Outside In by Sarah Ellis (review)

Raised by a mercurial New-Agey mother, teenaged Lynn thinks she’s seen all of the alternative lifestyles out there. She has her eyes opened, however, when she meets Blossom, a poised and interesting girl who lives with an assembled family in a forgotten area under the reservoir in a local park. With Lynn’s best friends away on a choir trip, she soon bonds with Blossom and immerses herself in the girl’s off-the-grid world, where the “Underlanders” survive by using the castoffs of “Citizens” like Lynn. As Lynn spends more time at odd hours with Blossom, she must explain to her mother where she’s been; her mother then heedlessly blurts out the Underlanders’ secret to the media during a local protest, shattering the lives of the people Lynn sought to protect. Ellis is simultaneously a knotty and substantive writer and one with a light, conversational style, so the third-person narration makes Lynn a relatable protagonist even amid a highly unusual situation. The Underlander life is ingenious and fascinating, verging on the fantastical (it’s rightfully compared within the book to The Borrowers), and Blossom and her family are deeply engaging. The book nonetheless remains aware of its real-life issues, with Lynn consciously squelching some of her reservations about Blossom’s lifestyle (her lack of schooling, her unorthodox entry into the family as an abandoned baby) even as she loves the romantic creativity of the Underlanders’ world. As a result, this will be an excellent book for discussion, eliciting lively partisanship on the question of what’s right and wrong here; readers’ take on the ethics will determine just how happily ever after they think the characters end up living.