Finalist for the Washington State Book Awards
Finalist for the Ontario Library Association Evergreen Award
Simpson Family Literary Prize Longlist
“[Fu] is a propulsive storyteller, using clear and cutting prose to move seamlessly through time… In the one-way glass of the novel, we watch the girls of Forevermore from a series of angles, in all their private anguishes. We lean closer, unable to turn away.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“These portraits of sisterhood, motherhood, daughterhood, wifehood, girlfriendhood, independent womanhood, and other female-identified-hoods sing and groan and scream with complexity and nuance, and they make me want to read her next ten books.”
—The Stranger
A group of young girls descend on Camp Forevermore, a sleepaway camp in the Pacific Northwest, where their days are filled with swimming lessons, friendship bracelets, and camp songs by the fire. Filled with excitement and nervous energy, they set off on an overnight kayaking trip to a nearby island. But before the night is over, they find themselves stranded, with no adults to help them survive or guide them home.
The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore traces these five girls—Nita, Andee, Isabel, Dina, and Siobhan—through and beyond this fateful trip. We see the survivors through the successes, failures, loves and heartbreaks of their teen and adult years, and we come to understand how a tragedy can alter the lives it touches in innumerable ways.
“Forevermore is the first truly great novel I’ve read in 2018... As intricately fashioned and as bold-hearted as books by novelists who’ve been publishing for decades.”
—Seattle Review of Books
“An ambitious and dynamic portrayal of the harm humans—even young girls—can do.”
—Kirkus
“A thoroughly entertaining, complex novel full of intricate insights into human nature.”
—Quill & Quire
“Fu precisely renders the banal humiliations of childhood, the chilling steps humans take to survive, and the way time warps memory.”
—Publishers Weekly
“The construction of Lost Girls makes it a standout, Fu taking readers to the edge of the plot precipice, building tension as the campers are forced to make decisions children shouldn’t have to make.”
—The Missourian
“A sensitive, evocative exploration of how the past threads itself through our lives, reemerging in unexpected ways. Kim Fu skillfully measures how long and loudly one formative moment can reverberate.”
“The five characters in Kim Fu's dark, deftly woven fable align and disperse like planets, bound in their separate orbits to a shared and perhaps definitive moment in time. Fu traces those orbits with a master astronomer's care and keen observation, mapping in strikingly clear and rich prose a hidden universe of girlhood and becoming.”
—Michelle Orange, author of This Is Running for Your Life
“Stunning. Kim Fu explores the lifelong ripple effects of tragedy, writing with wit, heart and precision. A cast of characters both flawed and fascinating. I was utterly transfixed by this book.”
—Katrina Onstad, author of Everybody Has Everything
"A startling and clear-sighted examination of the way a single event between children can become a galaxy of trauma, fate, and wonder that spins all the way through adulthood. The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore is a thoroughly compelling story, and Kim Fu is an assured and intelligent guide."
—Arna Bontemps Hemenway, author of Elegy on Kinderklavier
“Kim Fu has woven a story both expansive and intimate, charting the ways that five women who meet briefly as children will ultimately haunt one another for a lifetime. As in her first novel, she writes with a fierce, unflinching clarity about the myriad small guilts, cruelties, frailties, and betrayals we all carry with us. This book is one you won’t soon forget.”
—Angelica Baker, author of Our Little Racket
"A vivid and haunting story of lives interrupted by tragedy. The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore maps the journey from girlhood to womanhood, radiating both nostalgia and hope."
—Hala Alyan, author of Salt Houses
“I devoured The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore. This is a novel that contains everything anyone could ever want: heartbreak, sly humour, bear cubs, and Fu’s wise and steady hand to make sense of it all.”