Paradise Girl by Phill Featherstone

What dark places can a mind go when it is left alone in a world that is falling apart? This is a core question of Paradise Girl, a soulful and innovative work of YA post-apocalyptic fiction by Phill Featherstone.

This work is an intensely personal book detailing the inner thoughts of Kerryl, a young girl who has survived the death of her entire family. As a virus ravages the human population, Kerryl chooses to detail her experiences in what she assumes will be her final days. Written in the form of extended journal entries, diatribes and stream-of-consciousness ranting, this narrative is simple on the surface, but far more complex beneath.

As the defenses of her rational mind weaken, but her life fails to end, Kerryl creates Adam – a companion, a savior, and the imagined reader of her story. Over the course of this book, readers are welcomed into the intimate weakness of a soul shattered by loss and crippled by fear, yet still holding onto hope. Kerryl’s youthful musings on mortality can be both profound and heartbreaking, and while there is plenty of action and plot progression, the power of this novel lies in the narrator’s tangled, traumatized thoughts, and her apparent descent into madness.

In all, Featherstone delivers an engaging and inventive tale told through a unique voice, and one that stands out in an already crowded genre.

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