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The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore
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A group of young girls descend on Camp Forevermore, a sleepaway camp in the Pacific Northwest, where their days are filled with swimming lessons, friendship bracelets, and camp songs by the fire. Filled with excitement and nervous energy, they set off on an overnight kayaking trip to a nearby island. But before the night is over, they find themselves stranded, with no adul
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Hardcover, 249 pages
Published
February 13th 2018
by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
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Start your review of The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore
Okay, y'all.
I made it through.
Raise the flag.
I feel so accomplished.
I am glad this was so short, otherwise I would have had to DNF and I HATE doing that.
Clearly, I struggled with this one.
It was so all over the place for me, just not my style at all. It was nothing like what I expected and I'm not sure what exactly the author was trying to get across.
I thought, going in, that I did but my expectations of a modern, gender flipped version of Lord of Flies was completely off base.
The writing ...more
I made it through.
Raise the flag.
I feel so accomplished.
I am glad this was so short, otherwise I would have had to DNF and I HATE doing that.
Clearly, I struggled with this one.
It was so all over the place for me, just not my style at all. It was nothing like what I expected and I'm not sure what exactly the author was trying to get across.
I thought, going in, that I did but my expectations of a modern, gender flipped version of Lord of Flies was completely off base.
The writing ...more
This book didn’t work for me at all, mainly due to structural issues that took an interesting premise and turned it into an unnecessary (and ultimately unsatisfying) mystery for this reader. Keeping many of the details from the reader until the end, not providing near enough details, and weaving stories in between select pieces of information about what happened on the island caused the backstory to feel like a separate, unrelated story. That is the opposite of what was intended. The book attemp
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THE LOST GIRLS OF CAMP FOREVERMORE is a sensitive, evocative exploration of how the past threads itself through our lives, reemerging in unexpected ways. Kim Fu skillfully measures how long and loudly one formative moment can reverberate.
Hmm...this book was not at all what I expected from the synopsis, so I'm having a hard time being objective about it. The synopsis makes it sound like a traumatic childhood experience shared by 5 girls, and then following those girls through their lives and seeing how that incident shaped them. Instead it is a Chekhov-level-depressing collection of short stories that are loosely connected by a central narrative. There is no exploration of how the camp incident changed their lives (unless, maybe,
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I can’t resist a book with an ensemble cast, especially if the characters are thrown together into an unusual or high-stakes situation. I love trying to get into each character’s head and analyzing the group dynamics, the allying and backstabbing. And my favorite part, picking which character I relate to the most and rooting for them (and maybe actively pulling against the characters I don’t like). The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore is thus, of course, right up my alley. Five tweens at sleepaway
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3.5 stars
See me discuss this briefly in my March wrap up: https://youtu.be/4yQLSgVJtSo?t=4m32s ...more
See me discuss this briefly in my March wrap up: https://youtu.be/4yQLSgVJtSo?t=4m32s ...more
3☆ A Short Read.
When I read the blurb for The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore I was really excited, it sounded like it was going to be a creepy enthralling read.
But Unfortunately this wasn't the case.
I found the whole story to be rather disjointed and at times confusing.
The start of the story was about Camp Forevermore, but it felt way too rushed and lots of characters were introduced I had no clue who they was or how they fitted into the story.
It was a shame as i feel, if there was more build up ...more
When I read the blurb for The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore I was really excited, it sounded like it was going to be a creepy enthralling read.
But Unfortunately this wasn't the case.
I found the whole story to be rather disjointed and at times confusing.
The start of the story was about Camp Forevermore, but it felt way too rushed and lots of characters were introduced I had no clue who they was or how they fitted into the story.
It was a shame as i feel, if there was more build up ...more
Camp Forevermore has been a summer tradition for girls, aged 9-11, for generations. Some have retained fond enough memories of their young summers to return as counsellors and helpers during their adult years. But whether they can return is a lot different to whether they should.
This story is split in both time and perspective. One portion follows a group of girls on an overnight kayaking trip that will end in disaster and alter the trajectory of their lives. The second portion delivers a rundow ...more
This story is split in both time and perspective. One portion follows a group of girls on an overnight kayaking trip that will end in disaster and alter the trajectory of their lives. The second portion delivers a rundow ...more
The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore is structured so that we have The Incident at camp, alternated by snippets of the lives the girls have led since their time at Camp Forevermore.
