Where Lost Girls Go by Kody Keplinger

The quick cut: A girl living with four other girls in the mountains and a thirty-something man find their lives turned upside down when a new girl joins them. 

A real review: 

   Thank you to Scholastic Press for providing the arc for an honest review. 

 Support comes in many forms. While traditionally it is our parents and families who are meant to support our growth, the truth is that this doesn't happen for everyone. In some cases, who we are growing into can be in conflict with the people our families want us to be. What would you do to get the support you need? For these girls, they turned to a mysterious man living in a cabin in the Kentucky mountains with the promise of a happier future. 

 Iris and her flower-named sisters all live together in the Kentucky mountains with a man named Sol. While they all came from different backgrounds, they never discuss them as they have chosen to be a family together. It's a happy balance that has been maintained until a new girl joins them - who is named by Sol as Rose. Rose joining the household sets off a chain of events where Iris sees the cracks in the family she's come to see as essential to a happy and fruitful future. Is Sol and her flower sisters the future that she needs? Or is the truth that Sol is using them for his own purpose? 

 To say I inhaled this book would be an understatement. Once I started reading, I couldn't stop myself, even once the ending became frustratingly clear. Seeing Iris go from having rose-colored glasses on about her found family to seeing the truth behind what no one talks about is a journey and seeing that struggle play out is the core plot. It is a journey that is complex, emotional, and very believable as a reader. 

 Iris is a girl who wanted to be accepted for who she is and understood by her family. That's not a unique desire. In fact, it's one that I think most people can relate to in their own lives. Each girl in that cabin ends up there for a similar reason: they didn't get what they needed from their families, ended up on their own, and joined the cabin so they could have stability again. What you're willing to do in order to protect that stability definitely varies from person to person and each girl in the house definitely has their own way of dealing with that. Iris does a great job as narrator at highlighting those differences and showing you how the truth becoming commonly known changes their behaviors. 

 The unfortunate truth is that situations like this are more common than we'd like to believe. There's always going to be manipulative adults who see the castaways in life as an opportunity to take control and have unyielding power over them. Sol from the outside appears to be a nice man just trying to do something good for these girls, but a close examination tells you that what he says doesn't match his actions. That slow unraveling of his persona and the mystery around his intentions are believable and grounded in reality. We don't always know why people do these things, but we do know that they are out there and taking advantage of anyone they can. 

 A dark but reality based contemporary story about five girls and a mysterious man in a Kentucky mountain cabin. 

My rating: 5 out of 5