Beneath Wandering Stars

June 6, 2016
Cowles’s debut focuses on Gabriela “Gabi” Santiago, a half-Mexican Army brat living on a German military base where her father serves as chaplain. Soon after the book opens, Gabi’s older brother, Lucas, a private deployed in Afghanistan, is airlifted to the base’s hospital in a coma. Lucas’s friend Seth feels responsible and explains that Lucas wanted the family to make a pilgrimage along the famous Camino de Santiago in Spain. Seth and Gabi set out to honor Lucas’s wish—despite Gabi’s parents’ objections and the fact that Seth and Gabi don’t get along (though it’s no surprise when their mutual antagonism turns romantic). Cowles, a former Army brat, shows an intimate understanding of military life and uses her characters to examine its difficulties (“Budget cuts. Back-to-back deployments. Missed birthdays”), the toll combat takes on soldiers, and other complicated topics. Though Cowles avoids making Seth and Gabi’s camino overly faith-based, prayer and hope for a miracle regarding Lucas’s injuries are central to their pilgrimage. Teens for whom war hits close to home are a natural audience for this hopeful story of journeys internal and external. Ages 14–up.

June 15, 2016
After her older brother, Lucas, is wounded in action and rendered comatose, 17-year-old Gabriela Santiago decides to honor a promise to her brother by walking the Camino de Santiago alongside Seth Russo, the unlikeliest of companions.Gabi, a half-white and half-Mexican Army brat, hates many things about life in the military and is eager to leave Germany to start college at the University of Texas, where she is to return to a civilian life and reunite with her high school friends and boyfriend. However, once Gabi learns of her brother's critical condition and his request that she walk the pilgrimage, her plans get derailed, With only weeks till she graduates, she and Seth--Lucas' best friend and fellow soldier, a young white man--hike an abbreviated three-week journey. Along the way, their mutual love for Lucas unites them even as their temperaments separate them. While Gabi walks with her brother in mind, she also hopes to repair her fractured relationship with her father. Seth also has his demons and is wrestling to right his wrongs--and his daily drinking serves as a Band-Aid from the horror he witnessed and experienced in Afghanistan. Gabi's convincing teen voice guides readers through the complexity of emotions and inner struggle. Despite pacing issues and an unfortunate typo in one of the book's few snatches of Spanish ("Buenas dias" will induce winces), debut novelist Cowles uses the pilgrimage to spark moments of philosophic and theological reflection.Though a bit oversimplified at times, the story will open a portal to families with injured soldiers and propel conversations about war, identity, philosophy, and hardship. (Fiction. 14-18)

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July 1, 2016

Gr 9 Up-Seventeen-year-old Gabi Santiago has been an army brat all of her life. Currently stationed in Germany, she is biding her time on the U.S. base until she can move back to Texas-the closest place she has to a home-and attend UT Austin. But Gabi's plans are derailed when her older brother Lucas, deployed in Afghanistan, is gravely wounded. In a coma and unable to speak, Lucas has communicated with Gabi in other ways, most notably in a letter he left with best friend Seth that asks them to travel the Camino de Santiago in Spain. There is no love lost between Gabi and Seth, but as they make their pilgrimage along the famed route, they inevitably come to understand each other and reveal some closely held truths. What, for example, did Gabi do to enrage her father while they lived in Texas? And what, exactly, was Seth's role the day that Lucas was injured? Cowles answers these and other questions in due time as Gabi slowly realizes, despite prior denials, that she's on a journey of self-discovery. This is a believable and well-written tale full of references to Homer and Chaucer. The descriptions of the often crowded and touristy Camino de Santiago and the wide range of characters who populate it are authentic rather than idealized. Readers will feel Gabi's pain-both emotional and physical-as she endures a host of adverse conditions along the route. In the end, her eventual maturation, acceptance of her responsibilities, and changing feelings toward Seth seem organic rather than forced. VERDICT A realistic fiction title that will appeal to a broad audience of teen readers.-Melissa Kazan, Horace Mann School, NY

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