You would think that this Incident would play a huge role in the future point of views of these girls. I was really expecting it to be intensely amplified, for Kim Fu to go heavy with her strokes and consequently alter the lives of her characters based on the one shared but very individual experience. What we get is a s ...more
You would think that this Incident would play a huge role in the future point of views of these girls. I was really expecting it to be intensely amplified, for Kim Fu to go heavy with her strokes and consequently alter the lives of her characters based on the one shared but very individual experience. What we get is a s ...more
What starts off as ghost stories and marshmallows by the campfire quickly goes downhill and takes a turn for the worse, much like this book did for me. The story had SO much potential to be one hell of an awesome thriller but the author chose to go a whole other direction and I’m still not quite sure what she was going for. The storytelling was disjointed and chaotic, jumping from one timeline to another with no pattern whatsoever. I just wanted to hear about what happened at camp and the story
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Jul 03, 2020
Wanda
rated it
really liked it
Shelves:
canadian-eh,
cbc-radio,
planned-for-2020,
new-books,
book-club,
female-authors,
read-in-2020
I never went to summer camp as a camper—I waited until I was 15 or 16 and went as a camp worker. Kitchen work, mostly, setting out plates & cutlery, setting out food, and washing up afterwards. This book makes me think that I made the right choice.
So often people say that children are so resilient, that they can survive bad events much easier than adults can. I think Kim Fu is telling us that this assumption is wildly optimistic. She seems to prefer the old saying, “As the twig is bent, so grows ...more
So often people say that children are so resilient, that they can survive bad events much easier than adults can. I think Kim Fu is telling us that this assumption is wildly optimistic. She seems to prefer the old saying, “As the twig is bent, so grows ...more
It's been a while since I DNF'd a book. I hate doing that because I keep thinking, "what if it had gotten better?"
But I just couldn't read this one anymore. The story starts with these four girls who are in a camp together. And then the next chapter goes on to tell the future of one of those girls. Then another 'in the camp' chapter followed by another girl's story.
I read half of the book before finally giving up. I just couldn't see the point of reading all of it. The past and the future, there ...more
But I just couldn't read this one anymore. The story starts with these four girls who are in a camp together. And then the next chapter goes on to tell the future of one of those girls. Then another 'in the camp' chapter followed by another girl's story.
I read half of the book before finally giving up. I just couldn't see the point of reading all of it. The past and the future, there ...more
Kim Fu's novel has a somewhat unusual structure, weaving back and forth from the past to the future life of one of the characters, then back to the past, then on to another girl.
In the past, a small group of girls at Camp Forevermore experience something traumatic, which is revealed partway through the novel; though the incident, I found, was of less import than the ways the girls coped immediately afterwards. Because we know each of them survived the incident, this removes a little of the tens ...more
In the past, a small group of girls at Camp Forevermore experience something traumatic, which is revealed partway through the novel; though the incident, I found, was of less import than the ways the girls coped immediately afterwards. Because we know each of them survived the incident, this removes a little of the tens ...more
Five girls on a camping trip suddenly find themselves stranded in the middle of a dense Pacific Northwest forest. This survival story alternates with stories from the girls' lives in the aftermath, as teenagers and adults. The idea being, I think, that they are just as much lost souls as grownups as they were when literally lost in the bush as kids. THE LOST GIRLS is a character-driven novel first and foremost, but it also boasts an interesting structure. It's even a bit suspenseful at times --
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Some pre-teen girls have a bad camping trip then go on to live fairly normal lives. That’s the gist of this book. It would have made more sense to me if their lives had been impacted more significantly by the camping experience or if the girls had interacted as adults. I was pretty disappointed with the ending too.
