.  And they reluctantly agree to keep each other's secrets.

Lucas is not yet done doing his good deeds.  He smuggles goodies to his fellow orphans.  He slips extra rations to a family that has a suspiciously large number of mouths to feed.  His everyday acts of kindness bring him into contact with the Resistance, which allows him to become a courier.  And a rash act of loyalty to a young mother brings him into dangerous conflict with the Nazis. It might all very dangerous but what else can one do?   And he is far from alone:  everywhere there are people helping each other and resisting the occupiers.

Like her Pax books, Pennypacker has created another formidable allegory masquerading as a children's book.  As in those books, the material is definitely on the intense side: animal cruelty, genocide, eugenics, child abduction, and concentration camps, amongst other topics.  Her overall theme about our obligation as humans to choose, in the face of fascism, to either commit small acts of resistance or to acquiesce to collaboration is strong tea.  There is no way for a single lone orphan to topple an evil regime, but if no one tries then there is no hope.  That's an important message in a time when resistance seems to carry such a high cost.

It's intelligently written, entertaining, and thought-provoking story.  If one is going to ban books, these are the type of books a government should fear.

Some Mistakes Were Made, by Kristin Dwyer

When Ellis's family began to fall apart, she found herself spending more and more time at her friend Easton's house.  An old friend of Ellis's father, Easton's mother Sandry virtually adopted Ellis; feeding her and giving her a place to stay.  Ellis even had her own room in the house, but she preferred to crawl into Easton's bed every night for platonic spooning.

But then a tragic series of events occurred, where members of Ellis's family betrayed Easton's family and Ellis was sent to live far away with a distant aunt.  Now, a year later, Ellis has been invited back to help celebrate Sandry's birthday.  While reluctant, Ellis decides to come and face the memories of her young years and re-visit the hurt she felt when she was sent away.  The complex dynamics of Ellis and Easton's relationship are dredged up and just about everyone has pain to share.

This is one of these YA stories that I can see teens loving for the pathos and the pain, but a grownup reader is just going to cringe.  The problems start with the extremely toxic nature of Ellis and Easton's relationship -- full of blame and anger, but completely unable to truly accept personal responsibility.  It's a natural outgrowth of the unhealthy codependency they built up.  And the fault quickly spreads to their families -- not only Ellis's neglectful and selfish parents but also Easton's family.  What parent would allow unrelated adolescents to sleep together in their house for years?  To the extent that there is any development of the adult characters, it seems that they are basically checked out on their parenting duties.

It isn't that just some mistakes were made.  It's that a lot of mistakes were made and compounded again and again.  And that these characters can dredge up their grudges and their bitter memories repeatedly doesn't make for uplifting reading.  So, yes, there's plenty of pain here, but you just wish that they would all just walk away from each other.   With the volume of past bad decisions, the characters' inability to forgive, and everyone's tendency to repeat and recycle the same stuff again and again, this is plain exhausting.  I kept hoping for a breakthrough, but it just never comes.  

So, young readers, pay attention:  this novel may have "all the feels" but it is a textbook for what bad relationships, child neglect, and a general inability to grow look like.  It is well enough written, but the overwhelmingly unhealthy nature of the relationships depicted was a huge turn off.

Kestrel Takes Flight, by Joy McCullough

Kestrels are small, but fierce raptors that are capable of finding homes in a wide variety of places -- a point that sixth-grader Kestrel notes with pride.  One night Kestrel gets her own opportunity to prove it.  Her mother spirits her out of the house that they share with Kestrel's grandfather.  They end up at a unique center where Karelians, a special type of dog bred for interacting with bears, are trained to help keep humans and bears separated.  It's fascinating work and for a good cause but Kestrel is terrified of dogs and immediately misses her grandfather.

With time, Kestrel settles in her new home and becomes more comfortable with the dogs, learning their nuances and how to interact with them.  At the same time, she grows to understand that her grandfather was actually abusing them and that she is better off in her new home.

