The Longings of Wayward Girls

by Karen Brown

It's an idyllic New England summer, and Sadie is a precocious only child on the edge of adolescence. It seems like July and August will pass lazily by, just as they have every year before. But one day, Sadie and her best friend play a seemingly harmless prank on a neighborhood girl. Soon after, that same little girl disappears from a backyard barbecue; and she is never seen again. Twenty years pass, and Sadie is still living in the same quiet suburb. She's married to a good man, has two beautiful children, and seems to have put her past behind her. But when a boy from her old neighborhood returns to town, the nightmares of that summer will begin to resurface, and its unsolved mysteries will finally become clear.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Suspense, Thriller, Adult Fiction, Adult, Book Club

336 pages, Paperback

First published July 2, 2013

About the author

Karen Brown’s Little Sinners and Other Stories was named a Best Book of 2012 by Publisher’s Weekly; her previous collection, Pins and Needles received AWP’s Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction; and her first novel, The Longings of Wayward Girls, was published in 2013 by Washington Square Press. The Clairvoyants is forthcoming from Henry Holt in February 2017. Her work has been featured in The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, Best American Short Stories, The New York Times, and Good Housekeeping. She teaches creative writing and literature at the University of South Florida.

Reviews

[Trudi · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a buzz book for the summer - you might have heard of it already -- The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes. Featuring a time traveling serial killer, it has huge potential for a beach read thriller, but I don't know. Despite enjoying the main character, I felt it was missing something and my overall reaction after reading it was lukewarm.

This book on the other hand is much more to my liking. Probably closer to three and a half stars, it's an easy four in my books because it features all the elements I adore -- suburban New England setting, family secrets and lies, prepubescent girls doing naughty things with tragic consequence. It's an "all grown up and looking back" story as the adult tries to untangle the mysterious events of a dark childhood summer. It's a dual narrative that flips back and forth in time -- from the summer of 1979 to the summer of 2003. There's mood and atmosphere and dread and intrigue. It's a voyeuristic look into the oft-twisted and inappropriate shenanigans of life in the 'burbs.

Sadie is a pushy, bratty kid, with razor sharp smarts and a vivid imagination that's only going to get her into trouble. Her mother is a domineering, manic depressive drunk who isn't going to be there for Sadie when she needs her the most. Out of boredom and as an act of rebellion, Sadie hatches an elaborate ruse to amuse herself and her best friend. It's the summer of 1979 and her victim is the neighborhood outcast, a young girl with a miserable home life. The consequences of this cruel prank will have a tragic ripple effect.

Sadie grows up. The memory of that time is locked away in a deep, dark corner of her mind. She has a husband and two beautiful children. But sorrow has found Sadie. She is grieving her miscarriage and in this vulnerable state, back walks the boy she crushed on as a young girl. He's all grown up and stirring up more than the overwhelming sexual attraction she feels for him. Sadie begins to think about that summer long ago, seeking truth to all the unanswered questions she's lived with her entire life.

For a debut novel, The Longings of Wayward Girls (great title) shows a lot of promise. In the best ways, I was reminded of Megan Abbott's The End of Everything, and Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects. Author Karen Brown is on my radar now and I will definitely be seeking out more of her writing.

This review also posted to Shelf Inflicted.

[Nicole (Reading Books With Coffee) · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm just not sure what to think about The Longings Of Wayward Girls. There are 3 different stories going on- the newspaper articles about the disappearance of Laura Loomis, the summer of 1979, and the present time, which is 2003 in this book.

I'm not completely sure why the articles about Laura Loomis were included, because her story was told through the articles, and wasn't really mentioned throughout the book. Except for a few mentions of the family and a few mentions of people mistaking Sadie for Laura because they look similar.

The book alternates between past and present, and that didn't work for me. Just as I was getting used to one story, it was time for the other one. I didn't find either one very compelling, and it was hard to stay interested in both stories. Plus, there's the disappearance of Francie, set during the summer, and I was waiting for a possible connection between the two disappearances, which never happened. We learn what happens to Francie and what happened "that summer" but I don't think we ever learn what happened to Laura. Which makes her disappearance and the articles really random.

