Fiction by Julia Phillips
On the peninsula of Kamchatka in far northeastern Russia, a pair of young sisters called Sophia and Alyona disappear one summer afternoon. Everyone in the small community frantically searches, but as months pass, things seem hopeless. Because Kamchatka is so isolated, no one really thinks the little girls could have left the peninsula; still, with only one real city in the area and the rest of the land taken up with tiny native towns, there seems nowhere that the sisters could have been taken. Additionally, some people are reminded of the recent disappearance of a native girl called Lilia who was also never found.
Although that is generally the plot synopsis, this book is not a mystery story. Instead it is an examination of a bunch of different characters at different points in the year following the girls' disappearance. The story jumped all over the place, introducing new characters every chapter who were somehow connected to the three lost girls. I found it difficult to read, and I disliked the fact that the question of what had happened to the missing children seemed ancillary to the plot.
I didn't really like this book.