Told in prose verse, this story about overcoming emotional abuse and finding a new family plays all the appropriate emotional notes in an age-appropriate way.  The verse itself is disappointing.  It lacks any particularly memorable passages, being more of a sketch draft of the story where short sentences replace storytelling.  It leaves gaps in storytelling and covers a multitude of narrative flaws, but feels superficial and unfinished.

K-Jane, by Lydia Kang

Living in white-bread Nebraska, there are not a lot of Koreans around and Jane has always been more into the Huskers and American food than anything to do with Korea. Her white friends are actually far more interested than she is in all things Korean (K-pop, K-dramas, and K-beauty).  But with the impending birth of her baby brother, Jane suddenly feels that she and her incipient sibling have been deprived of their heritage and she becomes committed to rectifying that.

Her solution is to research aspects of Korean culture and create videos about them.  She knows better than to post them to a general audience and simply shares them with her cousins.  But what starts as a small little hobby becomes so all-consuming that soon it is impacting Jane's school work and affecting her friendships.  And when her parents find out, they are none too pleased -- and that is become the videos accidentally get released to the world and go viral!

Looking at the cover, I feared that the book would be heavy with pop references and light on character development and almost didn't check it out.  But I actually found that it was actually the reverse and enjoyed it a good deal. There's plenty Korean stuff in the book, but the message in the end is that one isn't obligated to know one's background or like things just because they are considered cultural treasures.  In sum, a light and fun read with a classic YA message about finding one's place within one's culture.  

Winter White: A Modern Retelling of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, by Annie Cardi

Pia and her brother Max live off the grid in rural Maine with their father.  The highlight of Pia's life in the semi-annual trips that she gets to take into town with her father.  Otherwise, both Pia and Max are kept at home and not allowed to see other people.  

But when an accident happens and father is not able to do his various chores, he reluctantly allows Pia to take the truck and run deliveries of eggs and wool for him into town.  Quickly, Pia begins to understand that the deliveries are not really farm products.  Dad's running a lab and supplying the local junkies with Fentanyl.  And if they are surviving on the proceeds of drug production, she starts to wonder what else he is hiding from them.

At the same time she makes these discoveries, the trips into town help her meet a few local young people and befriend them.  While her father's warnings to stay away from strangers ring in her ears, her curiosity about other young people override her raising.  And when she meets a boy named Felix, it sparks recognition of a past that has been locked away in her mind for the past ten years.

While described as a "retelling" of Shakespeare, there is only a thin connection between this novel and the play.  It might be better described as being inspired by the story.  Character names are similar and the idea of past events coming to affect the present is part of both stories.  But the settings, the situations, and the lack of a comedic angle in the novel to match the play's second half make this a very different story.  Even the miracle ending (so famous in the play) is only a passing aside in this book.  I'd have hardly drawn the connection without having it called out.

But in the end, none of this really matters.  This is a good story with a strong protagonists, an interesting love interest, very tense family setting, and enough impending dread to keep the pages turning, especially towards the end.  I enjoyed it all.

All We Once Had, by Katy Upperman

Three years ago, Piper and Henry shared a moment at the apartment pool one night.  It was a magical moment that did not repeat.  Henry was at the end of a short visit to see his Dad and the next day, he was gone.  Piper thought she'd never see him again, but now Henry has returned to town.

He's come back with some emotional baggage.  A bad breakup and trouble at home has led his mother to shipping him to his Dad for the summer.  Dad's a wild guy, running a local sports bar and quick to offer everyone a drink and partake alongside them.  He's the opposite of responsible parenting, but Henry doesn't need much parenting -- he's straight edge and preparing himself for entering West Point.  He just needs to get his head on straight.

The situation could not be any more different for Piper and her older sister Tati, who was forced six years ago to become Piper's guardian after the death of their parents.  Tati overcompensates for the lack of their parents by running a strict house.  Piper responds to this by acting up and sparring constantly with her sister.

