This was an unusual one. An interesting premise and promising start - a meltdown at a nuclear power station in America and the subsequent “fallout” as experienced by a teenage girl.
The voice of the teenage girl was credible but I felt the story could have been condensed. I was engaged for some parts and not others. ( )

Very powerful and interesting story. A slight mystery throughout the book, but not a mystery/suspense feeling. Written from a slightly too-precocious teenage perspective. ( )

A heartbreaking tale told by a homeless teenager living in a trash bag igloo . Six months ago, a nuclear plant inVermont experienced a cataclysmic meltdown, and both of Emily’s parents were killed. Devastatingly, her father was in charge and it may have been his fault. This is a story of loss, adventure, and the search for friendship in the wake of catastrophe. ( )

Les formes de somnambulisme dans un thriller ( )

3.75 stars

Emily (grade 11) was at school when it happened. There was just a couple more days until the end of the school year. Both her parents worked at the nuclear plant in town. The kids at school only knew that sirens were going when they were loaded on to buses and taken away. Emily kept overhearing things about her parents, about how her drunk father had caused this. She needed to disappear. She didn’t want anyone to know she was their daughter, since they were being blamed for the meltdown.

Emily, who since changed her name to Abby, is telling the story in hindsight, and going back and forth in time, and she does jump around, as it’s kind of a conversational tone. There is one dividing line that makes it easier to tell when in time you are as you read: B.C. and A.C. (Before Cameron and After Cameron). Cameron is a young runaway boy that she takes under her wing, as they are both homeless on the streets of Burlington, Vermont.

The book is rough as it shows the life of a homeless teenage girl. I did cry a few times, usually in reference to Maggie, the dog Emily had left behind in the radioactive zone (not that she had a choice). I had to laugh at the “connection” between Emily Dickinson’s poems and the “Gilligan’s Island” theme (and then I sang the poems as they came up in the book)! I quite liked this and it got just a bit more interesting toward the end, but I’m not sure I liked it as much as others I’ve read by Bohjalian. ( )