Good and Gone is a YA novel narrated by high school girl Lexi, who goes on a road trip with her brother Carlie, a college student who has just broken up with his long term girlfriend, and their friend  Zack. Both Lexi and Carlie are coping with their own pain, he with depression and her with the way that her last boyfriend used her and dumped her. The excuse for the road trip is a search for a pop star who has walked away from his tour bus and disappeared. The three young people go looking for him, but really they just want to get away for some time. Along the way they meet all sorts of people and have some small adventures. They get to reflect on popular culture, but more importantly they get to reconnect and learn what issues they have been grappling with. The narrative switches between the present and Lexi’s history with her boyfriend, including sexual assaults which some readers may find upsetting. It’s a lot about gender, boyfriends and girlfriends, independence and romance, sex and power. The message is progressive and helpful, pretty hostile to traditional ideas of a girl’s role in the world, and pushing the reader to move to equality. It’s a lively story, and the performance of the unabridged audiobook by Caitlin Davies is mostly cheerful and energetic despite the serious themes.

© 2018 Christian Perring

Christian Perring teaches in NYC.