Camino Maggie

by Joy Llewellyn

Maggie’s screwed up again. After recklessly accepting a dare from a cute guy, she’s caught breaking into her aunt's store. Her accompany her aunt, a youth counsellor, and three other young offenders on an 800 km Camino hike over the French Pyrenees and across Spain. But things can always get worse. Once on this 1,000-year-old pilgrimage route, Maggie’s phone is confiscated, she's expected to hike 25 km a day carrying her heavy backpack, and she must share hostels every night with 50 or more obnoxiously cheery adults who keep wishing her, “Buen Camino.” Meeting gorgeous Ben along the way helps but, like her criminal companions, he’s got a secret she wants to crack. Who knows where boys, betrayals, and blisters might lead her?

290 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 26, 2019

About the author

Joy Llewellyn is an avid long-distance hiker who loves living out of a backpack. She’s travelled around the world twice, was a film and television screenwriter and story editor, and taught screenwriting in Canada, India, and China. She lives on a small British Columbia island where she writes stories about adventurous female rebels.

Reviews

[Liralen · Rating 4 out of 5]

That was nice. It's obvious that the author knows and loves the Camino, and I appreciate the added complication—that neither Maggie nor any of the other teenagers in her travel group is there by choice; the Camino is not so much a dream for them as something they have to grow into. (Programmes like this one exist in real life, by the way, and they're not new—perhaps not common, but still, there's a long history of people being given an option of going to jail or doing the Camino or something like it.)

I'm not entirely sure about the balance of character development here—Maggie gets over her need for expensive highlights and huge amounts of luggage very quickly, and by the end I still had a lot of questions about what was going to happen with the other girls. I'd also be curious to know a bit more about Maggie's life after the Camino; I understand why the book ends where it does, but...there's some truth in saying that the Camino doesn't end when you reach Santiago.

That said: this does as well as or better than just about any Camino book I've read at working in Camino relationships: the people you see every now and then, and might see again tomorrow or in three weeks or never again. It's hard to pull off in books in a way that lets the reader recognise the side characters, and be glad to see them again, but also not feel the need for closure with them, and that works well here.

[Kevin Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this story of 4 teen girls walking the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route across Spain as penance for crimes they committed back home in Canada. It was touching to see the girls who were, at first, bitter fall into the realization of the joys the Camino can bring a person. With tribulations along the way, they found a way to bond and support one another while walking with their supportive guardians. The scenery and history along the way was perfectly interwoven with the story. I'd recommend it to anyone!

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read a lot of books about the Camino de Santiago, but this is the first with a young adult slant. Besides the story of the hike, there is the young adult interaction of teens who are doing it in place of punishment for various crimes. It was a quick but entertaining read.

[Lj · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well written transformational walk for a transforming girl to woman.