By Sarah Combs
Candlewick Press, 2014. 261 pages. Young adult fiction.
It's the summer before her senior year and Gloria is spending a month at a camp for gifted students - Geek Camp - taking a class called Secrets of the Written Word. Cut off from all electronic devices and social media. Gloria and the three other students who compose the class find themselves forming a special bond as the learn about each other and appreciate their talents and differences. And Gloria is finally able to come to terms with her own grief over the recent death of her grandmother and come to terms with her future.
This book was nothing that I was expecting. Young adult books tend to be very straightforward in plot and writing, but this was written with an almost stream of consciousness fluidity. The plot is really subservient to the poetical nature of the prose and Gloria's self-analyses and epiphanies. It is a book that is hard to describe, but beautiful to read. A fascinating debut.
It is, for the most part, a clean read, but does have some strong language.
JH
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