I couldn't care about Sadie. I wanted to, but a lot of the choices she made throughout her life made it hard to like her. I'm not entirely sure we WERE supposed to like her, because it's entirely possible we weren't supposed to. Either way, there was just no connection with her. Sadie felt pretty wooden and I'm not sure if it's because she was dealing with depression after having a miscarriage or dealing with what happened in her childhood.

Final Thoughts: The Longings Of Warward Girls didn't work for me. It was hard to care about Sadie and dealing with what was going on. I also wish Laura's story had more of a role in the book. The Longings Of Wayward Girls gets 1 star.

[R.B. Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this novel, Karen Brown meditates on the suffering that goes along with love and lust. This is her debut as a novelist, but Publishers Weekly named her Little Sinners and Other Stories as a Best Book of 2012.

Set in an middle class suburb near Hartford, Connecticut, The Longings of Wayward Girls is a psychological novel. The main character, Sadie Watkins, is a 36-year-old stay-at-home mother of two, and she’s grieving her recent miscarriage. In her undone state of mind, she starts an affair with a neighbour, Ray Filley, a man she’d last seen 24 years ago. She senses that something unseemly happened between her mother and Ray when he was a teenager, and that hunch leads Sadie on a journey toward the painful truths hidden in her fuzzy memories of summer, 1979, the year she turned thirteen. Sadie calls it “that summer” when everything changed.

Brown’s narrative structure mesmerized me. First, mirroring the rift in Sadie’s memory, the chapters flip back and forth between 1979 and 2003 (the story’s current time). That structure is a hypnotic device, and it drew me in to Sadie’s world, one in which the past often seems indistinguishable from the present. I got the eerie, dreamlike feeling that the past was living itself over again. Second, beyond its psychological effects, the novel excels at description. Heat, thunderstorms, humidity, children's dirty feet, birds, and insects (especially cicadas) -- Brown describes these things in a way that transported me to the essence of a New England summer. And specific objects from the 1970s bring back the period: Dixie cups, ubiquitous cigarettes, shag rugs in harvest gold, and so on.

This is a haunting tale, one that will enchant lovers of psychological suspense.

[Melissa (Semi Hiatus Until After the Holidays) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Clearing off the old Netgalley ARCs that I downloaded before I knew how they would pile up.

This one might have been good had I read it back when it was written. Since then, the psychological thriller/missing person genre has exploded. And with much more compelling and well-written narratives. I appreciated the 1970s time period, but I am not a fan of infidelity in books no matter how it is justified by the characters. Some parts of this were good, but overall it didn't work well for me.

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book, all opinions are my own.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember picking up this book based solely on the cover and title. Now that I've read it, I think the cover and the title are appropriate (which is not always the case - soooo many books have a great title and a gorgeous cover, and the story doesn't even come close to living up to them), but unfortunately, the story was actually a bit mundane, in my opinion.

It took a long time for this to get going, what with the layers of story, shifting timelines, dual narration (past and present). By the time it got going, I was only sticking it out to see what had happened. I already knew the outcome, and the whodunnit, I just wanted that vindication. I got it, but it was almost pointless because all meaning was stripped from it, and it was just... "So that happened." and moved on.

But this story isn't just a whodunnit mystery... it's a generational tale of mothers and daughters, and the mistakes that women make, and the mistakes that girls make, and the ways that we pretend to be someone we're not to fit in with the expectations that are placed on us. I liked this aspect of the story - but I wish it was a little less meandering. It tended to wander off and get lost in side details, and then take a while getting back to the story.

I didn't love the characters, but these are not characters intended to be loved. Sadie is a selfish, self-absorbed woman, but I did like her by the end. I don't really know what her husband sees in her, and why he's so willing to let her actions go, but the men in this book weren't really "characters" so much as set pieces and backdrops, so that's probably it.

