Caleb is the founder of the grass roots camp, Llamalo, in rural Colorado. He's a charismatic idealist who wants to pass on his idealism through his camp. His daughter, Rebecca, wants to be an activist like her father. She falls in love with Llamalo, and finds new love there. But Donnie, who donated the land for Llamalo , wants his land back and things don't stay idyllic for long.

Heather Abel's debut novel is funny and light and a fast read, even though dealing with larger than life topics. I highly recommend reading it and I'm thankful for the chance to read the ARC.

I just loved all of the complex topics explored in this novel, combined with the strong development of tender and flawed characters. So fresh and different from other novels I have read recently, I look forward to more from this author.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a rare coming-of-age novel which depicts the trials and tribulations of adolescence without trivializing them. Abel’s teenagers are people, not punchlines. But my favorite thing about this book is its portrayal of political awakening–there are a thousand books out there about first love and first lust, but it’s not so often you find a bildungsroman founded on first ideologies. Abel’s book is as intelligent as it is compassionate, two qualities we could all use more of these days.

Utterly awful! I couldn't even finish it! I got about half way through before throwing in the towel. Groan-worthy at best!

Being someone who loves the utopian ideal and has read several utopian books, I looked forward to reading this book. Unfortunately I couldn't get through it. I stopped reading about 25% the way in. The characters were not people I wished to spend more time with. I know you don't need to like the characters, but this one just didn't work for me.

I may try again later, at another date, in another format, as I really do like the idea behind this book. Perhaps it improved further in. Certainly others may find the book different than myself.

The answer is always all of the above. Heather Abel’s The Optimistic Decade is a memorable coming of age story set just before the Gulf War. David, lonesome and mediocre in his “real life,” comes out of his shell only at summer camp. Rebecca, his childhood friend, struggles with the fact the no one cares, not really, as her parents ship her off to be a counselor at some weird camp. And Caleb, the owner of the isolated summer camp, is both insecure and egocentric. Their lives converge during one hot summer spent in the mountains of Colorado.

I always love a good novel set in my home state and Abel does a fantastic job of describing the hot, dry Colorado summers. She also nails the intricacies of teenagers (at summer camp, and everywhere else), the need to be liked balanced with the desire to not give a fuck. Her prose is compelling, her characters can be both sympathetic and abrasive, and her depiction of the fraught inner monologue of young adults – trying to differentiate the person they are from the person they were raised to be – is awkward perfection. Overall, The Optimistic Decade is a wonderful debut novel. A must read is you love the ‘80s, summer camp, and the doomed confidence of youth.

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. I have always been a fan of summer camp books. So,w hen I read the description I was intrigued by the thought of a Utopian summer camp. The book didn't disappoint. It had good characters. an original plot, and great setting. If you like taking a trip back to the 80s, this is your book.

Having been a teenager in the 1990s, I found myself alternately smiling, reminiscing, and cringing at how much of myself at the time I saw in the various characters. Despite the temptation to smack them upside the head periodically, you can't help sympathizing with their idealism and determination to make a difference as well as their disillusionment.

The “Optimistic Decade” when so many thought they could effectuate change by writing and talking and discussing. This was the time of self-discovery by the young while the adults were busy elsewhere. Behind all this optimism the large corporations fed the marginalized promises of more and better opportunities. For small isolated towns it was a modern-day gold rush, but when the profits did not materialize towns were decimated and inhabitants lost everything.

Constantly jabbing at me was the universal theme of parents who are so self-involved in their causes that they ignore the children who love them unconditionally. Is it possible for an intelligent person to not understand that the strength of their personality, the incapacity to listen, the neglect of affection ultimately deprives their children of the ability to build their own sense of belief and character? Is it any surprise that these young people try to emulate the teeth-gnashing diatribe about the injustices of the sociopolitical system?

David will run away from the mess and search out a more accepting place. He will understand that his parents’ “ideas are all wrong. For them everything is anti, against. And this anger at everything, it means they’re basically paralyzed.” Rebecca, will try to please her father and do as asked because she sees her him as a brilliant, brave, decision maker who is always and ever all about all issues of inequality and injustice as he publishes another manifesto and ultimately is unable to give her more than his confusion. And then there is Caleb, the always happy Leader who arrived at his destiny through little more than right place, right/wrong time and a bit of chicanery. Caleb’s visionary summer camp, LLamalo ,“The-West of-which- I-speak”, Colorado, located on lands formerly known as the Double L Ranch and owned by father and son, Don and Donnie Talc who want their land back.

