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    The Longings of Wayward Girls
    The Longings of Wayward Girls
    The Longings of Wayward Girls
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Longings of Wayward Girls

    Written by Karen Brown

    Narrated by Arielle DeLisle

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateSep 30, 2013
    ISBN9781452686745
    The Longings of Wayward Girls
    Author

    Karen Brown

    Karen Brown is currently an ESRC Research Fellow at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Oxford. She has published a number of papers that deal with environmental and veterinary history in South Africa.

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    Reviews for The Longings of Wayward Girls

    3.5/5

    22 ratings18 reviews

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    • 3/5
      The Longings of Wayward Girls has a rather slow start, but eventually the story unfolds as Sadie and her friends play a cruel trick on a friend. With the descriptions of the woods, the pond, and the inclusion of a town map hand drawn in the book, the sense of location was well done.Reading about the playtime of children is not exactly compelling, and the book spends quite a bit of time with the main characters as children. The story covers the lives and actions of childhood friends and the repercussions of their childish behavior that lingers after they have grown into adults. I guess the character of Sadie was meant to be portrayed as a sympathetic character because of the loss of a baby and overwhelming depression, but Sadie seemed to me to be a selfish, self-focused woman still acting like a child. Caring about her was difficult. Her obsession with a childhood friend and his connection to her mother was a little odd and not very believable. My biggest disappointment is that the book begins with the disappearance of Laura Loomis and although it appears to be basis of the book, it was really not part of the story at all. Ultimately, the only thing I cared about is never resolved.
    • 4/5
      The Longings Of Wayward GirlsByKaren BrownMy " in a nutshell" summary...A novel that meanders back and forth through a neighborhood and through time. A girl disappears...is never found...and we learn what this has done to Sadie...now grown up and a mother herself.My thoughts after reading this book...Oh my...this book is filled with complications...then and now...Sadie is miserable...she has just had a stillborn birth. She embarks upon a relationship with someone from her past outside of her marriage...not clearly knowing why. Her thoughts are in the present time but also in the past...to when this little girl disappears. Sadie has a sort of dysfunctional childhood...her mother...smokes, drinks, takes pills and is sometimes out of it and hospitalized. Sadie writes weird plays with her friends and has neighborhood " shows ". Complications...lots of them. Books like this are interesting but sometimes difficult to follow. The flashbacks were confusing at first and I don't much like Sadie as a child. She was odd, weird, and not anyone I wanted to really know. The relationships are complicated and then another little girl disappears. Sadie seems to make awful choices in her grown up life...and in an amazing conclusion...we finally find out what really happened all those years ago.Final thoughts...This book was fascinating. I loved the way it explored the lives of women/ moms then and now. Sadie's mother made her life sort of traumatizing...to say the least. I still have to admit it was difficult to keep every character straight...I was always checking back. There were two missing girls...and that was always something I thought about.
    • 3/5
      I received an advanced reader's copy of this book at the start of summer. Both the cover and the title intrigued me. Set in small town New England Sadie's current summer as an adult mother and her last summer of childhood unfold in alternating chapters. The author is a master at invoking those long, lazy summers of childhood and building up to the events that altered Sadie's childhood while simultaneously mirroring the crisis in Sadie's current adult life.Unfortunately, the chapters of Sadie's adult life just don't feel as strong as her childhood. Sadie's life is unmoored by a recent tragedy and as she dutifully treks to and from the pond with her children everyday, she rehashes events from her childhood, while letting her current family life slip away. Her grief is believable, as is her resulting detachment from every day life. However, as she pulls further away from her "normal" life and mysteries of the past start to unfold in front of her, she shows almost no natural curiosity to follow up on any of the little clues that begin to surface. She seems almost too dense to pick up on what is going on around her. The book started out strong, but by the last chapter I could no loner sympathize with Sadie. The mistakes she made as a child, I was prepared to forgive her for. But it is almost like she didn't learn anything at all from that cathartic summer and the subsequent twenty years of adulthood. Overall, I enjoyed the story. I would have preferred to come out the other side still loving Sadie.
    • 3/5
      I was very eager to read The Longings of Wayward Girls by Karen Brown based solely on the book synopsis, unfortunately, I preferred the synopsis. The Longings of Wayward Girls, while well written, did not resonate with me.
    • 3/5