It wasn't terrible, but I don't think it was great either. I wanted a bit more out of this.

[Jessica Knauss · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book made me uncomfortable for long stretches. The discomfort came from the terrible decisions of some of the characters. I could hardly bear to read about what they were doing, and at the same time, I couldn't bear to put the book down, in the hope that they would come to their senses soon. Whether or not you agree with some of the things Sadie, for example, gets herself into, the masterful writing will make you turn the pages again and again. The novel is crammed with characters, so their development is done with small details that only suggest their full stories. More or less what the author has done is build an entire world full of mystery, and I'm in awe.

The novel's complex layers reiterate the theme of loss or disappearance. People who vanish out of their loved ones' lives for no known reason, people who disappear because they're searching for something they already have, others who run away to escape secret horrors no one would guess at, most who lose something and then lose their way... Everyone in the book is just as haunted as the scary forest presentation, "Haunted Woods," the children put together every summer. Debating the reasons everyone acts they way they do could fill a lively book club session, and makes me think this book is a prime example of the way reading fiction can train readers in empathy.

Aside from all that heavy stuff, this book may help people who grew up in the '70's remember some details of daily life. I'm not the same age as the main character (close), but I was amazed at all the small things the author included to make the readers feel they've really gone back in time. A memorable book for so many reasons.

[Dianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did you ever wonder what happened to the kids you went to school with? Were you part of the “in crowd,” a leader, a follower, or maybe you were the outcast, the one that others saw as fodder for cruelty for any number of reasons. No matter where you stood in the social pecking order, our youth and our actions, reactions or lack of action, affects our adulthood, if we try to bury it. Sadie is now a troubled adult, rightfully depressed by a recent miscarriage, but her problems go much deeper, and as her past resurfaces, memories and guilt of a long ago summer come back to haunt her as she continues to make self-destructive choices.

The Longings of Wayward Girls by Karen Brown is a dark, psychological mystery that spans three time periods, each involving Sadie, each leaving a mark on her emotionally and mentally. Current Sadie’s “perfect” façade is crumbling. Like a raw onion, the layers of her life and the events of her past are painfully peeled back. Karen Brown has re-created the 70s with vivid detail, like climbing into a time capsule and going back. Her characters are not always likeable, but as the timelines converge, they do become understandable, making this an intriguingly thought-provoking, often disturbing read!


An ARC edition was provided by NetGalley and Atria Books in exchange for my honest review.

Expected Publication Date: July 2, 2013
Publisher: Washington Square Press
ISBN: 1476724911 (ISBN13: 9781476724911)
Number of Pages: 336
Genre: Adult Fiction/Contemporary Fiction/Mystery
Rating: 4 Stars
Available at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble

For more reviews check out Tome Tender's Book Blog or find us on Facebook.

[Caitlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was shocked by how much I loved this book. I usually go into a book with just a few preconceived notions - usually formed from the plot description and a bit by the cover and genre, sometimes through the book's buzz. I didn't know anything about The Longings of Wayward Girls when I grabbed it. The plot sounded decent, the cover wasn't all that interesting, I figured it would be a mid-range thriller - fun to read and entertaining. What I did not expect was the depth that this novel conveys - I was captured in the first few pages and both couldn't put it down and was torn by reading it too fast because I knew I'd be sad when it ended.

The Longings of Wayward Girls is all love, lust, loss, and memory. In the wake of the delivery of a stillborn child, Sadie Watkins is trying to hold on to herself and her identity. Her grief is enormous and colors everything she does making it difficult for her to be a mother to her living children, a partner to her husband, alive in her own life. She is a well of sorrow and into this emptiness comes Ray Filley, a childhood crush returned to town with whom Sadie begins an affair. The affair triggers Sadie's memory back to her childhood and a prank she and a friend played on another girl - that girl disappeared shortly after the denouement of the prank and this sense that she may have played a part in the girl's disappearance is yet another grief that Sadie has carried around and that has disconnected her from her life. Layer upon layer Ms. Brown reveals the affect of loss on a place and on people - everyone is effected by what happened whether they were there at the time or not because that's how tragedy works - its traces linger in the people touched by it and through them it touches everyone.

