Raw and moving, this contemporary realistic debut novel unfolds the tragic secrets being kept in a small, deceptively idyllic town.

Seventeen-year-old Darcy Prentiss has long held the title of “town slut.” She knows how to have a good time, sure, but she isn’t doing anything all the guys haven’t done. But when you’re a girl with a reputation, every little thing that happens seems to keep people whispering—especially when your ex-best friend goes missing.

But if anyone were to look closer at Darcy, they’d realize there’s a lot more going on beneath the surface. Staying out late, hooking up, and telling lies is what Darcy does to forget. Forget about the mysterious disappearance of her friend. Forget about the dark secret she and her cousin Nell share.

Forget about that hazy Fourth of July night. So when someone in town anonymously nominates Darcy to be in the running for Bay Festival Princess—a cruel act only someone with a score to settle would make—all of the things that Darcy wants to keep hidden threaten to erupt in ways she wasn’t prepared to handle…and isn’t sure if she can.

I have read three of Gillian’s works now, but this one quickly became my favorite. It is a thrilling look under the skin of a small town’s facade, and knowing how much of her teenage self that she gave to the narrative makes it feel that much more raw and real. I was born and raised in such a small town, and even though I left it for awhile, I found myself drawn back in because of the peace and the undeniable home-ness of it all. Reading this book was like being a teenager again, living in my own beloved trailer and picking blackberries every summer. Of course, in this novel, it’s set in Maine, not Alabama, and the blackberries are blueberries, but it was a blast from the past either way.

The characters in this are stunning. I love Darcy and how strong, brave, and stubborn she is. I remember being just as hard headed as she was, and standing up to the boys because I knew I was just as good as they were. Mags and Nell are such compelling secondary characters: Mags with her kind heart and nose for justice, and Nell for her generous spirit and just the other-worldliness of her. She is like a specter from another time, dropped to a place in the future where her stunning beauty, grace, and soft-spoken manner are treasures that go largely unappreciated, except by her family. We have such a great contrast in small town mothers with Nell’s mom Libby, the strict and overbearing one, and Mags and Darcys mom, the lax but loving one. All of the residents in the town held their own fascinations for me, and all of them were so incredibly fleshed out.

We are placed into Darcy’s hands as she works through a blistering summer raking blueberries; saving up money to get her own car and get far away from her little town. Rumors have been circulating about her, especially after her friend, Rhiannon, went missing. She attempts to keep her head up and stoke her budding romance with Jesse, one of the other blueberry rakers, but all the while there is something she is hiding. There are several mysteries unraveling at once here, and it makes it incredibly easy to pick this book up and not put it down again until you have solved every single one of them. Rhiannon’s disappearance looms the largest, but as Darcy and Nell spend alone time working on the pageant that they’ve both been nominated for, you can see them splinter as something they share slowly eats them both alive.

Darcy keeps her head high despite the constant murmur of voices at her back, and with Shea, a mistake of a fling, becoming more and more violent towards her, her strength is irrefutable. She is carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, and she refuses to let anyone help her, despite their many attempts to do just that. I like to think that by the end of the tragedies she wades through that she has learned that she doesn’t have to do it all alone.

She manages to close out her story with us in a hopeful way, which most books like this aren’t able to do. We can rest assured that when we leave her, her family, and her town, that things are repairing, slowly but surely. It’s heartening to know that even when things seem their worst that there really is a light at the end of the tunnel, and no matter how much grit you’ve collected on your body, your heart, your soul, that you can always come clean again.

5/5 stars