Peg's Story: Detours
Formats: E-Book, Paperback
Ages: 18+
Kirkus Reviews: "A nuanced yet plainly told novel..."
When she started high school in 1971, Peg planned on an exciting career and world travel. Instead, a series of detours became her life. Peg goes from naïve fourteen-year-old to trafficked runaway in a few months. She escapes quickly but takes ten years to find her way home, where she builds a new life on a foundation of lies. Then one of her daughters runs away and Peg’s past is the key to reuniting her family. A fictional saga that reads like memoir, one woman's journey.
Reviews
I found this to be a well-written novel about the trials, adventures and tribulations of a runaway girl in the 70's. A real page-turner, and at times likely to bring an open-minded reader to tears. Brought to life by a historically accurate backdrop, the story is a bridge from a life of bad decisions and misunderstandings of an uninformed youth to another life of hope and happiness.
McGuinn switches between the perspectives of an older Peg looking back on events and the younger Peg who writes in her journal, creating a layered portrait that involves realistic uncertainties.... In some ways, the novel is a brutal cautionary tale, showing how one mistake can spiral into a lifechanging series of events. In another, however, it is a moving coming-of-age narrative about a girl who discovers herself amid extreme circumstances. A nuanced yet plainly told novel about a runaway teen in the 1970s.
