Stevie‘s review of The Girl Who Came Out of the Woods by Emily Barr
Young Adult Thriller published by Penguin 02 May 19
I greatly enjoyed Emily Barr’s first two young adult novels, and was keen to see what worlds and characters she would introduce us to next. Past books by the author had prepared me for the possibility that narrators, and, indeed, less central characters might be unreliable, and so I took the first person sections with a pinch of salt, even as I tried to figure out whose story they were telling and how that person and story was related to the characters and story of the third person narrative that dominated the book as a whole.
Artemis Jones – Arty – was born in a clearing of an Indian forest, the first of four children born to an experimental community who avoid contact with the outside world as much as possible, and communicate with it only through one adult who ventures beyond the forest to trade for goods they can’t grow or make themselves. Although they have different parents, Arty regards the younger children as her brothers and sisters and takes care of them when the adults are busy, as well as looking after the community’s small library and doing the laundry. When a sudden disease strikes down all those around her, Arty, now sixteen, takes her one surviving brother with her to seek help from the people living beyond the forest.
Although she speaks three languages and has read about the outside world in her books, Arty finds even the smallest village to be a loud and fast-moving place. She is further alarmed when she, her brother, and the first two people to help them are immediately quarantined upon reporting her situation to the authorities. Once released from hospital and placed in the care of temporary foster parents, Arty learns that she and her brother have separate families in France and England respectively – and they are now social media celebrities, thanks to one of her would-be rescuers posting her story all over the internet.
When, after a series of adventures, Arty – now separated from her brother – is reunited with the grandparents she never previously met, her one thought is that her mother told her to avoid the cellar. And we know that the cellar is or was the improvised prison of our unknown first person narrator, whose most telling other connection to Arty is a distinctive teddy bear. As is the way of fairy tale heroines, Arty is unable to resist looking in the cellar, and deeply hidden family secrets are revealed, although new mysteries also open up to her.
I loved Arty, and also her adventures for the most part. I found some of the revelations connected to the cellar to be anticlimactic after the big buildup of the early chapters, and the ending was a little too sugar-coated for my liking. On the other hand, some of Arty’s attempts to interact with a world she didn’t fully understand made me smile, and I enjoyed the commentary on the influence of social media and celebrity from those who refused to engage with it, as well as from those who were deeply immersed in it. Not my favourite of the author’s books, but a treat nonetheless.
Grade: B
Summary:
A commune hidden from the world. A terrible event. A lifetime of secrets to uncover.
I’ve been trapped here for days. What if I die here?
I decided to write down my story so that one day, when I’m discovered, they will know who I was and why I was here.Arty has always lived in the Clearing, a small settlement in the forests of south India.
But their happy life, hidden from the rest of the world, is shattered after a terrible event.
For the first time in her sixteen years, Arty must leave the only place she’s ever known, and head into the outside world she fears, but is also slightly intrigued by.
Her only goal is to get help from a woman called Tania, who used to live in the forest, and an uncle she knows is out there, somewhere.
As she embarks on the terrifying journey, stalked by a strange new enemy she can’t fathom, Arty soon realises that not everyone is to be trusted.
Everything is changing too fast for this girl who came out of the woods… could she be running into a trap?
No excerpt available.
