I hate first person present tense. Even worse, though, is a story told from the alternating viewpoints of five separate characters, when all five use first person present tense. ALL FIVE. The only exception is the opening passage, which is written from the moon’s (literally, the moon) POV… in third person present tense. Hell, for all I know, we are also treated to the dog and the imaginary friend as narrators in first person present tense, but I only got to page 37 before I closed the book and threw it across the room at the garbage can.

 

Paperback, which has been sitting unread on my bookshelf for so long that I no longer remember when or why I even bought it. I suspect it was a recommendation from the (now defunct) Books on the Nightstand podcast.

 

I do want to say that the front of the book initially claims this is a story of five women but it's really a story of four women and a teenager. Also the book synopsis on the back of the version I received was incorrect by saying this was a story of three women and a teenager.

Told from five different points of view we get the main plot revolving around a girl's camp called Camp Firelight being closed in 2012. The former camp director and current member of the board of directors, Ethel, sends out a letter to all former Camp Firelight alumni to come to the camp and say goodbye before it closes its doors forever.

However, only three alumni show up (Ruth, Shannon, and Laura) which is a surprise since you keep reading about all of the fun times the girls and women who stayed there had and how much the camp meant to them all. I of course get why it didn't make a lot of sense to have a book told from about 30-40 different women's perspectives but having only three women showing up kind of negated the whole the camp is very important to everyone thing that was going on with the main story.

The main characters in this story are Ethel, former camp director of Camp Firelight, Ruby her ex best friend, Laura, and Shannon former alumni and teenage Amber who is a runaway that stays at the camp.

Ethel's and Ruby's stories were more interesting to me since you find out that they started going to the camp in the 1940s. Due to Ethel's personal life and choices she and Ruby are estranged for decades. I felt for Ruby more in this story since you understand why things happened the way they did. I think that if the story had just been told from these two women's perspectives with the other characters being secondary characters I would have liked the book much more.

Shannon and Laura's stories honestly bored me to tears.

Laura's story in addition to being boring just aggravated me at turns. Laura is realizing that she has not been in love with her husband for at least 15 years. You read the beginning of their story together and you wonder why things got so badly off course but I was pretty much over this character acting like a victim. Things suddenly change completely in the last few chapters of the story with this character and I almost got whiplash trying to work out how this all happened.

Amber's story is tragic and I felt like this could have been it's own story and really didn't fit with the other women's stories at all. I think to make it a tighter novel and also to allow the reader to get more pertinent details on the four main women Amber's story could have been cut and a follow-up novel could have been written from Amber's point of view.

I think having the novel told from five points of view and jumping from the past to the present constantly just didn't allow me as a reader to get fully as absorbed in the story as I should have been. Also in the case of Shannon and Laura if the heading did not show their names and the years I would have been confused about who was "talking" in those sections. Both of these women sound so very alike that I kept getting their back-stories confused. Ethel and Ruby had very distinct voices and did not sound the same at all which was good. In the end I only rated this novel three stars.

Please note that I received this novel for free via the Amazon Vine Program.

By: Kaya McLaren

ISBN: 9781250019776
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: 10/14/2014
Format: Other
My Rating: 3.5 Stars

 

A special thank you to St. Martin's Griffin and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. 

 

Kaya McLaren's The Firelight Girls, is a heartwarming light read, of five female friends, across three generations with cherished memories to last a life time.

 

A group of women known as The Firelight Girls,have fond memories and ties to Camp Firelight, on Lake Wenatchee a summer camp for girls of all ages. When the camp is about to close down, Ethel, the camp "manager", for over fifty years, decides she needs some help to clean the place up. She invites the Firelight Girls to come and say their farewells, to the place they all loved and prepare for its sale.

 

Ethel is sad and overwhelmed, as she has much to do, so enlists the help of three other former campers, Laura, Ruby and Shannon. While the four of them continue to mourn the loss of their camp, Ethel is still mourning the loss of the love of her life, Haddie, her partner. (carrying her urn of ashes everywhere and continues talking to her).

 

Two women suffering from midlife crisis: Forty-year-old Shannon, spent the summers of her youth as a vibrant, camp counselor and is now directionless after watching her career implode. Laura, has lost all intimacy with her husband and doesn't know if she can save what seems to be gone forever. Ruby, betrayed Ethel years ago and hasn't spoken to her since, hopes this will be her chance to make amends.

 

Amber, a teenage girl (a new addition) to the group, with a drug-addicted, and neglectful mother, is staying in one of the cabins, unsure how she can make it there in the winter. The ladies take her under their wind, making for a nice group of women covering multi-generations. The women bond, face their past, and make plans for their future, together.

 

I especially enjoyed the characters, Ethel and Amber. I agree with one of the other reviewers – would have enjoyed the story more focused on these two characters, and the other two as more of secondary characters.

 

From the 1950’s to 2013, so many stories from an array of different women and a Lodge which had always been the camp with cedar, cabins, fireplaces, dirt, swimming, proms, hiking, lunches, canoes, fishing, kayaks, food, friendship, and many memorable stories from the heart.

 

The author offers specials insights into the work of summer camps, having spent her summers in college working at Camp Zanika on Lake Wenatchee in Washington State, and fifteen years later returned to run the teen programs for two more, as well as a teacher. I also enjoyed the inspiration for the book, a group of women FOZ (Friends of Zanika), who saved Camp Zanika when it was going under, rolling up their sleeves with many powerful stories and reflections.

 

The Firelight Girls reminds me a little of Susan Wiggs’ Lakeshore Chronicles Series (which I loved, as read them all) surrounding Willow Lake, camps, and lodges, as well as author, Emilie Richards and her stories of women. Fans of women’s fiction, female friendship, and summer camp stories will enjoy this insightful story of love, loss, regret, reinvention, and forgiveness.

Refreshing.

It was definitely a light, summer read (for me anyway) even though there was a lot of snow. And skiing. I didn't really expect anything, so the story just was. It was what it was. And I enjoyed it.

3.5 StarsChick-Lit...Two women and a 10 year old girl all dealing with life changes. Six weeks after suffering a traumatic miscarriage and life saving hysterectomy Jill finds her husband in bed with another woman. Devastated, she runs to the childhood hometown in Colorado to heal her heart.Lisa has been running her entire life even though she has never left Sparkle, Colorado. One morning after her latest one night stand is sneaking out of her bed, she decides it's time for a change. Cassie's mother died of breast cancer a year earlier. Living with her father she is consumed by grief. When Jill takes a job as her sitter, she finally finds someone who understands her loss and begins to heal.How I came to Sparkle Again is not a religious book, but it's very spiritual...almost uncomfortably so. It reminded me of Emily March's Eternity Springs books a little. It was a slightly melancholy but ultimately fulfilling journey of discovery.