A Map for Wrecked Girls

June 12, 2017
Emma Jones, 16, has always lived in the shadow of her volatile older sister, Henri, who commands the spotlight. While the girls are on vacation in Puerto Rico, a boat accident strands them on an uninhabited island miles from their resort, along with Alex, a boy Emma met on the beach. With their lives at stake, Emma finds her own footing, working with Alex and making decisions to keep the three of them alive. But Henri withdraws, leaving Emma to wonder if her sister will ever forgive her for a past mistake. Taylor (Wandering Wild) weaves past with present to tell an unsettling story of two sisters whose relationship is claustrophobically close. As a survival story, it’s top-notch—readers will be riveted throughout the trio’s perilous time on the island. But despite the author’s descriptions of Henri’s magnetic appeal, she is so aggressively awful to her sister, both in their current predicament and in flashbacks, that it’s difficult to understand why Emma is so desperate for her approval, love, and friendship. Ages 14–up. Agent: Melissa Sarver White, Folio Literary Management.

July 1, 2017
For two white sisters, their relationship might be more important than survival.Moving between the present and the past, readers meet Emma, who loves her older sister at the expense of her own self-development. In Emma's eyes, Henri--a too-precious nickname for Henrietta--is a dynamo who can get any guy she wants (including a young teacher at their school and Latino next-door-neighbor Jesse, whom Emma loves). Although Henri loves Emma, it doesn't change her boy-chasing behavior, which is implied to have become worse since their father left. Meanwhile, Emma has buried all her desires in order to serve her sister's, but such behavior is unsustainable, and Emma finally cracks, in a way that Henri cannot forgive. Their relationship shattered, the two sisters are made to go to Puerto Rico with their mother, where Emma flirts with a white boy named Alex, the kind of boy Henri would want. A boat trip with Alex ends in disaster when they're shipwrecked on an uncharted island: the book's starting point, before it flashes back to the events that brought them there. Survival and rescue from the island become but a metaphor for Emma and Henri's healing--but with a new dynamic. The scenes from the past do not provide enough information to fully explain Emma's or Henri's psychology, making their choices in the present somewhat confounding--and amazingly, making the survival plot less interesting. A family novel that doesn't compel. (Fiction. 14-16)

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August 1, 2017

Gr 9 Up-Emma and Henri are barely speaking, their once seemingly unbreakable sisterhood bond destroyed. When they, along with a mysterious stranger, wash up post-shipwreck on a beach, their troubled relationship is put to the test in an extreme survival situation. Battling the elements for weeks in isolation, Henri struggles with her anger toward her sister while Emma slowly falls for their companion. Their dire circumstances put them at risk for certain death, and all three struggle to survive on the isolated island. Told in alternating time lines that slowly reveal what ruined the sisters' relationship, this is a solidly entertaining read. The present-day survival narrative is intense without being overwrought and the flashbacks help build suspense over what act drove the formerly inseparable girls apart. At once a story of sisterhood as well as a romance, the book is a unique glimpse at emotional and physical struggles. While some of the dynamic between the siblings is a bit stereotypical, the realistic, awful things they do to each other liven up the narrative. VERDICT An exciting, high-stakes adventure with strong characters; ideal for young adults with interest in contemporary realistic fiction.-Erinn Black Salge, Morristown-Beard School, NJ

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