They are 9, 10 or 11 years old, and the Forevermore camp promised them an extraordinary stay on the West Coast. But the experience they will live has nothing to do with the promise of a place that has engraved the memories of hundreds of girls before them…
Posted yesterday at 2:00 p.m.
The highlight of this holiday is a kayak excursion followed by a night in the forest on an island, specially designed to “build character”. However, the journey of the five campers turns into a nightmare when a tragedy occurs and their boats go adrift.
Alliances and rivalries take shape as they must find a way to seek help, building a brilliant – feminine – construct of His Majesty of the Flies. This, however, is not the only tour de force of British Columbian Kim Fu (who has already published For Today I Am a Boy, at Heliotrope). What happened on the island, she reveals to us through fragments interspersed with the future lives of these five girls of diverse origins and backgrounds. We thus glimpse what each of them will become, despite the aftermath of this excursion which continues to inhabit them like a crack. And that’s what really strikes us: these poignant portraits of completely ordinary girls who carry far too heavy a weight on their frail shoulders, but who nevertheless find a way to make their way.
Five girls lost forever
Kim Fu (translated from English by Annie Goulet)
Heliotrope
378 pages