      This was one of those books that I enjoyed and disliked. The characters were well fleshed out. I could identify with a lot of what went on in Sadie's past as I grew up in that era. I was lucky enough to never have friends like Sadie. She was pretty but brutal. She more or less bullied people into following her. She had a rough childhood. She was cruel to those who were less fortunate, even going so far as to play a prank on a girl that she didn't like because she was "different". This girl then disappears and we don't find out until almost the end of the book what happened to her. We find that as an adult she is still making bad choices. She has two beautiful children. After experiencing a stillbirth she has difficulty moving on. Her husband just doesn't seem to understand why she can't. I kept waiting for someone in the story to find her help. Instead she has an affair with a boy from her past. This is what brings up the memories of her prank on young Francie. The book was well written. I was first intrigued by the story of a young girl who had disappeared on the way home from a friend's house. Then we learn of Francie's disappearance. I guess I was expecting the story to be more about those disappearances and maybe Sadie holding a key memory that would unlock the disappearances. We never learn what happened to the first girl and that becomes disappointing. I believe there are many out there who would thoroughly enjoy this book. I would even read more by this author as I felt she writes well. I just found myself disappointed in many aspects of this particular story.I received a copy for review from the author. My opinions are my very own.
    • 3/5
      Starts off a little domestic fiction-y, similar to many of the 70's childhood bildungsromans I've seen a lot of lately...but ends with a great punch. I'd give it another 1/2 star if goodreads would let me do so!
    • 3/5
      This book was interesting to read, though it did drag on a bit in the middle. I wanted to skim through some of the detail the author used to describe the games the children played, but it was a basis for what happened later. Sadie was an unhappy child, parented by an absentee father and a self absorbed mother. She also had a great imagination. The nastiness of childhood, where some children were accepted and others mocked, was presented with Sadie's cruelty to Francie and Beth's aloofness to Sadie. Though Sadie had a poor relationship with her mother, she became preoccupied with the fateful events of that summer long ago. The stillbirth of her last baby caused her to withdraw from her family and, perhaps this opened the door solving the mystery. Sadie made many poor decisions. A neighbor thought to be cold by the child Sadie, turns out to be a compassionate friend to the adult Sadie. Some of the questions in the story were never answered. What happened to the original missing girl? Why were Sadie's dad and husband not more fully drawn characters? (Craig didn't wonder where Sadie went?) Ray says he knew who Sadie was, but he called her by her mother's name, so did he really care about her? The book also dealt with Francie's incestuous relationship with her father and how it made her seek Hezekiah that fateful night. I have not been compensated in any way (other than being given a copy of this book to review) and my opinion on the book is entirely my own.
    • 4/5
      Beautiful novel, artfully constructed
    • 3/5
      Set in both the 70's and 2002-3, this novel centers around Sadie in both times. We see her family and friends when she is a 12 year old, with her adolescent views of her parents, her interactions with peers, and the neighborhood's response to the disappearance of two girls. Interspersed are chapters about Sadie's present as a wife and mother of two young children, her friendships with neighborhood women, and her affair with a man from her past. Sinister undertones alert the reader to the likely climax, with a few surprises along the way.
    • 3/5
      This is the story of Sadie, as a twelve year old, and as a grown woman with two children of her own. When Sadie was young, a classmate disappears, and a prank Sadie played may have led to the disappearance. Now an adult, Sadie is drawn back to the past by the arrival of a former neighbour, Ray, back after years of living away. This is a good story and the author kept me wanting to know more and to find out what happened. I didn't like the way it ended...all the threads were tied together by a letter from Ray to Sadie. Kind of like the author got tired of telling the story.
    • 4/5
      The Longings of Wayward Girls by Karen Brown is a novel about a young girl, Sadie, who is 12 years old and whose mother is plagued with addictions and who possesses few, if any, parenting skills. Sadie lives in a suburb in Connecticut, where she plays in the woods and a swamp nearby. Pretending like in a play, “dressing up” with her friends proves to be a problem when with her urging and persuasiveness causes others make a number of bad decisions which may cause harm to themselves or others. A young man is seduced by her, a young friend disappears, and her playmates are sometimes more afraid and intimidated by her than really just comfortable childhood friends. Fast forward about 20 years to the 1970’s and you meet Sadie, a grown woman with her own family living in an upscale community where she is active and seems to live an ideal life. Unfortunately it seems that her old patterns of behavior again emerge and impact her life which isn’t quite so perfect after all. Health issues and romantic complications create chaos and trials in her adult life and cause her to be plagued with childhood memories. The book does have layers of characters and plots and there is a bit of suspense involved. I didn’t really connect with the story or with Sadie but feel that the author did a good job of painting a picture of a dysfunctional childhood and the impact that it can have on a person when they are an adult. So many times Sadie was confronted with issues she had not experienced before, was not prepared for, and was not given guidance on how to handle from her mother. I give the book a 3 rating. I think this book will attract readers of light romantic fiction, family drama and who enjoy a bit of tension and suspense in the story line.
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      There are a great many adjectives to describe this work of dedication and intelligence. Some books you enjoy then put on a shelf or give away without much of an afterthought. Not to say they are not great, just that they don't affect you or get you thinking. Then you come across a book that is so well written that not only is it a page-turner, but it strikes at your core somehow. This is one of those books. We've all done pranks or teasing as children with little or no thought to how it might affect us or others years down the road. This takes us on one journey with eloquent writing and brilliant visuals without going overboard. Well worth the read even if this isn't your usual genre.


