Saturday Review: “A Stunning and Haunting Survival Story” a review by Jennifer McGaha in NCLR Online Spring 2025 of Stephanie Clare Smith’s Everywhere the Undrowned: A Memoir of Survival and imagination (2024)
In her review, McGaha calls this memoir “a fearless and unforgettable account of the horrific events of one summer that will change Smith’s life forever.” The book begins during Smith’s childhood, when she is a fourteen-year-old who, according to McGaha “cannot count on anything or anyone, especially not her mother who soon abandons her while she and her boyfriend embark on an extended camping trip.” In her mother’s absence the young girl is kidnapped, assaulted, and betrayed by the adults she should have been able to rely on for help.
However, McGaha makes sure to highlight that this book is not simply about Smith’s assault but is instead “the story of how the narrator has pieced back together the life that was so nearly taken from her.” It is a book about strength and survival. As McGaha writes Everywhere the Undrowned is “a love story to the self and a testament to the hard work of healing, and it will break you and enchant you and astonish you in all the most beautiful ways.”
Read the review in the Spring 2025 issue. And order a copy of the book here.
