Joelle Anthony

In this futuristic adventure, sixteen-year-old Molly McClure lives with her family in a self-sufficient farming community on an island in Canada. When a truncated message comes from a hospital saying that Molly’s grandmother may have died, her family decides to try to reconcile with the estranged grandfather, a doctor, and bring him back to the island to help Molly’s mother, who is soon to give birth. But travel is extremely difficult — the government has taken control of the oil supply, and traveling by car is out of the question — and the borders between America and Canada are not easy to cross legally. Before long, Molly finds herself on a boat, a train, a plane, and then another train, headed for the United States. Along the way, she manages to set off an alarm at the border, get thrown out of a women’s washroom, is conned out of her money, loses her shoes, and sneaks onto a bus. Once she reaches her grandparents’ house, the misadventures continue.

For some reason, I found much of the story to be unbelievable — sending Molly off alone to fetch her grandfather, her insistence on bringing her fiddle on a two-week trip, the various situations that she finds herself in, the importance of Molly’s sister’s wedding. Even though I really disliked Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Miranda in “Life as We Knew It,” her story is much more believable and realistic. Not a big fan of this novel.… (mere)