Opposites attract though as everyone learns to straighten out their lives and live happily ever after.  The overly rosy happy ending ties up every a bit too neatly and detracts from an actually good story about forgiveness and moving on.  I cringed a bit when the Henry's Dad and Tati started dating and Henry himself was a bit too squeaky clean for me.  But if you like awkward parental dating and perfect boyfriends, you'll swoon for this story!  That's being a bit unfair though as there is a fair amount of substance here, just in a pretty safe for younger teens way.

Reason We Break, by Jesmeen Kaur Deo

Rajan is back home on probation after a stint in juvie for a variety of crimes including murder, committed when he was a member of the Lion's Share -- a local Indo-Chinese gang.  Now that he's back, his probation officer wants to keep him away from his gangbanger friends.  Part of that is getting him through school, which will be a challenge because Rajan has always struggled with math.

Simran's an overachiever, brilliant at school, and a volunteer at a local outreach that helps people on probation. She gets assigned to help Rajan with his studies.  She already knows Rajan from school, but mostly from reputation.  And she has a sense that Rajan is not as bad as they say.  Always a bit of a softie for charity cases, she's committed to saving him -- a decision that scandalizes her friends and their Sikh community.  Even casually associating with Rajan could ruin her reputation.  Rajan, they say, is nothing but trouble.  Rajan's definitely in plenty of trouble.  He owes money and has no way to come up with it in time to save himself.  There's not a lot of space here for romance.  

So far, so West Side Story...but Simran has an unexpected trick up her sleeve. The gang needs someone with math skills and Simran might just have what they need.  Without Rajan's knowledge she offers her skills to the gang to free Rajan of his obligations.  But doing so will cost her much more than she realizes.  And by the time Rajan realizes what she's done, it's too late and it has dragged them both into the middle of a gang war.

Good girl bad boy hookups are fun stuff and the Romeo and Juliet doomed romance is classic, but when the honors student turns out to have the negotiating skills of a Corleone, things start to get really interesting.  It's a premise that sounds really implausible on its face, but within the novel it works really well.  And full of the color of its setting within the Canadian Sikh community, this is a really distinctive story.

The Glass Girl, by Kathleen Glasgow

Bella knows how to party.  And she's great with her friends on a Friday night.  But she also likes to drink at home.  It mellows her out and smooths out the edges.  Given her excellent grades, being good at helping her parents, and a fantastic older sister, Bella figures she has it all under control.  Her Dad drinks plenty and her grandmother used to actually give her glasses of wine.  She's not addicted and she has it all under control.  Under control, that is, until she starts having black outs and ends up almost dead on her own front porch.

Involuntarily sent to rehab by her parents, she has to confront a host of demons that have brought her down to this point.  It's hard going as she sorts out her family's attitude towards alcohol, her poor coping strategies, and her resistance to seeking help.  There are small victories, but she keeps making mistakes, suffering one relapse after another, and discovering that the path to sobriety and healthy living is a lifetime journey.

At nearly 450 pages, this is a long read.  And while the pacing is sometimes off (the pre-rehab material has a really slow start while the post-rehab stuff went by far too quickly), it's hard to identify anything that could have been effectively cut.  This is a very thorough story and well-told.  Bella's addiction and the reasons for it are clear and the obstacles she faces equally straightforward.  Whether you want to read such a detailed story of alcoholism is another matter, but if watching Bella hit rock bottom and pull herself out feeds an emotional need for a story of redemption, then this is a pretty good read.  And no, there's no conclusive happy ending here.  By the last pages, we can see that Bella has made progress but backsliding is just a page away and nothing in the book suggests that Bella's life will be happily ever after.  That felt right.

The Reappearance of Rachel Price, by Holly Jackson

For most of her life, Bel has lived without her Mom and without knowing what happened to her.  When she was only two years old, Rachel Price was abducted and baby Bel was left abandoned in their car.  The mystery was never solved and Rachel was eventually presumed dead by most people (although never declared so).  Now, a documentary film crew is working on the story, interviewing the family and digging up a lot of memories.