Time and narrative shift as Ms. Brown untangles all the elements of this sad and compelling story - everyone here is disconnected in some way, moving jerkily through events that are too detailed to truly see. Tragedy and loss and grief inform, but so does lust and joy and the hope for connection. Throughout it all we see the bright summer days of childhood and of motherhood - the seventies drinks (Harvey Wallbanger, anyone?), the desire for adventure - for anything, just anything, to happen. I loved this book - highly recommended.

[Lori L (She Treads Softly) · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Longings of Wayward Girls by Karen Brown alternates chapters between the past and the present. Sadie Watkins was a child in the 70’s. In 1974, a neighborhood girl, Laura Loomis, disappeared. It haunts the neighborhood even after five years have passed and influences how parents watch their daughters. Sadie, a young teen in 1979, resents the rules, but follows them grudgingly when she is forced to play with neighborhood girls. But, when Sadie and her best friend Betty play a prank on Francie, she may know more than she is willing to admit when Francie disappears.
Over 20 years later present day Sadie is married with two children and struggling after she has had a late term miscarriage of a daughter. After it becomes clear he is pursuing her, she seeks out an affair with Ray Filley someone she knew from her childhood during the time the girls were disappearing.
Sadie is most surely suffering from depression. Her depression, combined with the secrets she has kept since childhood, make a lethal cocktail that send her down a rocky road of self-destructive behavior that resembles behavior her mother was exhibiting in the 70’s.
The Longings of Wayward Girls encompasses both a mystery and a coming of age novel. As the chapters slip between past and present, you will become acquainted with Sadie as a young teen and as a struggling mother. It soon becomes clear that Sadie may be heading down the same path as her own mother. Sadie, in both eras is not a likeable character.
Brown does a great job setting the stage for this atmospheric family drama about hidden secrets, unresolved issues, and self-destruction early on, but then the novel seems to lose its focus and flounders just when the plot needs to quicken and tighten up even more. By the time the ending arrived, I had already guessed everything and was reading just to reach the conclusion and confirm my suspicions. It was odd that after all the information about the disappearance of Laura, there is no resolution.
Despite the few qualms I had with the plot and execution of the novel, the quality of the writing was never in question. The writing is excellent.
Recommended
Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Washington Square Press via Netgalley for review purposes.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading “The Longings of Wayward Girls” has left me in a day-dreamy sort of fog, and I always say it’s a good sign when your imagination can’t quite seem to leave a book behind.

The book’s main character, Sadie, is an imaginative adolescent when she plays a prank on another girl that ends up having dire consequences. The story is told between flashbacks to the summer of the prank, and the present, when Sadie is a wife and mother, dealing with a fresh loss in her life. When Ray, a quasi-friend from her childhood, comes back to town, he sparks a series of events that begin to unearth old ghosts.

For me, the narrative really asked the question of what happens when you hold onto, and attempt to bury, these types of secrets and all of life’s small tragedies. Sadie’s story is the focus of the narrative but it is just one portrayal, as all of the characters begin to reveal similar secrets and sorrows and we see each of them deal with the outcomes in different ways.

I related very well to the main characters which made the narrative all the more moving and powerful. With a strong focus on mothering and female relationships, I believe most women would relate to the themes in this book.

I must also say the setting and its vivid portrayal really bolstered my connection to this book. Like the characters, the small New England town is haunted with ghosts and tragedies it cannot shake and I really liked the historical thread running through the book. Karen Brown has a way of bewitching you when she writes about this place and these characters. It’s the type of book you don’t want to finish.

