Two star review, originally posted here on March 7th, 2025.
Yet another book with a great concept but lackluster execution. I was really hoping to ignore the outside world for a few moments a day by escaping into some fiction. I didn’t need it to be good. I just needed it to suck me into a story. But goshdarn this book is so boring. Virtually nothing happens the entire time. We start by setting up a solid premise: we have two timelines, one involved two girls running off into the wilderness, and another 80 years later involving a park ranger who discovers children’s remains in a cave. From this intro, I assumed we were about to follow the story of the ranger investigating the 90 year old crime of whatever happened to these kids in the old timeline. But… that’s not what happens. Honestly, I don’t even know what happens. Maybe I missed it, but we never learned about the dead kids. We had lots of mysterious clues at the beginning, but we eventually stopped talking about any of those and instead did a very half-hearted investigation of a maybe missing kid. With some token barely-there boring sexual tension with some guy who is being a dick about trying to push dogs onto people. Back in the old-timey timeline, things are slightly more interesting as we learn about old-timey Oklahoma feminism, children’s issues, treatment of Choctaw people, etc. The themes are all there, and our young protagonist is a clever little firecracker. But even that story just dragged. And, again, in the end we never found out who the kids’ bones belonged to. There is a tiny bit of typing the 2 stories together at the end, but it was kinda weak because the stories being tied together were so weak (especially the snoozer future timeline.)
After the story concludes, there’s an epilogue where Wingate explains the research she did to write this book. This was interesting, but it made me dislike the book even more because she had all this fascinating source material and had clearly put a lot of work and love into crafting this novel and maintaining historical accuracy. But… this was the book she churned out. Ugh. I feel bad writing a review this bad for something that the author clearly loved working on. But this book is very highly-rated and beloved by tons of readers who had better experiences than I did. Nothing can hit for everyone, and I’m sure Wingate knows this. Bottom line, this book just didn’t hit for me. But if you’re interested, please do not let my review deter you. Maybe I would have been drawn in more if I’d been in a different headspace. Or hadn’t done the audiobook. Who knows.
Helga without the H 