      Thank you for the free copy provided through Goodreads First Reads. This had no influence on my review.
    • 3/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      I want to thank Washington Square Press and NetGalley for the chance to read this title.At the beginning of this story, I had a hard time getting the events and characters straight. It begins with the newspaper report of the disappearance of a nine year old girl in a small Connecticut town in 1974. Then the author jumps ahead five years and picks up the story of Sadie and her friend Betty who are both 12, going on 13, during the summer of 1979. Later the story jumps ahead 20 years to the grown Sadie who now is married with 2 kids and still living in her hometown. The thread of the story was hard to pick up on, but gradually it started to connect better, and that's when it really started to get interesting. Sadie's life seems good at the present, but there are all kinds of issues that are uncovered as the stories of the young and older Sadie weave together. Added to that is the tension concerning the missing girl and the eventual reoccurrence of another girl disappearing. These areas of tension are what drew me into the story, and made it something better than just any other coming of age flashback tale.The author is quite good at portraying the emotions of the characters as well as what motivates them to do the things they do. There is a depth but fragility to each of them, particularly Sadie who appears to be drifting along at the whims of others in an almost self-defeating manner. Her mother's emotions and resulting actions are also unusual and play a big part in the story. The powerful mutual attraction of Sadie and an old childhood neighbor who returns to town after his father's death is a precipitant to what eventually happens as well a key to the past.The mystery of the second missing girl and her story is also an important part of the plot and is intertwined with Sadie's. Interestingly enough, the original girl's disappearance never plays a real part in what follows other than perhaps to introduce the idea of conflict in the story. I found there to be plenty of curiosities here that kept me wanting to know what was going to happen next. It was never boring, and I actually felt invested to a degree in these characters. I wanted them to end up alright. That is the hallmark of a good story for me, feeling like I know the people in the book and care about what happens to them. I recommend this book to anyone who likes a story that invites that emotional attachment. This isn't really a beach read or a light read. There is some real investment to make here, but I think you will find it worthwhile.
    • 3/5
      This was an intriguing novel- but the ending left much to be desired.