[Holly Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Longings of Wayward Girls is a deceptive novel in that it easily crosses genres and keeps you in its grips once you're two pages into it. Yes, it's a mystery—there are girls that go missing, and tragic deaths to be solved. And, yes, it's also one of those “relationships” novels with women in conflict that is typically peddled as women's fiction. But this novel is much more than the sum of its parts. For starters, we have a female protagonist, Sadie, who is not always nice—hooray! She torments another child, she keeps secrets from her best friend, and she grows up to become a woman who often feels trapped by motherhood and marriage, and has strong sexual feelings for a man who isn't her husband. Then there's the language, which draws you in with lush imagery so powerful and original that you can't help but feel claustrophobic, start reeling with pleasure, and be terrified by turns. Brown gets to the depth of her characters' emotions in ways that make you feel those emotions right down to your toes. Bravo! Oh, and did I mention that the plot and pacing are so tense that you'll keep turning pages until your husband elbows you to go to sleep? (You won't do it, though. You'll just tell him to put a pillow over his head until you finish the damn book.) I adore this novel.

[Christoph Fischer · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Longings of Wayward Girls" is a dark and compelling story, cleverly told in three narratives. One is set in 1974 when a little girl goes missing, although we hear only the newspaper articles about it.
One is about the summer of 1979, the summer something that changes the life of our heroine Sadie.
The third is set in 2003 and sees a married but unhappy Sadie take up an extra-marital affair with childhood heartthrob Ray.
The main characters all seem to have secrets or agendas and the suspense created from that is very well done. Secrets about the past come out as some of the characters from then meet in the now and as we hear more about the actual events of 1979.
Although it took a little while to grab my full attention the book clicked completely into place 20% in and then turned out to be a very fast and compelling read, making me impatiently want to find out what had happened. To me the outcome was a surprise and the characterization was excellent.
As a child of the 1970s I must say the author captured the times brilliantly, even though my childhood was spent in Germany it was very relevant and authentic.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amongst other things, this is a book about infidelity. If you can't handle reading about it, steer clear of this book.

There are two time lines at work in this novel. The summer of 1979, just before Sadie Watkins turned thirteen, there was trouble brewing at home and in her neighborhood. By the summer of 2003 (and the months leading up to it), Sadie is a married mother of two, dissatisfied with her life. These two time lines are connected and I found the reveal of old mysteries to be very satisfying. Sadie is terribly self-centered and often thoughtless at 12 and 36, but there's something vulnerable and likeable about her, even when she's doing stupid and awful things.

I also loved the settings Brown evoked for both time lines -- such perfect imagery and behavior to capture both the late 70s and that pre-bust America of the early 2000s. Overall, a great summer read that I couldn't put down.

[Deacon Tom (Feeling Better) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fair reading. Too many characters.

[Mischa Temaul · Rating 5 out of 5]

“She slips from the bed, crosses the cold floorboards, and as she gathers her clothing, she notices a suitcase tucked behind the chair. It is covered in plaster dust. The clasps are mottled with rust. A vintage American Tourister. Sadie remembers the old commercials—a suitcase being thrown from a train, tossed around by a gorilla in a cage. She pauses. The suitcase is familiar—turquoise faux leather with metal trim, a 1970s suitcase like one in the set her mother had” (65).

Author Karen Brown pens a thrilling story filled with heart-wrenching loss, infidelity, motherhood, and dark secrets from Sadie Watkins’s childhood that surfaces in The Longings of Wayward Girls.

Set in New England, the structure of the novel alternates between past, Sadie as a child in the 1979’s, to the present of 2003 where she is married with two beautiful children. Brown brilliantly captures the 1979’s with her vivid details that transports readers back to that era. The author also builds suspense in the beginning surrounding the disappearance of Laura Loomis—a girl that Sadie is often mistaken for (in terms of appearance).

