by Sarah Blake
First published 1998
Two teenage girls slip away from their homes in 1917, leaving behind only questions and a brief newspaper notice. Their story unfolds through fragments and images that refuse to explain their motivations or destinations. The girls move through a world that wants to capture and categorize them, but they resist easy answers. Their collaboration becomes an act of defiance against those who would reduce their complex desires to simple explanations. The text follows their journey without trying to solve the mystery of who they were or what they sought. Instead, it celebrates the unknowable nature of their rebellion and the courage it took to run toward an uncertain future. At its heart, this is a story about the right to remain mysterious and the power of refusing to be pinned down by others' expectations.
Genres: fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, coming-of-age
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: defiant-protagonists, mysterious-disappearance, refusal-to-be-defined
Period: 1917
Hardcover · Handmaid Pr