One night, in the midst of all the interviews, Rachel Price appears on their doorstep.  It comes out that she has been kept alive but imprisoned by an unknown stranger for the past sixteen years.  The family cautiously rejoices in Rachel's return, but things don't quite sit right with Bel.  In the next few weeks, Bel keeps finding inconsistencies in her mother's story.  The rest of the family is acting strange as well.  The deeper Bel digs, the more it becomes clear that the real story of Rachel's absence is far more complicated that anyone is admitting.

A very long whodunit with one twist after another -- and at least one or two twists too many.  There's a very good build up to the story over the first 300 or so pages, but it just keeps going and going, with each new plot twist becoming just a bit less plausible than the last one.  This undermines the really nice sleuthing in the beginning as the story becomes increasingly unrealistic.  By the end, I gave up and just rode along to see when this would all stop.  It was ultimately disappointing, and I am surprised by how popular the book is.

Lying About Last Summer, by Sue Wallman

Still grieving a year after the tragic and violent death of her older sister, Skye gets sent to a summer program for grieving teens.  There she meets others who have lost loved ones and explores their shared experiences.  The story gets spiced up when Skye suddenly starts to receive text messages from her dead sister.  Someone has hacked her sister's accounts, but who would do such a thing?  Given the timing, she suspects one of her fellow campers is trying to mess with her head and she homes in on one boy who she notices is trying to manipulate and control the others in the group.  However, in the end, it turns out the texts are coming from an entirely different source.

An average summer read with a plot twist.  The main storyline (of the mysterious message-sender) is a false flag, which is just as well since the guilty party isn't even introduced until page 200.  It's not badly written, but rather terribly executed.  Ordering the events in the story better for dramatic impact and stripping out the superfluous materials (starting with the largely pointless flashbacks) would have done wonders.  Too much of this book is spent on scenes that have nothing to do with the story and the ending is rushed through far too quickly.  Lots of nice ideas, but it's all under-edited and rushed out.

How To Be Normal, by Ange Crawford

Homeschooled by her stay-at-home Mom for most of her life, Astrid has grown up in a world that was tightly controlled by her father.  But when he loses his job and her Mom has to return to the workforce, Astrid goes to public school for her final year.  Being out of the house helps Astrid develop a backbone begin recognizing that she's allowed to want things and do things.  Understanding that living in constant fear of setting off her father's fiery temper is not normal and not okay.  She and her mother develop a plan to escape.

A strikingly original voice in a harrowing tale of domestic emotional abuse.  Handled by most YA writers, this would have been drudgery but Crawford takes a new spin on just about every YA trope, breathing life into everything from a bathroom sob fest to the climactic senior formal.  It's hard to surprise me at this point. Most writers fall back on outrageous plots twists to make their new book stand out, but Crawford doesn't have much new here on its face.  What she does instead is take a scene that's been done to death like getting caught sneaking out and make it seem like something you've never read before.  This is really a stand out novel.

Birdy, by N. West Moss

After the death of their mother, Birdy and her little brother Mouse are placed with a pair of distant relatives in Upstate New York.  Neither of them has ever been outside of New York City before so they find things very different.  Cars honking are replaced by frogs peeping through the night.  They are allowed to go outside by themselves and explore on their own.  There's summer camp and their aunt bakes wonderful treats for them.  The place is safe and they don't have to worry about things.

Birdy hates it.  She hates that the placement is only for six months.  What happens after that?  Will they be sent to another foster home?  Will she and Mouse be split up?  Yes, things are going well now, but they could easily go bad -- Birdy's seen enough times when that's happened!

With some persistence from the adults and a few odd friends, Birdy's fears are gradually overcome in this sweet piece about finding a home and building a new family.  Birdy's emotional rollercoaster authentically captures the challenges she faces learning to trust people.  The story is tried and true.  The surprises are few, but it's a nice story.