Stealing her mother’s cigarettes and hiding them in her bedroom, Sadie is far from being considered an “innocent” girl when growing up. When Sadie and her best friend, Betty Donahue, plan a little prank on Francie Bingham, it spirals and takes a new leap when she disappears one day. The disappearance of Francie Bingham reintroduces the fear of what happened to Laura Loomis, and it becomes a haunting memory for Sadie.

Sadie still remains in the same quiet suburb, and she is coping with the lost of her baby. One day she spots Ray Filley, a boy she once knew from her childhood, and “…she cannot deny the way her heartbeat steps up when she recognizes him, the romantic hero of all her childhood games” (19). As the affair with Ray begins, so does the surfacing of dark secrets the summer of Francie’s disappearance, but also of Sadie’s mother—the woman she despised when she was a child.

What really did happen to Francie Bingham that summer? What dark secrets did Sadie’s mother keep hidden? What’s in that suitcase that Sadie stumbles across?

Brown connects both past and present of Sadie’s life brilliantly without missing a single detail. Readers will have a love-hate relationship with Sadie, and they will also love the multitudes of themes in which the novel presents from identity to loss.

The Longings of Wayward Girls will leave its readers stunned till the very end.

**Note: I read this novel last summer but never got the chance to write and rate it.

[Gloria · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Longings of Wayward Girls grabbed me immediately. I was curious to see how the stories of the missing girl Laura and Sadie's sad world were going to weave together. Set in New England,the book spans about thirty years and jumps around three time periods. This was a deeper book so it required me to read a little more slowly than usual. I could not afford to miss any details being that they were all crucial to understanding the plot. Overall, I found the book to be interesting in a macabre way. However, being a mother, I don't really understand Sadie's mindset. Yes, she has experienced devastating loss, however, I felt that her character was cowardly and I did not like her. As for her husband Craig, I wished he had been a stronger character. Not sure what to say about Ray....not a fan-he was shady from the beginning. Loved the old neighbor----She was the most logical character which anchors Sadie back to her life.

Thanks Atria Books, Karen Brown, and Netgalley.com for the ARC.

[Becky Doughty · Rating 4 out of 5]

What can I say about this book? It was brilliant in its subtleties, but a little clumsy in its presentation. I thoroughly appreciated the way Ms. Brown unwrapped the characters by unwrapping their relationships, but the back and forth between time periods, between characters, and between events made it difficult to follow at times. I found myself going back a few times to figure out which girl/woman/man I was reading about.

Ms. Brown masterfully SHOWED us reasons for characters' behavior without TELLING us - she leaves it up to the intelligence of the reader to put the puzzle pieces together.

Yes, I'd recommend this, but I would suggest setting aside time to sit and read this without too many distractions.

This book was given to me for the purpose of this review.

[Alyson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh. What a SNOOZE! I had to fight to finish this book. All of the characters lacked depth (Sadie was one of the most unlikable characters I've ever comes across), and the plot was so choppy and overly descriptive. There were lots of useless details, useless people, useless storylines. It wanted to have an element of mystery but since it barely had a functional plot, there was no way it could follow though with any intrigue. The only mystery is why this book even got published.

[Mark Palm · Rating 3 out of 5]

There has been a spate of thrillers written by women over the past few years, and while this is not as ubiquitous as zombies or sexy vampires, to my mind, at least, the results have been far better, "The Longings of Wayward Girls", by Karen Brown seems to be just such a book. Uneasily straddling the lines between thriller and mainstream novel, this book comes down a bit on the side of the latter. It is the story of Sadie Watkins, told in alternating chapters by Ms. Brown; her life as a thirteen year old in the past tense, and her life twenty years later. Both styles are fluently handled by Ms. Brown, full of telling and evocative description, but bogged down at times by a surfeit of detail.

