In this YA horror novel, five teens are forced to participate in a new “wilderness therapy program” called REVIVE. Some of them are kidnapped in the night and escorted here by force. They face 50 days hiking through the wilderness and talking about their trauma with two unqualified twenty-somethings. This is based on real programs that still exist as part of the Troubled Teen Industry. In the introduction, Courtney Gould recommends the organization Breaking Code Silence for more information and guides on how to help stop programs like these.
REVIVE is already a nightmare for these teens, but things quickly take a turn for the worse when the two adults vanish overnight, stranding the rest of them, and they begin to see monstrous figures in the trees with all-too-familiar faces.
I’ve heard some of the accounts from survivors of wilderness therapy programs about what they went through, so I was bracing for that when I picked this one up. Luckily, while wilderness therapy is a backdrop to this story, it’s not the main focus. The horror elements are paranormal. That isn’t to say it’s a fun read, though: these teens’ traumas and the abuse they’ve suffered takes central stage, and they’re forced to relive it by these monstrous beings. Definitely keep the content warnings (at the end of the post) in mind.
We first meet Devin when she is kidnapped from her foster care home. She’s been sent to REVIVE for starting fights. Devin is angry, it’s true, and she’s been through a lot—including many foster homes before this. She handles the program by constantly searching for a way out. She immediately clashes with another teen, Sheridan, who seems to see the program as a joke. Sheridan is cruel to the others and makes every hike a struggle. Devin cannot stand this rich girl bully, and within the first day, she’s having a lot of difficulty not hitting her.
As they’re faced with finding a way to survive together, we see how the dynamics develop between the five teens: Devin, Sheridan, Ollie, Aidan, and Hannah. Ollie emerges as a leader, leaning on Hannah for support. Hannah is kind and is determined to prove herself to her father through this program. The youngest, Aidan, loses his naïveté. But it’s the relationship between Devin and Sheridan that develops the most.
I had a lot of sympathy for Sheridan at the beginning, even when she said some unnecessarily cruel things. These are all traumatized teens in a horrible situation, after all. At some point, though, she crossed the line for me. I had figured Devin and Sheridan would get together. Two queer girls who start the book hating each other? How could they not? At that point, though, I couldn’t see how the book could redeem Sheridan or excuse her actions. I won’t spoil anything, but I will say Gould surprised me.
I loved the character development that all these teens go through: not because of the program, but despite it. They are able to find support in each other, support that may have been missing in their everyday lives. There are survival elements, but it’s just as much about them fighting to want to stay alive.
I don’t want to undersell the horror: these monsters are skin-crawlingly upsetting. There’s a dreamlike quality to interactions with them that makes it feel like the characters are trapped in a nightmare, with everything a little out of focus and reactions. It’s very effective. I also was fascinated by these monsters, especially as they were developed later in the book. They’re more than just a one-dimensional jump scare lurking in the trees.
In some ways, this book reminded me of Into the Light by Mark Oshiro: both deal with queer kids who are seen as disposable and broken, trying to make it in a system that wants to turn them into someone else. The author describes this as a “story about a group of lost kids finding their way home,” and that’s very true. I loved the bittersweet ending for these kids who have endured so much.
This was such an engrossing book: it kept me reading well into the night. I really enjoyed Gould’s The Dead and the Dark, so now I’ll have to go back and read her second novel, Where Echos Die, as well. She has, as the acknowledgements mentions, “created a beautiful empire of terror lesbians,” and you couldn’t get much better of a Lesbrary recommendation than that.
Content warnings: substance abuse, mentions of suicide, death/harm of a child, mentions of sexual assault/child sexual abuse, gore/violence
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