Always Your Sister, by Frances Prentice

A little over three years ago, Millie's mother delivered a stillborn baby.  Ever since that day, Millie has thought of what baby Noah would have been like if he had lived.  In her diary, she writes him letters and tells him about who she is.  And with Mom pregnant again, Millie has a lot to think about.  Set on a farm in rural Australia, Millie also describes life raising sheep in the midst of Australia's brutal droughts as well the various trials and tribulations of her family and friends.

While the pregnancy ties the whole thing together, the book is really just a long series of random vignettes chronicling how farm kids keep themselves busy and various details about the family's life over the nine-month period.  While certainly packed with activity, this doesn't really translate into a plot or a story.  The kids build a swing, start a garden, take turns helping out around the house, and regularly process their feelings about Noah's death, but there's no character development and no attempt to link the activities together.

American readers may also struggle with the lingo as well. A glossary for words like "ute" and "esky" would have been really helpful.

Love in Ruins, by Auriane Desombre

Natalie is spending a month this summer in Greece on a high school trip.  She's supposed to be studying the cultural antiquities and working on a project.  But instead she's distracted by Melanie, the pretty daughter of one of the instructors on the program.  It all comes at the worst possible time:  Natalie is trying to sort out having been recently diagnosed formally with OCD and how, because of her condition, relationships always seem to defeat her.  Every romantic attachment she has seems doomed and there is no reason why this new one should be any different.  But under the hot Mediterranean sun, anything seems possible.

Lovingly depicted by the author, Greece (and its food in particular) seems irresistible.  Our heroine and her erstwhile romance is much less interesting.  The major problem is that Natalie comes off as unfocused and undisciplined -- not so much OCD as immature. Schoolwork comes last and Natalie and her girlfriend spend the entire vacation sneaking off and having private adventures without any regard for chaperones or a budget.  It actually would have been a lot more interesting for Natalie to get busted on one of her escapades.  It would have provided a small dramatic edge to the story, which otherwise seems trite.  Despite some "third act" drama (a term actually used by the author herself), this is largely a travel guidebook to Greece and its more picturesque spots.  It excels at enumerating the must-see places and describing in mouth-watering details the cuisine.  The romance and Natalie's behavioral challenges are far less compelling and less fully enumerated.

Calling Me Home, by Laurin Becker Macios

Upon graduation, Jenny goes to Europe to explore before she starts college at NYU in the fall.  Backpacking across the continent, staying at hostels, and making lots of new friends, she has a small adventure.  Along the way, she meets an Irish boy named Colin and has a brief romance.  When she finally returns home (after a postponement or two), she discovers she is pregnant.  And while she decides to terminate the pregnancy and stick to her plan to attend university, things don't work out.  Her experience has changed her and the plans she made before Europe no longer fit who she has become.

Told in wistful verse, Jenny's voice is full of melancholy and regret.  That can create some isolated dramatic moments, but the storytelling overall is coarse and sketchy.  The verse is good quality but few of the pieces really stand out.  

Verse novels, as a genre, are prone to overly precious navel gazing. To succeed as a story, they really has to break new ground. But while pretty and full of feelings, this novel doesn't go into uncharted territory. It seems modestly satisfied with asserting that encountering new cultures and developing new relationships was transformative for Jenny.  Strangely underplayed and overlooked is why and how the changes happened.

Where Lost Girls Go, by Kody Keplinger

The five girls who have ended up living in the woods with a man they call Sol are not going to be missed by anyone.  They left home or were kicked out long ago.  Each one ended up at the end of their rope in the mountains of Kentucky, and were found and offered a home with young women like themselves.  Sol calls it a "garden" -- a place where the girls are finally treated with kindness.  Yes, there's chores and rules (and food sometimes run low), but there's a roof over their heads and safety.