Young Sadie, at thirteen craves adventure. Her and her best friend Betty steal their mother's cigarettes, lead the neighborhood girls in creating plays and go joyriding with older boys. One of their games however is tricking a lonely neighborhood girl into believing that she has a pen pal boyfriend and foreshadows a series of events that will so change all of their lives. The other Sadie, married with two children and a successful, if somewhat distant attorney has just lost her third child to a miscarriage, and seems to be lost and adrift, if not paralyzed with grief then frozen and emotionless. Ms. Brown deftly shows us Sadie's emptiness in a series of scenes where she seems like a ghost in search of a story. As the stories of Sadie's past and present continued to entwine, the present narrative snaps back to life in the last third of the book, as a swarm of revelations about Sadie 's mother's life, and death, and the disappearance of the girl that Sadie and Betty tricked, dovetail into a strong and powerful ending.

Ms. Brown is at her best in the chapter dealing with Sadie's early life. Sadie and her friends, and their mothers, all are vivid and believable characters, the story is strong and assured. The story of her adult life is more hit-and-miss. The life of Sadie and her friends, the entire suburban mothers and their daily lives are beautifully and carefully drawn. Ms. Brown's subtle prose seems unsuited to dealing with the surprising series of events that damage and destroy peoples’ lives. The shocking bombshells in the finale went off more like a roll of caps. Despite my misgivings about the middle section of the novel "The Longing of Wayward Girls" is a very good book. Few writers have done such a fine job at capturing the rhythms of everyday life, and then slowly twisting them so show the disturbing underbelly.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The experiences of childhood help form who we become as adults--and then sometimes come back to haunt us. Karen Brown explores that connection in her beautifully-written book through the experiences of a young girl/woman she names Sadie. The book alternates between Sadie's 1979 childhood and her 2003 life as an adult. Growing up the daughter of a neglectful, alcoholic mother, Sadie found less than desirable ways to amuse herself and her friends, including a cruel prank involving a neighbor girl, Francie, who is by far the most sympathetic character in the book. The prank goes awry and Francie vanishes. This part of the story is an adaptation /expansion of Brown's previously published short story, Little Sinners, but with more dire consequences for Francie.Fast forward to 2003 and Sadie is married and a stay-at-home mother of two young children, suffering from severe depression after her third child was stillborn. From there a central issue is how closely Sadie will follow in her mother's footsteps. Affairs? Alcohol? Suicide? You will have to read it to find out.

There are a number of lost girls/women in this story, some of them lost forever and some , like Sadie, lost emotionally. The flashbacks to 1979 seemed the most real to me. I felt transported to another time and place. The 2003 parts didn't resonate so much with me. Surely in 2003 someone in Sadie's situation would have been in therapy! I also thought the references to the 1974 disappearance of another girl to be way overdone, considering that she had no direct connection to this story and we never found out what happened to her.

Karen Brown is a very talented writer and I look forward to reading her work in the future.

[Shay Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half of this book passed like the setting of the story, the slow unfolding of a suburban summer. It was okay, not great, not bad. Then, as soon as I hit the half-way point, it really picked up, and I couldn't put it down until nearly the end.

There are two stories here, centering on one character. There is twelve-year-old Sadie together with her friend Betty, using the long summer days to play an ongoing prank on a slightly younger neighborhood girl, as well as to nurse a resentment against her sexy unstable mother, and to do for the last time some of the things belonging to her childhood, and to try for the first time things like boys, cigarettes, and beer.

Then there is grown-up Sadie, with two children of her own, trying to sort out her grief over her stillborn daughter, and her desire to escape her suburban role to have an affair with a local man. Through all of this, the reader is taken through a maze of intersecting plot lines about missing girls, chances and mistakes, and yes, the longings of wayward--or indeed every--girl and woman. It's a story about the history of a place, the connections of mothers and daughters, and the price to be paid for the things we do, and then regret.

Once the book grabbed me mid-way through, I loved it, but it did take a long meandering time to get to that point. Nonetheless, I do recommend this very good debut novel. If you grew up in the 70s in American suburbia as I did, you'll relate.

[Kristen Long · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having grown up in a seemingly idyllic Connecticut suburb, Sadie, now a wife in mother, is transported back to her early teenage years when the disappearance of two young girls shook the residents of the town to its core.

