The Distance from Me to You by Marina Gessner
2015; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 69; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/bcc.2015.0938
ISSN1558-6766
Autores Tópico(s)American Literature and Culture
ResumoReviewed by: The Distance from Me to You by Marina Gessner Karen Coats Gessner, Marina The Distance from Me to You. Putnam, 2015 [352p] ISBN 978-0-399-17323-3 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 7-10 When McKenna’s best friend, Courtney, drops the bomb that she is no longer on board with the girls’ plan to hike the entire length of the Appalachian Trail after graduation, McKenna decides to go it alone. Knowing that her parents would never agree to a solo hike, she convinces Courtney to lie for her, and even has Courtney text McKenna’s parents as if she were on the trail with their daughter. When McKenna meets and falls in love with Sam, though, she goes against both her instincts and her plans, allowing him to convince her to leave the trail with nearly fatal results. Despite the romance plot, McKenna is more of a hard-headed realist than a lovesick pup, and Gessner crafts her as a character with both gravitas and dignity. After a hubris-challenging first day, McKenna faces the trail with respect and determination, setting her goal of finishing even above her feelings for Sam. While Gessner head-hops in her third-person narration to create sympathy for Sam through a difficult backstory and to convey McKenna’s mother’s off-scene worries, the main character here is securely McKenna, and the story arc is the her development as a strong, assertive problem-solver who falls in love without losing herself and who makes mistakes and recovers from them. Nature-loving readers will enjoy the compelling, well-paced depiction of the adventure and lore of the AT, and they will be glad to find such a tough-minded, capable heroine in a realistic novel. Copyright © 2015 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
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