I finished The Lost Coast by Amy Rose Capetta recently. I was warned that it started relatively slowly, but picked up, so was prepared to be patient. Patience was not what I needed, as I was captivated by the storytelling of Capetta, but much like the subject material of the novel, the reasons why eluded me until closing in on the end. First the details, the ones that you won’t necessarily find on the cover, then my impressions and about my discovery about what drew me through the novel.

The story centers around Danny, a girl who moves from Michigan to California for reasons that reveal themselves throughout the book. Danny is a bit of a lost soul, not belonging to any particular group, and is now having to navigate through a new school with new people in a new town. What’s more, is that in this new space, Danny begins to actualize who she is, in terms of her own interests, insecurities and attractions.

She is able to do this with the help of the Grays, a group “of six queer witches forging their own paths, shrouded in the mist, magic, and secrets of the ancient California redwoods” (from the Goodreads site). They have lost one of their members and believe that Danny can help with finding her. The ways that they are to find their missing member and bring her back are elusive, as the ways of their witching magic are not very straightforward, but their journey brings together all of the parts of belonging, friendship and happily existing in a state of otherness.

This is where I finally got in understanding the novel’s effect on me. While the storyline is interesting, the characters well-fleshed out and the mystery of the missing member of the Grays, Imogen, motivating, it was the ethereal descriptions of the relationships between the girls, those existing and forming, that Capetta used throughout the novel.

This took me a long time to figure out. The prose describing the atmosphere, tension, relationships and romance that developed between the characters did not rely on adjectives to convey the depth of emotion that occurs with budding friendships and love, but Capetta somehow wove all sorts of sensory affects to bring a true feeling to the reader.

While I write this, I do not think that I could accurately or succinctly describe any of the friendships that developed or were expressed through the Grays, however I certainly was left with feelings that resonate to create a unique impression for each of the individual relationships that exist between the six girls.

I do wish that I was able to figure this out before getting so close to the end and I would be better able to describe how Amy Rose Capetta managed to pull me along through the emotional development and bonding of the girls in this story. These characters made an impression on me through the language that Capetta used to describe the evolution of their relationships and though I may have trouble putting my finger on it, I appreciate the talent and ability that the author employed to allow me to experience the feelings as they happened.