I mentioned this back in January, but now it is really, basically out (officially on May 12) and I want to talk about it again. It’s about this girl, Kyra, who lives on a polygamist compound and is engaged to her 60 year-old uncle and trying to figure out how to escape. Carol got the idea when she heard about a real-life girl in a similar situation who fled a compound, was taken back and beaten to a pulp. Then she ran again. That act of personal terror against her did not work. Now you know I’m a picky and reluctant reader, and honestly when I heard the premise for the book I thought…well, I’ll probably hate it, but okay. Because generally I’m not in love with “high concept” or “ripped from the headlines” books. (“Cults are bad! Girls are victims! Aaaagh!”) But as I read it, I became so absorbed in Kyra’s story while also marveling at how Carol was able to tease out a very nuanced examination of complicated issues. There were times I was afraid to turn the page, but I couldn’t put it down. That was, for me as a writer, the feat I most admired about how Carol pulled this off. How can something so awful be rendered with so much beauty and hope? Even thinking about it now gives me goosebumps and tears, and I’m a pretty hard-hearted reader most of the time.

Here’s what I wrote about it when Carol’s editor sent it to me last year: 

“An unsettling and courageous story about one girl who sacrifices everything familiar in her search for freedom–physical freedom and, more importantly, freedom of the heart and mind. Though the book is chilling from page one, Carol Lynch Williams’ economic and poetic use of language makes this potentially sensational story somehow beautiful, compassionate, and full of hope in the midst of tremendous loss. This is not a black and white exposé of cults, but a complex exploration of the ties that bind us to places and people that hurt us, the wrenching decisions we sometimes must make in order to survive, and the saving power of the truth, no matter how difficult it may be to bear.” 

Yeah, I guess you could say I liked it. So did Meg Cabot, Gregory Maguire, Cynthia Kadohata, Kathi Appelt, Michael Cart, An Na, Deb Caletti, and Cynthia Leitich Smith, among others. And the PEN American Center, which just awarded Carol with the Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship. 

Mary Pearson interviews Carol at YA Authors Cafe

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