      The mystery of the childhood stories that we got in bits and pieces is what kept me engaged. Sadie was a character thar honestly I didnt like.... but was interesting in hearing her tell her story.
      I was anxious for it all to tie together in the end and was somewhat disappointed in the novels ending. It just kind of stopped... things tied together but made no final conclusion.
      overall okay book.
    • 4/5
      Sadie is the type of girl I think a lot of us can identify with. Most of us went through that awkward period in the tween years where we felt like we didn’t fit in with anyone or anywhere. To make matters worse, her mother is beautiful and strangely distant, so she doesn’t really have anyone to talk to about how lost she feels.The novel alternates chapters from the past and present, starting out with the report of a disappearance of a neighborhood girl, which took place a few years prior to the “past” segments of the books. As one can imagine, this event has the adults at the time pretty worried about what their kids are up to. In a world before cell phones, the threat of kidnapping seems more real and more likely to happen in some ways.Several years after that first disappearance, after what seems like a set of innocent pranks, another girl in the neighborhood disappears. Sadie and her best friend posed as a local boy, writing letters to one of the girls they know, who opens up to “Hezekiah” in a kind of frightening way. Ultimately, Hezekiah asks the girl to meet him in the woods, and she’s never seen again.The flashes to the present day reveal that as an adult, Sadie still feels somewhat responsible, but also understands things about those letters that she didn’t think anything of as a child. In some ways, the entirety of the present segments are Sadie finally fully understanding a series of tragic events that occurred that summer so long ago. As the reader, we get to learn more about other things going on in child Sadie’s life, understanding the events before she does.At first, I found Sadie to be annoying and a bit pretentious, but as we learn more, I found myself sympathizing with her quite a bit. For a young girl, she had to deal with quite a few major events, and I can only imagine how difficult that would be and how it would affect the rest of your growing up.This story is touching and realistic, yet still compelling enough to be a page turner. There were moments where I wanted to take Sadie aside and tell her to slow things down, but instead we have to watch her learn these lessons for herself. It was frustrating at times, but ultimately worth it.
    • 2/5
      I'm not going to deny that I'm still slightly baffled by The Longings of Wayward Girls. In all honesty, I wasn't expecting the story I ended up reading. Alternating between Sadie's childhood, and her adulthood 20 years later, the synopsis made me believe that I was going to be living the mystery of a missing girl. What I was presented with was the story of a lost woman, her neglectful (and terrible) mother, and the past that ties them together.

      Sadie was a really tough character to like. Even now I'm not sure if I was even supposed to like her in the first place. From a young age her character is one who constantly needs the attention and admiration of others. Not happy to fade into the background, Sadie spends her childhood as the alpha of her group friends. With no regard to the feelings of others, and no remorse for her actions, Sadie ends up the same person as an adult.

      My favorite part of this book was definitely the writing itself. It flowed onto the pages in beautiful, detailed sentences. Karen Brown shines in her ability to draw the reader into her world. Sadie lives in a quiet suburb, where everyone knows one another and everything is always the same. I could feel the quiet breeze, see the fields of flowers, and hear the rustling leaves. Despite anything else, the writing is really what kept me reading.

      The mystery itself, and in fact the reason I chose to read this book initially, was very understated compared to everything else. I was a little disappointed by that fact. This story revolves around Sadie's relationship with her mother, with her friends, and ultimately we watch her as she struggles to deal with being unhappy in her mundane life. I was eventually given a solution to the girl's disappearance, but it just didn't feel like enough.

      I know that this book will have an audience that will love it. As I said before, the writing is definitely beautiful. If I had known what it was going to focus on ahead of time, and not been expecting something else, I might have been more engaged. Not my favorite read, but give it a try if you're a fan of slow-moving, beautifully written stories.