May 07, 2018
Rebecca
rated it
liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
unfinished,
read-via-netgalley
(2.5) I read the first 66 pages, skimmed to p. 86 of 190, and gave up. Camp Forevermore is a Pacific Northwest getaway for nine- to eleven-year-old American and Canadian girls. We get a brief introduction to a set of campers from the early nineties on an isolated overnight adventure – they’re pretty hard to keep straight – before diving deep into one’s life for the next 20+ years. First up is Nita: her love for her childhood German shepherd, her medical training and sudden career-ending accident
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Feb 01, 2018
Arrington (agirlandher_books) Moore
rated it
liked it
Shelves:
books-sent-by-publishers
A huge thanks to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the free review copy!
After finishing this book it took me a while to decompress and gather my thoughts about this book. It tells the story of five girls who go to summer camp together and how their lives go on after their summer together. The girls are left to fend for themselves on a kayaking trip which leads to many of their life choices later in life.
While I did enjoy the book I sometimes found it confusing as it would jump from the summer at ca ...more
After finishing this book it took me a while to decompress and gather my thoughts about this book. It tells the story of five girls who go to summer camp together and how their lives go on after their summer together. The girls are left to fend for themselves on a kayaking trip which leads to many of their life choices later in life.
While I did enjoy the book I sometimes found it confusing as it would jump from the summer at ca ...more
Kayla understood this as a fundamental difference between men and women: men could leave, women had to stay.
This is shelved as a YA book on Goodreads -- I suspect because of its short length at just 256 pages, and how the protagonists are pre-teens during one of the story threads; but I actually feel like this just vibes better as literary fiction? The prose is so lovely, soft and meditative and meandering, to the extent that it actually managed to crack open a reading lull that I was stuck ...more
I’ve seen mixed reviews for this book, but I enjoyed it! It explores the way in which a traumatic experience at Camp Forevermore impacts and shapes the lives of five young girls. I found some of their stories more interesting than others, but overall, I thought it was well written and engaging.
This was ok. I didn't dislike it but I also didn't feel involved at all.
I think I expected more survival, more of something pivotal that completely changed the girls' lives. The girls' adult lives are the focus of this tale but the correlations between their disastrous camping trip and where they end up years later are tenuous at best.
Sure, you could make the argument that it's worth noting that death seems to follow the one who faced death head on and the one who got busted for panic eating wou ...more
I think I expected more survival, more of something pivotal that completely changed the girls' lives. The girls' adult lives are the focus of this tale but the correlations between their disastrous camping trip and where they end up years later are tenuous at best.
Sure, you could make the argument that it's worth noting that death seems to follow the one who faced death head on and the one who got busted for panic eating wou ...more
In The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore, five girls set out with their camp leader on a kayaking and camping excursion. Their leader decides to push the girls even harder, rowing for a farther, more secluded island for camping. No one from camp knows where they went, and no one from camp knows that these girls are stranded and alone. There is a pivotal point in these characters’ lives that changes the course of their adulthoods.
The novel is told in vignettes, back and forth in time from the adoles ...more
The novel is told in vignettes, back and forth in time from the adoles ...more
This book was intriguing and immersive. Multiple storylines and perspectives are sometimes done poorly, but in this case they were well balanced and complimentary. Structurally, it alternates between quick snippets of the disastrous summer camp trip, and longer novella like stories about the girls lives, mostly after their fateful summer. I actually preferred the self contained stories of the girls lives.
The "lost" from the title refers as much to the adult women trying to find their way in tod ...more
The "lost" from the title refers as much to the adult women trying to find their way in tod ...more
I'm not exactly sure what exactly The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore is about. I understand the plot, but it is cobbled together in chapters (arguably this is a short story collection with linking sections that take place in the same chronology) that are very void of any thematic heft. I have an issue with the cover of the book (not Kim Fu's fault) and the title (Kim Fu's fault), which make this seem like a YA novel. But I think the author was going for something more mature than that with this
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I totally thought that The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore by Kim Fu was a five star read and I can’t believe I hadn’t heard anything about it before I randomly found it perusing new audiobooks at my library. This book tells the story of a group of girls who get super fucking lost in the predator-filled woods when their camp counsellor just up and dies after taking them off course on a kayaking trip, and as that story unfolds, also visits each girl in their earlier and later lives. Lookit. This b
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The only thing lost was the accolades of this book.
NEXT!
NEXT!
