By Carly Anne West
403 pages
One day I was wandering through Barnes and Noble and saw this book, The Bargaining. The cover is a light red and depicts a girl running through the darkened woods. Curious, I picked it up and read the back cover. When I got to the part that said, “…especially when Penny finds out that she’ll have to spend the summer with April in the remote woods of Washington…” I thought it’d be perfect for this category. So, while it is definitely not your typical summer adventure, it still fits in.
This book begins in the spring (only the first two chapters) when Penny is forced to move from Arizona where she lived with her mom, to Washington where she will live with her dad, stepmom, and stepbrother. Penny is not thrilled with this arrangement because her father lost interest in her long ago, and her mother is shipping her off because she has given up hope. Add the fact that her stepmom isn’t much older than she is and they haven’t spent any significant amounts of time together, and you get a very unhappy teenager.
Penny soon learns that when summer rolls around, her dad will be working in Canada for a while, her stepbrother (who is just a year younger than she is) will be off at soccer camp, and she will be stuck deep in the woods with her stepmom, April. April has purchased an abandoned house, the Carver House, in the middle of the North Woods, and she and Penny will spend the summer “flipping” the house and bonding. April hopes to turn the house into a Bed and Breakfast and sell it for a huge profit, Penny hopes to survive the summer (emotionally and physically).
Here’s what I like. I like that this is not your typical carefree, fun, sunshine-y, summertime story. It’s terrifying. As you can guess by the setting of the dark, secluded woods and old, abandoned house that there is going to be some creepy stuff going on here. And you’d guess right. West does a great job of building suspense and really giving you the chills. Her descriptions allow for a quick pace that lead up to the ultimate discovery. While I might regret giving this part away, I think it’s important because it really made me think. Parents in the small community were faced with the decision of trading an unrelated child for the return of their own child. As a parent myself, I honestly can’t say what the right choice is, or that I’d choose differently than most of these parents. This might sound horrible, and I’m sorry if you think I’m an awful person now, but as a mother, what could possibly be more precious than your own child?
I also really liked the character of Miller, the boy who stayed. He is now 19 and running the general store in the small town Penny will be living near for the summer. While at first we think this might be a love interest, I like that the author doesn’t make the book about that. She focuses more on the back story than on the love story. Miller isn’t perfect. In fact, he is tormented and also does the unthinkable in the end, but I think the audience is trained to sympathize with him. And in all honesty, what he does isn't even as horrible as what I thought was going to happen.
The other character I really liked was April. I mean sure, she's a little annoying at first because we see what Penny sees. A young stepmom who is torturing her stepdaughter just by being around. However, as the story goes one, we realize that April is the ONLY person in Penny's life is hasn't given up on her. Not even her biological parents are willing to listen to her and really attempt to understand her. I've never been or had a stepparent, but I imagine it can't be easy. April really should be applauded for her efforts.
Here’s what I didn’t like. I didn’t really like this character named Rae. Penny is forced to leave Arizona because she is troubled by an incident with her former best friend, Rae. I understand that the story and the relationship with Rae are important in understanding Penny. However, I think that we could have done with a description of the problem at the beginning of the book, and then dropped it once Penny and April get to the woods. Instead, she is brought up continuously throughout the novel. I honestly don’t think that it added anything to the horror story and almost felt like a waste of time. In fact, it might have even detracted from the overall story by breaking the focus of the horrors waiting in the woods. At just over 400 pages, the book is substantial even without this story of Rae.
While this isn't a beautifully written piece of literature, I will still give this book a strong recommendation – just don’t read it as you’re going to bed. Not going to lie, I had nightmares once or twice.
4 Stars