For me, Longings was incredibly…disquieting. I found the main character, Sadie, very difficult to like or relate to, even though she had just suffered a personal tragedy. The book jumped back and forth in time, from the summer when there was a disappearance to the present, and both times she was portrayed in an unflattering light. As a teen, she and her best friend were incredibly cruel to a girl considered an outsider, and as a victim of bullying myself, it really bothered me.

In the present time, she finds herself having an affair with a childhood crush, and her willingness to betray her family and her husband was unsettling. It seems to me that a girl who had been so hurt by her mother would do her best to ensure that her children would not endure what she had, but instead, Sadie found herself dangerously close to becoming her mother. The ending was more interesting than I had expected the resurfacing of the past brought about the answer to mysteries, but not on a good note.

Overall? Not a recommended read.

[Dani Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sadie grew up differently, her mother often "sick" or "too tired" to drag herself out of bed. in 1979 a young girl that looked startlingly like her disappeared. She had a fairly normal childhood otherwise, playing for long hours with her friends, until the day her mother left permanently.

In present day, 2002, Sadie is a Mom herself. Her husband loves her, her children need her, but after the loss of her baby girl, perfect, but stillborn, she feels disconnected from her life. She meets up with a man from her past, a boy that featured in many of her girlish fantasies, now grown and just as enticing. The story bounces back and forth between the girl and woman as we learn more about the dark places in hidden corners of her mind. She finds some surprising and painful connections to her mother. The last person she ever wanted to be like. A darkly interesting tale.

[Lisa B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5.0

I have mixed emotions about this book. In several ways, I found it to be intriguing. The story is told in three time periods: short blurbs from 1974, and then much longer pieces during 1979 and 2003. I really wanted to find out how the author was going to tie all of it together. Ms. Brown did a good job of weaving this tale between past and present. While in great part I thought the author has a lovely writing style, there were time I thought it was bit drawn out. That being said, I do think she did a nice job of finally showing us how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together. Would I read more from this author? Definitely!

My thanks to Atria, via Netgalley, for allowing me to read this in exchange for an unbiased review.

Publish date: July 2, 2013.

[Aaron Coder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unflinching and unapologetic, Karen Brown’s The Longings of Wayward Girls will likely challenge readers in hugely personal ways. Sometimes an author takes us so deeply into the heart and mind of a protagonist that it becomes almost uncomfortable. Their memories and fears commingle with our own. We begin to notice reflections of ourselves in characters who are damaged by loss and grief, who in quiet desperation do the unthinkable, and we wonder: would I do that?

The writing is beautiful and, unlike many novels I’ve read recently, the past and present storylines are perfectly modulated. Equally plot- and character-driven, this book has depth and heart, grit and sensuality, mystery and familiarity. Easily the best novel I’ve read this summer.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alluring and haunting, The Longings of Wayward Girls is suspenseful novel from the prize winning author Karen Brown.

I found this beautiful and disturbing in equal measure. It kept me a state of tension throughout.

Things were wrapped up a bit *too* neatly in the end but it didn't take away from the book as a whole.

[Lindsey · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story had potential but ultimately I was disappointed. Every chapter alternates between 1979 and 2003, but I would have preferred to have the whole thing written about the period during 1979. Obviously, the author does this to give resolution to the central mystery, but the protagonist (Sadie) is so unlikeable as her adult self that it was frustrating.

[Sara Bauer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this one deserves an entire blog post. Or at least an author interview. Mind-blowing in its amazing-ness. Could not put this book down for five seconds. Scary. Suspenseful. Mysterious. Tragic. Quite the ride. I may have just found a new favorite author in Ms. Karen Brown.

[Debra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much of the writing in this book is beautiful and poetic. As a person who is drawn to rural outdoor places, the descriptions were my favorite parts...I was there with all my senses.

[Angie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was the kind of book where I hated all the characters and kind of hoped they died.