Feral Youth » Marieke Nijkamp

The cover of Feral Youth, which is teal colored and shows the partial silhouette of a teen walking. They are reflected in water, and the title is imposed in white.

Ten teens are left alone in the wilderness during a three-day survival test in this multi-authored novel edited by award-winning author Shaun David Hutchinson.At Zeppelin Bend, an outdoor-education program designed to teach troubled youth the value of hard work, cooperation, and compassion, ten teens are left alone in the wild. The teens are a diverse group who come all walks of life, and were all sent to Zeppelin Bend as a last chance to get them to turn their lives around. They’ve just spent nearly two weeks hiking, working, learning to survive in the wilderness, and now their instructors have dropped them off eighteen miles from camp with no food, no water, and only their packs, and they’ll have to struggle to overcome their vast differences if they hope to survive.

Inspired by The Canterbury Tales, the characters in Feral Youth, each complex and damaged in their own ways, are enticed to tell a story (or two) with the promise of a cash prize. The stories range from noir-inspired revenge tales to mythological stories of fierce heroines and angry gods. And while few of the stories are claimed to be based in truth, they ultimately reveal more about the teller than the truth ever could.

Marieke’s stories: The Butterfly Effect and The Chaos Effect

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Buy your copy of Feral Youth at any of the following places (and wherever books are sold):
ISBN-10: 1481491113 | ISBN-13: 978-1481491112

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Publishers

Reviews

Content Warnings

English
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Audio – Simon & Schuster Audio

Many of the stories delve into intense darkness, and there are no easy resolutions, even as the focus rests on a group of diverse people learning to trust each other. A compelling examination of the teen psyche.
– Booklist, starred review

Marieke Nijkamp’s character, Jenna, hits on the deeper truth of these interconnected stories: “If hope is a thing with feathers… then secrets are things with talons.”
– Publishers Weekly

A compelling, uncomfortable narrative that lets readers know that the tragedy the world can bring to teens transcends socio-economics, gender, and race.
– Kirkus

Edgy stories showcase the depth and breadth of styles in a new crop of writers for young adults.
– School Library Journal

For Marieke’s stories:
– Sexual abuse and assault
– PTSD
– Fire
– Violence and vengeance