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Ashley has always been more at home in the forest than with people, so when she catches her boyfriend with another girl while out partying with her friends in the Smokies, she runs into the night. She’s stopped only by a nasty fall into a deep ravine, which leaves her with a crippling injury.
She tells herself that her friends will come for her, but with morning comes clarity. She is alone and far off the trail. Her friends will never find her.
With infection slowly creeping up her leg, Ashley knows time is not on her side. She’ll have to use all her survival skills if she hopes to make it out of the forest alive.
Be Not Far from Me is a survival story that alternates between reflective moments of Ashley’s past and gory survival details as she faces her current situation.
I was not fond of the setup and opening chapters of the story. Many of Ashley’s friends come across as cliches, each with a teen stereotype. Ashley suffers from the “not like other girls” syndrome, and I struggled to like her as a character. While it’s true she is tough and a great survivor and outdoor guru, she also seems mean, judgmental and aloof.
I love a good survival story, though, and I did enjoy the lost-in-the-woods portion. However, readers should be warned that this is not a book for the faint of heart.
(Try these other survival stories for young adults: Not If I Save You First and Alone.)
Rated: High, for around 34 uses of strong language, 60 uses of moderate profanity, and 75 uses of mild language. Violence is mainly reserved for morbid or gory descriptions and details of survival — including hunting for food, chopping off her own foot to survive, and discovering a body never found and still decomposing years later in the woods. Sexual content includes countless sexual innuendos and references, including mention of a character losing their virginity. It is obvious that characters have been together physically, including talk of having sex and of using condoms. A character overhears sounds of pleasure, which leads her to discover a half-undressed couple in the woods still in the act. A character gives the middle finger. Underaged drinking and drug use are also featured, and at one point, Ashley crashes in a hidden meth camper and takes drugs for pain.
