Author: Jess Rinker
Genre: realistic fiction
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Rating:
Summary (provided by publisher): Lin Moser is not looking forward to this summer. After living on the road all her life, hiking mountains and traveling through the country in an RV with her house-flipping parents, she’s now stuck in Newbridge, New Jersey for their longest stay yet. With Mom away on a year-long naturalist assignment, Lin has resigned herself to having the most boring summer ever. But then she finds out about a local legend: an ancient ruined castle in the woods that no one has been able to find. Hiking to this castle would be like a quest. . . such an amazing quest that Mom might even come home, and they could adventure together the way they used to.
Determined to create her own adventure, Lin sets off on her biggest one yet—braving the wilderness with her two new friends, seeking the castle, and maybe discovering a new idea of home along the way.
My opinion: Rinker deftly combines what could be disparate and distancing plot elements: internet fame, the lack of understanding of peers, emotional distance from parents, and small town legends. A lesser book would make a mess of these elements but they fit neatly together in this one. Oddly enough, Lin's overestimation of her own wilderness and survival skills seems to be the glue that makes these elements work. Each time things fall a little more out of her control, she is also forced to face a larger issue. Some of the later plot elements push the bounds of my willing suspension of disbelief but I like the early chapters well enough to dismiss my later displeasure as more a matter of personal taste than a flaw in the writing.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley
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