On the kayaking trip at Camp Forevermore, five girls are stranded on a different island than where they were supposed to be. Lost without help or an adult: Isabel, Dinah, Andee, Siobhan, Nita must find a way to get off the island or they'll be lost girls forever.
This was such a strange book. Now that I've read the whole story, it makes a lot more sense in retrospect. It's told in five parts: the story of Camp Forevermore as it happened narrated by Siobhan. This is interrupted by the stories of ...more
This was such a strange book. Now that I've read the whole story, it makes a lot more sense in retrospect. It's told in five parts: the story of Camp Forevermore as it happened narrated by Siobhan. This is interrupted by the stories of ...more
If you’re looking for a good “lost in the woods adventure story” don’t be fooled by this book. A very small portion involves any kind of outdoors adventure, and of that small part, it’s mostly girls crying.
The 4 back stories are pointless to any kind of plotline, and although the backstories are suppose to highlight the different personalities of the girls, when they’re in the woods, they’re girls are indistinguishable.
There is one girls’ backstory completely missing. There are 4 rushed pages d ...more
The 4 back stories are pointless to any kind of plotline, and although the backstories are suppose to highlight the different personalities of the girls, when they’re in the woods, they’re girls are indistinguishable.
There is one girls’ backstory completely missing. There are 4 rushed pages d ...more
BEWARE of SPOILER
To make it easier for me, what I did was read all the chapters with Camp Forevermore in it. Do not fear because those chapters were the only connected one. The chapters referring to the girls, were kind of like a filler that much or less can be a standalone.
Camp Forevermore was told in Siobhan's pov. The camp was for girls between the age of nine to eleven years old. The point of the camp was to teach this girls to be independent and knowledgeable when it come to safety and surv ...more
To make it easier for me, what I did was read all the chapters with Camp Forevermore in it. Do not fear because those chapters were the only connected one. The chapters referring to the girls, were kind of like a filler that much or less can be a standalone.
Camp Forevermore was told in Siobhan's pov. The camp was for girls between the age of nine to eleven years old. The point of the camp was to teach this girls to be independent and knowledgeable when it come to safety and surv ...more
The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore by Kim Fu weaves together a tale of 5 girls from their time at a sleep-away camp all the way through to adulthood. After an incident at Camp Forevermore, these girls have only themselves to rely on in order to make it home.
Initially I had musings of this being akin to Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants but I came to realize that The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore is an entirely separate entity. Upon being introduced to our main characters, Fu is able to capture ...more
Initially I had musings of this being akin to Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants but I came to realize that The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore is an entirely separate entity. Upon being introduced to our main characters, Fu is able to capture ...more
I really liked this book about 5 young girls who get stranded in the woods and how their experience during that harrowing time affects them throughout the rest of their lives. The book is set up as basically short stories about each girl, with the camp story from their childhoods interweaving between their personal stories. Themes of paralysis and dissatisfaction and invisibility and silence and abandonment all sprinkle through the girls' stories and you have to read til the end to really find o
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| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| YA Buddy Readers'...: The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore by Kim Fu--Starting July 20th, 2019 | 18 | 19 | Jul 25, 2019 06:58AM | |
| Evergreen Summer ...: Lost Girls | 1 | 4 | Jul 24, 2019 11:20AM |
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Kim Fu is a Canadian-born writer, living in Seattle, Washington. .
Her first novel FOR TODAY I AM A BOY won the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. It was also a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and long-listed for CBC’s Canada Reads. Fu's debut poetry collection HOW FESTIVE THE AMBULANCE received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, a ...more
Her first novel FOR TODAY I AM A BOY won the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. It was also a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and long-listed for CBC’s Canada Reads. Fu's debut poetry collection HOW FESTIVE THE AMBULANCE received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, a ...more
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“She turned and pressed her face into his back until his warmth and smell blotted out all thought, until she stopped wondering how long love could be enough, how long it could count as meaning, how long it could structure her days.”
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“The adults looked transfixed by Andee. When Andee finally swam a little closer, Siobhan could see why: the determined set of her mouth, the ferocity in her eyes. How much she wanted to finish. She would finish, no matter what. It would be cruel to stop her. And more to the point, if they ever were stranded in the ocean, Andee—who had been in the water for what felt like an eternity—would be the last to go down.”
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