Less effective are interstitial narratives in the voices of the characters’ ancestors, who take part in the story as animals. It’s a novel idea, and largely works quite well.
Frost presents her story in a series of poems in Willow’s voice, using a form inspired by the marks on a diamond willow stick roughly diamond-shaped and no two exactly alike, each contains a “hidden message” printed in boldface that spans several lines and encapsulates the poem. When her first solo dogsled trip to her grandparents ends with a terrible crash that blinds her father’s favorite dog, Roxy, she sets to making sure that Roxy will live out her days with care and not undergo euthanasia-a decision that leads to an amazing revelation about her family.
Bland characterization and mediocre writing made this a book I’d never recommend to anyone unless they wanted to be bored.Diamond Willow, a young Alaskan of Athabascan and European descent, doesn’t have many friends she’s happiest when she’s sledding her father’s dogs and visiting her grandparents. The two main characters are hollow constructs built out of a single scenario but the author refuses to develop them beyond that. Loving someone even though they’re essentially terrible doesn’t have to go with blaming the victim, especially since her resentment completely lacked any semblance of logic. She still has a chip on her shoulder because she thinks Wren ‘snitched’ after what her dad put her through and it just made me laugh that this girl is so dumb and naïve she’d blame a child because her fuck-up of a father got himself thrown in the clinker. I understand why she still loves her father even though he’s an abusive P.O.S., but actually growing up blaming Wren for being the ‘reason’ he went to prison when she was eight in ludicrous. I didn’t connect with either of them and I pretty much straight-out disliked Darra. This book is too rushed to really develop a friendship between these two girls that feels plausible or emotionally satisfying. Which you have to admit would be pretty weird, especially since the mini-van incident ended up putting Darra’s father in prison. They both try to put the incident behind them and don’t expect to cross paths again, but then they run into each other at summer camp as teenagers. Wren spent several days frightened and hungry in Darra’s family’s garage before finally escaping. When Darra and Wren were little, Darra’s father stole Wren’s mother’s minivan unaware that the girl was hiding in the back. This brief (fairly easily to read in one sitting) teen book-in-poems is told in alternating voices by two girls connected by one traumatic incident. Hidden starts out with a interesting premise but I felt the author failed to do anything with it that would make it memorable.
Sadly, this is one of those cases where a book’s cover art is way better than the book itself.
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