"The Fates Will Find Their Way" by Hannah Pittard

I found the beginning of this book so oddly familiar that I even checked to see if I might have read it before. I confirmed that I hadn't; it was first published in 2011, and I haven't blogged about it until now. And anyway, once I hit the middle of the book, the deja vu was gone--although the story did remind me a bit of The Last Time They Met by Anita Shreve.

In Fates, a group of teenage boys collectively tells the story of their classmate Nora Lindell and the effect she (and her disappearance) has on them into adulthood. They never know for sure what happened to her, but they never forget her and never stop speculating. Some questions are never answered . . . which is a bit frustrating because I am sure Sissy (or Danny, through her) have several answers; they just never see fit to share them with the reader. On the other hand, I can see that being left to wonder might possibly be more satisfying than the truth would actually be.

One of the strengths of this book is the characters (if not their descriptions). I hardly know what the characters look like, but I know what they are like, and they are real and three-dimensional, like living, breathing humans. I would like to see this story as a movie, if only to see how the characters appear on screen. But alas, no movie version is appearing on the horizon.