The Runaway is a story of anger and hurt, and also about the power of forgiveness and believing the best of others. It is a story of growing up and learning how to apologize and say you were wrong. In the small village of Llandymna, most people live in fear of what others think of them, a place, like most of the world, where the opinions of others matter a lot. Set in a quaint Welsh village, it is a story about real life with characters who you will come to like despite their many flaws. Hurt by others, Rhiannon runs away, choosing to live in the woods, setting events into motion. When strangers come to town, they help to catalyze some new possibilities. In the end, the entire village has the chance to see how their actions affect others.

Claire Wong has written a solid novel about life and given us readers a first-hand glimpse into the thinking of the characters, who grow up a lot between the front and back covers of this book. I'd recommend reading the Runaway... perhaps you'll even learn something about yourself.

Rhiannon lives in a small Welsh village on the edge of a dense forest. She never knew her father and her mother died years ago so Rhiannon has been brought up by her aunt. Relations become more strained and shortly before her 18th birthday Rhiannon walks out. She enters the forest and realises that she could actually survive for quite a while on her own, so she does. Meanwhile in the village, new arguments and visitors threaten to reveal secrets kept for a generation or more.

This book tries to bridge the gap between young adult and normal fiction and at times it succeeds very well. The plot is unrealistic - Rhiannon has one lighter but manages to keep a fire during for weeks, she tames a sparrowhawk and she survives on damsons and nuts - but there is a trajectory about outsiders. I really liked the way that the ancient tales wove themselves into the narrative. Overall this is not a bad book, it just tried a little too hard to be all things to all and did not succeed for me.

When I saw this novel I was fascinated not only by the description but also the incredible cover. However, I’m sort of mixed on my overall thoughts about this story. Rhiannon is 17 years old and has been raised by her Aunt Diana after the death of her mother. Rhiannon and Diana seem to butt heads almost constantly and Rhiannon is known for verbal outbursts with others. She has always enjoyed spending time with the elderly Maebh, who knows everything about the village’s history and loves telling stories to anyone that will listen. Right before her 18th birthday, Rhiannon decides to run away after another argument with her aunt and heads to Dyrys woods to be alone. As she works to find food and shelter – determined to make it on her own – the townspeople work at finding Rhiannon and also get to know two newcomers who are there searching for information about their father’s past.

I liked the character of Rhiannon, although I was a bit confused about her socially-unacceptable outbursts. It was clear that she felt like an outsider living with her Aunt and cousins and that she and her aunt did not see eye to eye. Her escape had always been stories – listening to them, telling them to her cousins, or telling them to herself during stressful or sad times. I loved Rhiannon’s whimsical imagination but also loved her useful and responsible survival skills in the woods, which she learned from her late Uncle. Diana seemed concerned only with her political role in the village and her two young children. There were several other key characters, but I didn’t feel like they were very developed. One character, Callum, comes to also hide in the woods after a misunderstanding and it’s obvious that he and Rhiannon hate one another, but I was never clear as to why. Grace and Adam show up in the village not long after Rhiannon runs away and quickly become friendly with the village residents and seem very pleasant and helpful, but again I didn’t feel like I knew them. I think that was what kept me from really loving this novel was the lack of connection with most of the characters.

Claire Wong is clearly a creative and imaginative writer and I adored her concept of a girl running away to the woods, mainly because I believe I had that daydream SEVERAL times when growing up. Rhiannon was obviously strong and resourceful, but it was unfortunate that the only relationships she could create and maintain were either with Maebh and an injured hawk that she nurses back to health. The pacing and flow of the novel were great, but I did find myself skimming quite a bit when it came to some of Maebh and Rhiannon’s stories. I appreciated the themes of supporting one another rather than pointing fingers, but I still just didn’t connect with this novel. Perhaps a younger reader would find this more entertaining?

*Thanks to NetGalley for providing a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Claire Wong weaves a vivid story that captures the imagination of her readers from the very first line.

I received this book through netgalley and my attention was instantly grabbed by the beautiful cover and interesting description. However this is a very slow read and as much as I appreciate the beautiful wretched author uses this book was just wasn't what I expected and had hoped for I found it to plain for me and way to slow at the beginning.

Thank you very much for allowing me to read this title; I am trying to read as widely as possible ahead of the Carnegie/Greenaway nominations and awards for 2018 and your help is much appreciated.
As a Carnegie/Greenaway judge, I'm not allowed to comment about my opinions on specific titles so I can't offer an individual review on any title as I stated on my profile.

I hate to say this but I found it very hard to get interested in. I stopped reading about 20% in. This novel sounded wonderful from the description but I guess it just isn’t my type of novel. Maybe I will try again soon.

I've found myself two and three-starring a lot of recent net galley downloads, and unfortunately, I think this qualifies. Perhaps I'll need to let myself sit with this one for a while and decide how I felt in order to write a longer, more in-depth review.

The Runaway had a lot of good qualities going for it - the concept of a girl's runaway story from an abusive household is lovely. And I've always enjoyed survival stories, enough that I ended up finding this one quite compelling. I also adored the portrayal of a small town - it's a big theme throughout the book and one I enjoyed seeing. Though perhaps not the most original of themes, all these elements <i>should</i> have led to a four-star book.

Unfortunately, I wasn't the biggest fan of the portrayal of bad home environment. The book's narrative seemed, to me, to be very much on the side of Rhiannon being a silly girl running from her problems. And honestly, I don't know if I agree with that as a writing choice. The portrayal of Rhiannon’s aunt Diana at first led me to believe she was an abusive parent figure, and the choice to have her apologize to Rhiannon and Callum seemed somewhat abrupt. I felt the book was sidestepping her bad behavior and portraying it almost as a mistake, rather than acknowledging her actual mistakes.

Perhaps some of my disappointment simply comes from genre expectations. This read to me more like middle grade than YA, which is fine, but definitely not what I expected from the request category in which I discovered this book. Unfortunately, MG is not what I prefer to read, and I felt this book - like others - sidestepped the full wrongdoing of certain characters. Maybe better marketing might help?

Again, I won't be posting my review of this until after the release date - when I don't enjoy a book that isn't getting much hype, I try to avoid giving people a negative opinion of it. However, this review will be posted on the page sometime soon.