Steal the North: A Novel
*Starred Review* Bergstrom’s magnetic debut resonates on several levels, but first and foremost it is a poignant story of the love between two mismatched teens. Emmy’s mother, Kate, was abandoned by her high-school boyfriend before her daughter was born. Kate and her sister, Bethany, were raised in eastern Washington as members of a fundamentalist church. When Kate was condemned from the pulpit for being a “whore,” her father disowned her. Two years later, she boarded a bus with Emmy in tow, ending up in Sacramento and revealing her whereabouts to no one. Fifteen years later, Bethany finds Kate and asks her to send Emmy to Washington to help with her latest pregnancy, which follows several  miscarriages. After the initial culture shock, Emmy grows to love not only her birthplace but also Reuben, the Native American boy who lives next door. Bergstrom skillfully builds suspense around what will happen when Emmy is due to return to Sacramento for her senior year, with Kate steering her toward U.C. Berkeley as  Reuben is aiming for Washington State. The reader becomes involved in this thoroughly engaging first novel’s denouement because of how perceptively Bergstrom has drawn her central characters. --Deborah Donovan