Saturday, August 18, 2018

81. Everything Beautiful is Not Ruined by Danielle Younge-Ullman

read on my iPhone
2017 Viking Books for Young Readers
368 pgs.
YA CRF
Finished 8/18/18
Goodreads rating:  4.22 - 1251 ratings
My rating: 4
Setting:  The woods of northern Ontario, Canada

First line/s:  "Dear mom,  Thanks.  Really.  I can't wait for this tiny excuse for an airplane to take off into the sky, and then deliver me into the dismal middle of nowhere."

My comments:  I do enjoy these books that put the protagonist ubri a summer camp/survival situation, a sort of upward/outward bound of staggering proportions.  This is the second one I've read this year, but very different from Wild Bird (Van Draanen).  It's told by slipping back and forth between the three-week tough hiking/survival experience and Ingrid's life, which is entirely dependent upon and wrapped up by and with her mother.  A few interesting twists and turns, though not especially unexpected, add to the story, which is set in the forests of northern Ontario, Canada.  And I really did read this in one long sitting!

Goodreads synopsis:  Wild meets The Breakfast Club in this story of a girl who must survive an extreme wilderness experience to prove to her mother that she has the strength to pursue her dreams.
Then 
Ingrid traveled all over Europe with her opera star mother, Margot-Sophia. Life was beautiful and bright, and every day soared with music.
Now 
Ingrid is on a summertime wilderness survival trek for at-risk teens: addicts, runaways, and her. She’s fighting to survive crushing humiliations, physical challenges that push her to her limits, and mind games that threaten to break her.
Then 
When the curtain fell on Margot-Sophia’s singing career, they buried the past and settled into a small, painfully normal life. But Ingrid longed to let the music soar again. She wanted it so much that, for a while, nothing else mattered.
Now 
Ingrid is never going to make it through this summer if she can’t figure out why she’s here . . . and why the music really stopped.

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