For Iris, who was kicked out of her home and ended up here when her car died, Sol's cabin is an oasis.  After a year living there, she's eager to prove that she deserves to stay forever.  But to do that, she'll have to pass three trials that Sol hands out to her.  That doesn't bother her at first.  But when a new girl shows up who starts asking questions, Iris begins to wonder why she has to undergo "trials," why all the rules exist, and why they live this way?  And as Iris starts to look around with a critical eye, she finds that the garden has a snake or two.

A creepy story that provides enough tension to keep things interesting.  It certainly could have been made much more disturbing and exploitative, and I'm thankful that the author made an effort largely to stick to implied threats and dangers.  So, while you're on the edge of your seat to see what is going to happen next, things are kept largely PG-rated. 

The personal dynamics are a bit more hit or miss. It's hard in a story like this to convey how brainwashed the characters are and to make their behavior believable.  As outsiders, it's easy to see through Sol's grooming behavior and hard to see why Iris hesitates to leave.  That makes the hesitation and the deliberation a drag on the story's pacing.  But it's also realistic and the author does a good job of drawing distinctions between the behavior of the newer girls and the long-term residents which make the behavior more nuanced.

Bad Badger: A Family Story, by Maryrose Wood

In this sequel, Septimus the badger and Gully the seagull have settled into family life together, but not all is bliss.  Raising three white fluffballs is a lot of work!.  Gully is always out searching for food for them, leaving Septimus at home with his paws full.  Septimus longs for the joys of his old life:  listening to the opera or just having some alone time.  Gully meanwhile is worn old from foraging all day.  Tensions rise.

This threatens to get much worse when the forest badgers come for an extended visit.  After all, Septimus did invite them to come any time!  And, according to the forest badgers, a badger always says "yes"! With eight visiting badgers, the house falls into chaos.  And now it's Gully's turn to fret:  the chicks are showing no interest in learning to fly!  Worse than that, they've become convinced that they would rather dig with the badgers than fly with the gulls.  But with help from their respective flocks, Septimus and Gully get the chicks where they need to be.

The first Bad Badger book was a lovely story about the compromises that one makes in a loving relationship.  This sequel expands the theme into family in all of its many forms.  Whether it is Gully's flock of gulls or Septimus's  "flock" of badgers, the members help each other grow, doing for the individual what he or she needs.  Never too heavy or precious with that message, the story is full of humor and fun, and a packing in a thrilling adventure as the fluffballs grow into becoming members of their large extended family.  A lovely book for children and adults alike!

Three Sisters, by David Macinnis Gill

Three girls and their father climb a dormant volcano in the Cascades to release the ashes of their mother.  The girls are bickering and fighting, and their father, wracked by grief, is struggling to keep himself together.  The family is a wreck and that's before the mountain they are climbing starts becoming seismically active.  As strange smells, dying animals, and tremors start to appear -- all clues that something is seriously amiss -- the children and their Dad remain locked in their familial drama.  By the time they realize that they are in serious trouble, it is almost too late.

While the snarking between the girls had a realistic quality to it, it was overdone and carried on for too long.  When the girls are refusing to talk to each as volcanic ask is falling on them and their father is bleeding out, one just started to wonder how they ever became so bratty?  Quarrels can be cute but here it became distracting and annoying.

Far more enjoyable was how resourceful the girls are.  The youngest is a first aid whiz, which comes in awfully handy when the injuries start to happen.  Another is able to lead, even when the father basically shuts down inside his surprisingly immature mind.  And the third is a scientific wunderkind, able to carefully narrate what is happening around them with a surreal knowledge of all things geologic.  It wasn't terribly realistic either, but dramatically satisfying and necessary for such a complex situation to have someone be able to explain what was happening and what could happen next.

The pace is fast and unrelenting as one disaster after another befalls the girls and their father.  That keeps the pages turning and allowed me to blow past the annoying bits, resulting in a surprisingly rewarding read in the end.