They all reside in a tiny, dying town that only becomes entertaining when the vacationers arrive in the summer and winter. Davis interns at the town's makeshift newspaper station, Ana lives in a small apartment with her mom who barely makes enough money at work, Erik is arrogant and acquired a scholarship to a fancy university out of town, and Georgie is a drug dealer with a bad attitude. Fastforward to present day, these same characters are still breaking rules and smoking joints, not caring about what resulted with their careless actions before. The church caught on fire, burned down, a mother cat and her kittens perished, Ana was injured trying to save the cats, and another innocent student was injured as well.

Ana, Erik, Davis, and Georgie's friendship are tied together by a night when they stupidly decided to sneak into a church during a camping trip and smoke a joint. I stopped at 25% because I couldn't stand any of the characters. I would definitely recommend this one to anyone who loves an occasionally deceptive tale like We Were Liars with a hint of All the Bright Places and a dash of a small town that doubles as a main character. I loved and hated every single one of them at one point or another. The characters in this book were a lovable but flawed cast: Davis, the minister's son with a lasting obsession over his past romance, Ana, the daughter of a Latina single mother who's just trying to make ends meet, Georgie, the town dealer with boy troubles, and Erik, the runner who got fourth at States. I'm glad there are more books out there showing the reality of it without the romanticization. Mental illness and small towns are such a toxic mix. Gradually, it morphed into a character study of how stifling living somewhere with socially limited mindsets can be, especially when you end up having to take care of those who are supposed to take care of you.īut by the end, this was a cryptically written tale on par with the message of Thirteen Reasons Why: the signs were all there that something was wrong but no one had been looking for them. This started out as the typical angsty, small-town story about a group of friends brought together by unique (and troubling) circumstances with a side dish of teen romance.

Our only hope lies in knowing what can wound us.”Īs seems to be a habit with me, I skimmed the synopsis for this book on Edelweiss and upon seeing a few keywords that I decided deemed the book interesting, requested it without a second thought. “In this place, everything is both a gift and a weapon. *An ARC was provided by Edelweiss and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.*

The Girls of No Return by Erin Saldin