I am so mixed on my feelings for this book. On one hand, I liked the camping/hiking aspect where a group of young people are thrown together and have to find a way to navigate the world around them working as a team. On the other hand, that was about the only thing I did like.

I will say that I felt engaged in the story as I was reading. I wanted to know what was going to happen to the characters and if Ingrid would ever get her act together. And there are some very important and intense issues tackled in this story. Unfortunately, I didn't feel like the execution lived up to the potential.

Trigger warnings: Suicide, sexual assault, depression

What I liked:

1. As I said, I liked that this book was set in the wilderness as a camp/expedition for at-risk youth. I read The Names They Gave Us by Emery Lord last year and loved the setting.

2. It was a fast read. I actually listened to the majority of this on an airplane as an audiobook, and it flew by (no pun intended).

What I didn't like:

1. Dual timelines. I have read a lot of books with dual timelines recently, and this one just doesn't do it very well, in my opinion. It often felt like the author would use the timeline switch as a way to create false tension in whichever timeline the book was currently following, which is something that comes off as manipulative to me. Also, it doesn't work. All it actually accomplishes is to create a clunky pacing. I get why the author wanted to craft the story the way she did, but I really disliked most of the past timeline. I felt like the information could've been disseminated in another way. I would've preferred if the focus had been primarily on her journey with the other teens.

2. One-note characters. There are several side characters who show up throughout this book, but I'm not sure if I could tell you about most of them, and I just read the book over the last two days. Many of them are reduced to stereotypes and caricatures. There is the boy whose conservative parents would disown him if he embraced his sexuality and sent him to the camp to 'get rid of the gay'. There is the Asian girl whose parents are strict to the point of abusive in their demanding ways. There is the bad boy who has a heart of gold and is just misunderstood. There are several other characters as well, and not a one of them is well-developed. Our protagonist also has a best friend I know nothing about.

3. Inconsistent characterization. There is a character in this book that is written as a joke for a good portion of the book. About half-way through the book he turns on a dime and becomes completely different. There is no real hint of this up until the point where he snaps. And it's never really explained. The 'bad boy' is crude and harasses our main character with sexual comments and taking pride in making her feel uncomfortable, then he switches and we're supposed to get all gooey over him...nope. No thanks.

4. Ingrid's mother. I get that this woman is sick. She suffers from depression, and depression is not logical. That being said, even when her mother is 'well', she is a terrible mother. She tells her daughter that she isn't musically talented when that isn't true, because she can't handle her own emotions about her failed music career. She forces her young daughter to lie to her new husband about her past. She strikes me as incredibly narcissistic and manipulative. I know many people will feel like I'm being too harsh on a character who obviously suffers from mental illness, but I don't think all of her behavior is attributable to her depression.

5. Ingrid's magical recovery. I won't get too into her issues because of possible spoilers, but all of the intense things she is going through are pretty much solved in the course of a two-week wilderness expedition. Because that's how life works. Except not.

6. Awkward dialogue. There is a scene where the title of the book is said by one of the characters, and it felt cheesy and awkward to me. Many of the teens use foul language, which in theory is fine. However, it ends up sounding really cringy to me. One moment is a character telling another, "I could fuck you and drown you at the same time." Um...what?! Then the 'bad boy' is always propositioning our main character, asking her if she wants to fuck. It just sounds really awkward, especially when she was just assaulted by another character. Seriously...

Other odds and ends:

1. The ending was completely predictable for me. I thought it was going to happen slightly differently, but I was pretty sure that what happened was what was going to happen.

2. I didn't like her past-timeline love interest.

There were some other things I didn't like, but it feels at this point like I'm just piling on. I really wanted to like this book, and I almost gave it three stars. Unfortunately I just didn't find enough I liked about it to justify that rating.