The Canyon's Edge (Dusti Bowling)

The Canyon's Edge
Dusti Bowling
Little, Brown Books
Fiction, MG Adventure
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: One year ago, everything was fine. Nora had her mother and her father, her best friend, her school... everything a girl could possibly want. Now, all she has is a broken father, an inner wall, and a phantom beast of fear that stalks her nightmares. Her counselor offers advice and ways to cope, and hope that someday she will heal, but Nora knows nothing will ever be good again, not without answers about why she's still alive and her mother is dead.
That's part of why they're here, in the unnamed slot canyon in the desert, far off the beaten path. There's nobody else around - nobody for her father to fear, nobody for him to protect her from. It's just Nora and him and a canyon to explore, their first outing since their lives were devastated. If they can get through this hike, maybe things can start almost being normal again.
Then the flash flood hits.
Now Nora is alone. Her father, her pack, her climbing equipment: the water washed them all away. If she's going to survive, she'll have to remember everything she ever learned about the desert and tap wells of strength and resilience she doesn't know she has. She will also have to finally confront the beast she's been hiding from inside her own head.

REVIEW: Much like the classic survival story Hatchet, about a boy stranded in the Canadian wilderness who must learn to survive and deal with a great life upheaval, The Canyon's Edge puts its young protagonist in a deadly situation as a means to finally confront the trauma she's been avoiding for a year, the violent and senseless death of her mother before her eyes. Nora uses memories of family camping trips, her counselor's advice, and even poetry to deal with a dangerous situation, one that pushes her to the physical and mental brink. She keeps searching for patterns and sense in the horrible curve balls life has lobbed at her, determined that there must be some reason to why she lived and her mother had to die, but there are no reasons, no patterns. Naturally, her progress through the canyon in search of her missing father mirrors her progress through the dark places in her mind, and at some point she can no longer avoid the the truths she's been denying. The audiobook narration is decent, and even as Nora's mind slips into hallucinatory territory, the boundaries between past and present and nightmare blurring, it's fairly easy to track the action. It's a decent survival tale, at times almost poetic and dreamlike as the experience takes a heavy toll on her physical and mental state, though once in a while Nora feels a bit too helpless, trapped in her own head and walls of her own construction, and there were a couple elements that I expected more follow-through on.

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