Review by Booklist Review
From the decks of lobster boats, inside spirited high school gyms, and into college and the wider world, author Georges follows the lives of five girls in the coastal counties of Downeast Maine. Sitting at the challenging intersection of girlhood and rural life, their stories emerge as they decide to change the course of career limitations, young marriage, and shadows of dysfunction. While Georges' narrative focuses on these girls, the Downeast Maine setting actually takes center stage as a community with deep roots and rich history. Georges respects the region's families and way of life that instill generational grit and a self-sufficient work ethic, even as she explores tragedies and dark spots in its community soul. Her characterization of Downeast is thus nostalgic without being sentimental, empathetic without being patronizing. Shaped and called back by Downeast, the young women tangle with the tension of traditional values versus new learning, past versus future--and decide whether staying means settling. Georges' lovely book will appeal to readers seeking memoirs, understanding of rural worlds, feminist values, or even travel writing.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Communications strategist Georges debuts with a heartfelt portrait of five teenage girls growing up in Maine's remote and economically depressed Washington County between 2016 and 2020. Tracking the girls' lives from high school into college and the workplace, Georges describes how Willow, a photographer, struggles with the "family secret" that her drug-addled father beats his wife and children. Mckenna is a star softball player who captains her own lobster boat in the summers, while Vivian, a talented writer, pushes against the loving constraints of home and church. Valedictorian Josie, hellbent on escaping small-town poverty, gets into Yale. Recruited to play basketball at Bates College, Audrey finds it hard to be so far away from home. Georges provides plenty of data about the region's economic woes (which have been exacerbated by Covid-19 lockdowns) and opioid overdoses, and delves into the ways in which young women in rural America are constrained by traditional gender roles. But she also lovingly describes the natural beauty of coastal Maine and the strength these friends and their families derive from their surroundings: "Together, they carved a communion with the land and sea around them, and it sustained them." Enriched by the author's love of the area and deep admiration for her subjects, this is a worthy tribute to a group of stalwart young women committed to forging their own paths. (May)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Rural, impoverished Washington County, Maine, is not an easy place to grow up. Georges presents the stories of five young women on the cusp of adulthood in Maine's furthest northeast county. She began chronicling her subjects, whose names she has changed due to privacy concerns, in their teens, conducting interviews and following them in their lives. Willow grew up with an "abusive, drug-addicted father, although moving in with her grandparents provided a bit of respite--until her grandmother was sent to prison for embezzling. Vivian, Willow's best friend from early childhood, has a vastly different background. Her financially successful parents had deep roots in the county, but after they divorced, Vivian faced significant emotional challenges. A gifted softball pitcher, McKenna has been hauling lobsters with her father and brother since childhood. In her teens, she saved enough to buy her own boat. As she finished high school, she was torn between offers from two colleges and her passion: becoming one of the few females in the area running their own boats. Audrey is a basketball star and a dedicated member of her school's civil rights team. Though she matriculated at prestigious Bates College, she found it to be a tough fit and transferred. Josie, the class valedictorian, was accepted at Yale, and she found herself questioning her parents' conservative religious beliefs. Each of these stories reflects the extreme challenges of life in poor, rural America, areas that are often awash with substance abuse, offer few opportunities for education, and lack decent-paying career opportunities. Georges interweaves the engaging personal tales with recent statistical information, extending the girls' experiences to illuminate a vast government failure to serve America's less-populated spaces. In mostly lyrical, always informative, only occasionally trite prose ("Fisherman here don't care for idle talk"), the author shines an important light on the sobering challenges rural youth are facing. It's almost impossible not to care about these fierce young women and cheer for their hard-won successes. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
