What is sanity and where does insanity begin? LEAVE NO TRACE by Mindy Mejia raises this intriguing question. The story is of two broke families: Maya and her father lost a mother and wife when Maya was young when a mother abruptly abandoned her family and never returned. Lucas Blackthorn and his father Josiah also lost a mother and wife when Lucas was very young, but in this case the mother died. What happened to these four individuals makes up the core of this captivating story.
Maya's father buried himself in work and left Maya to carve her own path--one that would eventually lead her to a stay at a mental health facility in Duluth. Why? Josiah became paranoiac and took Lucas away from the world on a journey that let him to a 10-year stay hidden away in the Boundary Waters international parks of northern Minnesota. Why? Eventually Lucas was forced to return to civilization for medical supplies for an extremely ill father. Following a wild series of unfortunate events, Lucas was arrested and sent to the Duluth mental health facility where Maya--now rehabilitated and trained as a speech therapist--works. Again, one must ask why? What made each of these individuals act--or react--the way they did.
The book takes the reader on a compelling journey to answer these questions and perhaps along the way wonder about those crucial points in our own lives where we may well have reacted in a way similar to Lucas or Maya or one of their parents. Like many books some events described seem a little too coincidental, a little too perfect. Still the book leaves the reader wondering what it is that allows some individuals to experience a crisis and then slip through the cracks leaving no trace while other skip on forward without major mental health trauma.
I enjoyed the book and recommend it!
Maya's father buried himself in work and left Maya to carve her own path--one that would eventually lead her to a stay at a mental health facility in Duluth. Why? Josiah became paranoiac and took Lucas away from the world on a journey that let him to a 10-year stay hidden away in the Boundary Waters international parks of northern Minnesota. Why? Eventually Lucas was forced to return to civilization for medical supplies for an extremely ill father. Following a wild series of unfortunate events, Lucas was arrested and sent to the Duluth mental health facility where Maya--now rehabilitated and trained as a speech therapist--works. Again, one must ask why? What made each of these individuals act--or react--the way they did.
The book takes the reader on a compelling journey to answer these questions and perhaps along the way wonder about those crucial points in our own lives where we may well have reacted in a way similar to Lucas or Maya or one of their parents. Like many books some events described seem a little too coincidental, a little too perfect. Still the book leaves the reader wondering what it is that allows some individuals to experience a crisis and then slip through the cracks leaving no trace while other skip on forward without major mental health trauma.
I enjoyed the book and recommend it!