ALA Booklist (Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 CDT 2018)

Adrienne is accompanying her stepfather, Dan, on an expedition to Siberia, where Dan hopes to track down a mysterious family living in the wild. As an aspiring journalist, Adrienne senses that this adventure could be her first big story, and she approaches the journey with gusto. It starts off promising, with colorful Russian guides to navigate the treacherous river and slay the wild bears. But one morning, Adrienne and Dan find them all dead, and the foreboding that has lurked in the background of their trip quickly ratchets to stark terror. When Adrienne is nearly killed, she finds herself rescued (or perhaps imprisoned) by the strange and dangerous Osinov family, with whom she develops an unusual bond. Adrienne is a particularly insightful and entertaining narrator; her indefatigable wry humor contrasts effectively with her terrifying situation. Like Gemma in Lucy Christopher's Stolen (2010), Adrienne comes to have mixed feelings about her captors and their off-the-grid lifestyle. Readers looking for a unique, edgy read will love the latest from the author of The Lifeboat Clique (2016).

Horn Book (Mon Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2019)

Aspiring journalist Adrienne and her stepfather travel to Siberia to find a legendary family of Siberian hermits. Disaster strikes, and Adrienne is held captive by the very family about which she planned to write. Irreverent humor brings levity to Adrienne's predicament and plan to escape by seducing the Osinovs' younger son. A suspenseful plot pairs with incisive commentary on the ethics of telling others' stories.

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

When aspiring journalist Adrienne, 17, is given the opportunity to travel to Siberia with her recently disgraced stepfather, an anthropology professor, she hopes to both debunk a myth that her stepfather holds dearly and write an article that will get her into the college of her dreams. The two-week adventure goes horribly awry, however, after Adrienne, her stepfather, and their crew find the Osinovs, a Russian family who fell off the grid 30 years earlier. When the rest of her party is killed in a boating accident on a river and Adrienne is injured, she is taken in by the mysterious, wild family. Fearing for her life, Adrienne is forced to rethink all of her beliefs. Parks (The Lifeboat Clique) creates an inventive, multilayered tale about family, faith, mysticism, and survival, offering harrowing life-or-death adventure, as well as robust characters as memorable as they are unique. While Parks-s story leans heavily on the idea of an afterlife, she does not linger on the question of religion or God, allowing readers to draw their own conclusions. Ages 13-up. (July)