My Abandonment

My Abandonment

Peter Rock

5 out of 5

A very good book that actually becomes eerie when you read the acknowledgements and see where Peter Rock got his inspiration for this mesmerizing story.

Thirteen year old Caroline lives with her father in a large nature preserve on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon. Her father, whom doesn’t really have a name, has built them a very inhabitable structure that seems to fit their most basic needs. They travel to town from time to time for supplies and to pick up a monthly check from their post office box. Nothing could be simpler, except for the fact that they must not bring attention to themselves, must not look like they are traveling together and they must avoid the police at all times.

Told from the perspective of Caroline, the reader is introduced to what appears to be a typical teen. Caroline wants friends, but isn’t allowed to have them, she wants to go to school, but must make due with the encyclopedias and dictionaries and an occasional book from the library. She lives a very quiet sheltered life with father.

Then one day the bottom falls out of her world, what she thought was real isn’t, what she thought of as home doesn’t exist and slowly the truth is revealed and Caroline must make a new life for herself. But when you don’t know who you were supposed to be, how can you make a new life that isn’t on the margins.

Peter Rock has a true gift for putting you right in the middle of the story, for making a nightmare believable and for showing you a side of humanity that you desperately wished didn’t exist.