Can the vision survive “when the world feels malleable and the self strong” or is it only for a decade, gone and never to return?

This book left me with a sense of disbelief. If I am honest it is my failure to realize and acknowledge that things happened exactly as described in this book. Well written but slow moving.

Thank You NetGalley and Algonquin Books for an ARC

Thanks Algonquin Books and netgalley for this ARC.

The 80's, summer camp, overbearing radial parents, and weird take on the world marching orders makes this a comical coming of age nutter.

This novel is certainly dripping with idealism. In all of its twists and turns, that theme remains a constant. I wouldn't call it an "energetic" read, and actually think it's something more akin to a lazy, summer at a meandering summer camp like Llamalo. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it; it was certainly entertaining. The writing was insightful, particularly poignant for members of today's idealistic-minded society. I can see it making a great book club discussion, as there is definitely a lot to cover.

Very good book about choices, what we say and not say and our interactions. Good book for this climate. I enjoyed it very much

A coming of age story built around a group of high school and college age kids and a summer camp unlike any other. While the kids work towards a sort of Utopia, the outside world of oil and mines, war in the middle east and general apathy is closing in. A strong first novel.

“Politics was aesthetics, and everything was aesthetics, really, if you thought about it. A man in a turban and white tunic glided by on roller skates. A woman in a wheelchair held the leashes of two dogs that pulled her along the path, American flags waving from the back of her chair. There were bikinied women swaying back and forth on Rollerblades. Teenagers on lowriders eating cones of soft-serve while biking. Men biking while holding boom boxes. A girl like a statue on a skateboard, carrying a Coke can which held a single bird-of-paradise stalk . Rebecca explained at length why the supposed literary canon wasn’t actually canonical. The world might end if she stopped talking, she would talk on and on for the preservation of the world, as all the world’s peoples rolled by, oblivious to their salvation, just hours before the war started.“

Political activism and protest is near to my heart; I consider myself a Revolutionist. That’s what this debut novel is: revolutionary in the political sense, an examination of youthful idealism versus the cold hard reality that things don’t change for the good so easily.

On a word-by-word, line-by-line basis, this is one of the most exquisite novels I’ve read thus far this year. The English language is clay in this author’s hands (see the quoted passage above). She successful conveys simple and complex emotions and ideas, never phoning it in or caving under the pressures of writing a freshman effort. This long and winding tale of a summer camp in the Colorado mountains has the gravitas and staying power of a literary veteran’s work.

And though this novel is very setting-specific — it takes place in summer 1990, just before the Gulf War — it is incredibly universal, and it is in that lies this author’s greatest strength: her tale of young adults wanting to hold onto various meccas — both physical and metaphorical — is a mirror. In it I saw myself, and I’m sure other readers will, too.

<b>Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC. This book releases on May 1, 2018.</b>

I really enjoyed this-the characters were engaging and full of personality. At times I hated them all and at others I loved them. A unique plot which was carried out in a fascinating way.

Good novel about idealism, protests, and the success or futility of it all depending upon the person and his/her ability to weather disappointment in others and society in general.

A young man grieving the loss of his father searches for direction in his life. Caleb happens upon a bit of land where he feels a deep peace, and he wants to share it. He opens a summer camp for youth, where he teaches about the land and shares his philosophy. He changes lives, and he believes himself. Complex and compelling.

Set in 1990, with a backstory in the 1980's, this is a novel of miscommunication of all sorts: things unsaid, things said but not meant, mis-statements, and things misunderstood. Llamalo is a camp created by Caleb and designed to be a kind of wilderness utopia. In 1990 Rachel, a Berkeley student, ends up there for the summer at the behest of her father, who doesn't want her to know that he is terminating his left-wing newspaper. Her childhood friend David has been attending this camp for years and is obsessed with its philosophy and the charismatic Caleb. As the story unfolds, though, we learn that all is not as it seems. The narrative intersperses explanations from the past that somewhat explain the unraveling of the present. At times the motivations of the characters are not fully developed, and the conversations seem disjointed. Perhaps that's intentional, because readers will realize that the characters' actions and words lead to unintended results.