Book Review: The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore

Five young girls and their camp leader head out on an overnight kayaking trip. The leader promptly dies. Fu leads us through the girls’ lives, one by one, probing the subtle ways this formative experience affects the girls in adolescence and adulthood.

Except by coincidence, the Lost Girls’ stories don’t intertwine after their childhood experience. The central story — what happens on the camp — is told through only one girl’s voice, so you come to know her perspective of the event most closely. Unfortunately, you miss out on seeing this develop through her adulthood, as her ‘grown’ story is unsatisfyingly rushed at the end.

The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore is an intriguing collection of character portraits. Fu explores the tiny ways a single event becomes indelible, and how different people grow to hide or highlight these permanent marks.

The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore
Author: Kim Fu
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt