I enjoyed the Buddhism aspects of the book. It definitely made things more interesting. I liked that the novel was told from different points of view. This allowed me to feel like I knew the characters a bit better. The beginning of the book really grabbed my attention and I kept reading to find out how and why this scenario occurred. Overall I enjoyed this book and think that young adults would as well.

Essence McKree was born and raised in Boulder, Colorado, where pot has been legalized. Her hippie mom works in a pot shop and leaves Essence to care for her sister Puck. When Essa meets Oliver, who is visiting for the summer, she delights in showing him Boulder, including her Buddhist zendo, the mountain parties and hiking. But when Puck stows away on one of their camping trips and gets lost, Essa’s struggle to find her sister becomes a life and death situation.

Seventeen year old Essa, who lives in Boulder, Colorado, spends her days working at a local kite shop, Above the Clouds, and looking out for her nine year old sister, Puck, who is practically a genius. After all, Essa and Puck’s Mom can’t be counted on for much of anything now that weed has been legalized in Colorado. Devoting all of her attention to drugs and her string of boyfriends, she doesn’t have much left over to give to her daughters.

However, the monotony of Essa’s life gets shaken up when a new guy, Oliver, moves to town. Oliver is hiding some secrets about his own family, and at Puck’s insistence, Essa brings him into their lives and introduces him to some of their passions - Buddhism and Orienteering, AKA trekking into the woods with minimal supplies and then finding your way out. When Olivier agrees to join Essa and her friends on the ultimate expedition, a three day journey into the Rocky Mountains, Puck stows away in their car amid fears of being left out once again. What was supposed to be a fun survival game quickly turns into a treacherous search and rescue when Puck goes missing. Essa has essentially already lost her mother ... will she lose her sister too to the perils of the wild?

Zen and Gone by Emily France is an ambitious young adult novel that unfortunately takes on too much. With plot lines involving recreational drug use, orienteering and survival, Buddhism, kite hobbyists, and schizophrenia, it’s easy to get lost and overwhelmed by all of the informational tidbits bogging down this novel. Even more unfortunate, the storyline is just not compelling or entertaining. Without a strong plot or characters, there’s little motivation to plod through this detail-laden novel.

Essa lives with her mom and sister, Puck, in Colorado. Her mother works at a marijuana dispensary and is high all of the time, which leaves Essa with the responsibility of taking care of her genius sister. Essa can’t wait to graduate and move away from her deadbeat mom, but she is still has a strong connection to her sister.
Oliver lives in Chicago, but after a blowout with his sister, which ended with her in the hospital, Oliver was sent to Colorado to stay with his aunt for the summer. Oliver begins working at the same kite shop as Essa and sparks begin to fly between the two. Essa invites Oliver on an orienteering retreat, which ends in Essa’s little sister going missing. Where is Puck and does Oliver have anything to do with her disappearance?

I had trouble getting into this novel because I was not a fan of Puck. She rubbed me wrong throughout the entire novel. I had trouble connecting to Essa because she was so prickly. The Buddhism aspect was interesting, though I would be interested to see how #ownvoice readers would respond to this layer. It felt heavy-handed, at times. I believe many readers will respond to the orienteering and out doors aspects, especially because it is unique and not found in many other novels.

France's novel Zen and Gone started out strong and then kinda like Essa loses its way.

There were a lot of interesting ideas and concepts that if reworked would make a brilliant story but this one is not it. More character development and plot structure would be beneficial.