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Be Not Far from Me by Mindy McGinnis
4.0

Whelp, if this book doesn’t put you off of EVER going camping again, then I don’t know what will!

This is another superb book by Mindy McGinnis, totally different as usual, I love the way that she is not afraid to mix up her themes, and this one certainly will certainly mix you up!!

Ashley is a teenage girl, but she’s not a ‘girly girl’ oh no, she loves everything outdoorsy, and checking out things like animal bones to find out how they dies, is like a walk in the park to her…literally.

But a camping trip with her friends turns all of that on its head!

After drinking too much and falling asleep, Ashley wakes up still pretty drunk and dying for a pee.

After finding a place to relieve herself, far enough from everyone to see and still half naked, she hears a noise and goes to investigate, and sees her boyfriend doing the nasty with one of the girls, worse still it’s his Ex who she hates!

Ashley gets spotted so she runs away from the situation as she’s obviously upset, but unfortunately not watching where she is going, tumbles down a ravine and gets knocked out. It’s only when she wakes in the morning she realises that she is alone in the forest, she doesn’t know where she is, she has no supplies at all, she’s nearly naked, and should her foot really be that colour??

Although the book is 90% Ashley’s POV, I didn’t find myself getting bored at all, in fact I was on the edge of my seat rooting for her, some of the things that she has to do to save her own life made me gasp out loud, flinch and also gag a little.
I absolutely know that if I was in the same situation as Ashley, I would probably manage a day at most, maybe only a couple of hours before giving up, but who can you have to save you if not yourself?