The Longings Of Wayward Girls

The Longings Of Wayward Girls by Karen Brown – 336 pages
ARC courtesy of Atria Books

It’s an idyllic New England summer, and Sadie is a precocious only child on the edge of adolescence. It seems like July and August will pass lazily by, just as they have every year before. But one day, Sadie and her best friend play a seemingly harmless prank on a neighborhood girl. Soon after, that same little girl disappears from a backyard barbecue—and she is never seen again. Twenty years pass, and Sadie is still living in the same quiet suburb. She’s married to a good man, has two beautiful children, and seems to have put her past behind her. But when a boy from her old neighborhood returns to town, the nightmares of that summer will begin to resurface, and its unsolved mysteries will finally become clear.

This is a doozie of a book. It had me feeling uncomfortable yet kept me turning the pages, which is quite an impressive combo! Honesty and memory can often foil one another when looking back. This story dwells on that theory and puts Sadie, our protagonist, in the heart of this situation as she’s reunited with a man, then boy, from “that” summer in 1979. Written is Sadie’s voice from then and now, we see how her memories of that summer, her relationship with her depressed mother, childhood pranks, her life as an only child and her budding and spirited adolescence all played an important role in who she is today. This book was highly imaginative, kind of creepy (missing children), wonderfully descriptive of a New England summer and very much about love, both passionate and maternal.