Fiction

by Claire Cameron.

Based on a true story, a bear attacks and kills the parents of two young children whilst on a camping trip. The kids, just two and four, survive on their own.

It's narrated by the older kid, a girl, and it just did not sound like any four year olds I've ever known, including myself at that age. And I have what everyone assures me are unusually vivid memories going farther back than that.

It's not a plot spoiler to say that the final part is likewise narrated by that girl, only it's twenty years later. I honestly think it would have been a better and more affective novel had it been narrated by the adult she became. There's an attempt to make her sound like a four, almost five year old, but it just doesn't work. She had digressions, when I don't think the kid would have. But to read the story of her going back to that place, struggling to remember what happened, could have been far more effective. And yes, I did mean affective a couple of sentences back.

In short, I would not recommend this novel to anyone.