During a 1970s summer, five adolescent girls learn that peril exists where they never imagined: in their neighborhood and homes; in parents who steal their time and freedom (and, in one case, a thumb); in the pull of the world beyond their friendships; and in their own burgeoning sexuality.
During a single summer in the 1970s, five 12-year-old girls learn that danger lies not in the external world of their night runs, where parents and their own fertile imaginations conjure visions of anonymous murderers, rapists, and other mysterious figures lurking in the nearby woods. They discover it instead in places they never would have thought to look: in their neighborhood and homes; in uncomprehending parents who steal their time and freedom (and, in one bizarre case, a thumb); in the pull of an uncertain world beyond their all-important friendships; and in their own burgeoning sexuality. Karen Lee Boren's vivid novel, the premier book in the "Tin House New Voice" series, begins in the collective first-person point of view, but gradually this reassuring group identity splinters as the girls mature and violence close to home threatens to split them apart for good.
