Justine Champine follows up her debut, KNIFE RIVER, with NEEDLE LAKE. This sophomore effort is an introspective look at two teenage cousins on very different sides of girlhood, parental support and financial security who find themselves bound by a tragic night.

Fourteen-year-old Ida has never felt at home in the world. You could say that it’s because of the remote, isolated logging town of Mineral, Washington, that she and her mother, Anne, call home, populated mostly by in-season loggers and little else. You could say that it’s because she has always been a little odd: bright, but never able to answer a question in a way that makes anyone happy, and a little too obsessed with maps and geography to be counted among the popular kids. (In our world, she’d be considered “on the spectrum,” though this language is never explicitly used in the book.) You also could say that it’s because of her heart condition, which prevents her from physical activity and presents a constant reminder that if she makes the wrong move, she could die.

"Perfect for readers of GINNY MOON and WHEN WE WERE VIKINGS, NEEDLE LAKE is a tautly written exposé into the world of girlhood that promises a happier future for anyone who has never quite fit in."

However, the realest, most honest answer is all of these and none of them: the angst of a teenage girl. In Ida’s mind, it feels as if she went to bed one night content and close to her mother, and woke up the next day aloof and facing a growing chasm between who she is and who her mother wants her to be.

But Ida’s life is shaken when her mature 17-year-old cousin, Elna, arrives at the convenience store/apartment that Ida and her mother call home. Elna’s mother, once a beauty queen and Z-list actress, is once again in trouble with the law for her addiction issues. Fearing punishment from social services, she unceremoniously has sent Elna to live with Ida and Anne until she can straighten her life out. Ida is used to standing apart from the other girls she knows from school. All of them are able to twirl their hair just right, talk to boys while making eye contact, and move in that flighty, fluid way that teenage girls seem to just know. But Elna is something else. Sophisticated, mature, and a quick reader of people, she floats around the world as if it has been erected in her honor. Or so Ida thinks.

An adult reader can easily see that Elna is hiding a darkness: a neglectful mother, a broken system, and her own keen awareness of the power of a girl’s looks. Quickly she begins to play the loggers who board above Anne’s shop, tricking them into paying her for tailoring and laundry, knowing full well that they’re hoping for something more. Ida, meanwhile, feels like she has been thrust into a school of womanhood. Elna teaches her how to do her makeup, how to sew, and even how to evade the school counselor who wants to put her in an “alternative program.” Elna’s world is simply captivating, and for someone who has never felt at home in her own, the promise of something new seems like salvation. Until Elna goes too far.

Despite being mostly naive to her cousin’s darkness, Ida is a keen observer of the world around her. She soon starts to see Elna’s bad side: petty theft, minor manipulations, and a recklessness that feels exciting at first but quickly hardens into something scary. When Elna begins to toy with one of the more mercurial loggers, Ida senses that danger is coming, but she has no vocabulary for what it could be. As a late bloomer, and a sheltered one at that, Ida is perfect prey for her manipulative cousin. It is not long before they find themselves connected by a horrific tragedy, one that could change both of their lives forever. In its wake, however, the differences between Ida’s life and Elna’s become crystal clear, and Ida must consider what it really means to feel “at home” in the world.

While there is a crime at its center, NEEDLE LAKE is not a thriller, though it carries plenty of gritty, weighted suspense. A portrait of the pulls and pushes of girlhood and adolescence, it is a gritty and authentic novel about a girl on the spectrum and how the world around her refuses to appreciate her unique brilliance. But it is in the relationship between Ida and Elna that the book reaches its darkest depths, juxtaposing one girl (odd and misunderstood, but loved) against the other (beautiful, confident and neglected) to expose the many ways that young ladies are asked to contort and remake themselves to fit society’s expectations. The “mystery” at the heart of the story may be a bit predictable, but to focus on that is to miss Champine’s point completely. The crime that kicks off the girls’ bond is merely a device to allow Ida to find herself.

Perfect for readers of GINNY MOON and WHEN WE WERE VIKINGS, NEEDLE LAKE is a tautly written exposé into the world of girlhood that promises a happier future for anyone who has never quite fit in.