Brave Girl, Quiet Girl

3.5 stars! Man, I wish we could give half stars on here :(

This story is told dually from Brooke and Molly's perspective. Brooke was carjacked one night while her baby girl, Etta was in her car seat. Etta was left in her car seat on the side of the road and she was found shortly after by a homeless sixteen year old, Molly. You get to read about how these two characters lives intertwine by one horrific experience and the aftermath of it all.

This was a good story with a good ending. But for a couple reasons toward the end of the book, I realized maybe it wasn't for me. It's crazy to think that some stories like these actually aren't stories at all. That people are actually living this.

This was my first Catherine Ryan Hyde book. Slightly underwhelmed? But it was a good story.

Touching from start to finish, Brave Girl, Quiet Girl is the epitome of found family.

After a carjacking, Brooke is desperate to find her little daughter that was asleep in the backseat. Twenty-four anxious hours pass without a word. Meanwhile, young Molly stumbles across a toddler abandoned in her car seat on the side of the road. Without a phone and having to protect the child from local gang members, contacting the authorities is no easy feat. 

My favorite stories are those that bring unlikely people together. Both Brooke and Molly are wonderful characters made better by the presence of little Etta. I loved watching their acquaintance grow and get to know one another. There was some repetition in the story, but it was overall endearing.

I have read a LOT of books over the years and this one had a most unique premise.

Brooke's car is hijacked with her 2 year old daughter in the back.
When the carjacker discovers Etta in the back, he dumps her on the side of a road and she's found by Molly, a 16 year old homeless teen.

What happens after this makes for a wonderful story.

Great Storytelling With Relatable Characters. One of the best things about Hyde's books is that you know you're going to get stories of very human characters that are simply trying to do their best with the situations they find themselves in, despite several flaws (both obvious and not). Here we get an all too real story that happens far too often (in a part that would be a spoiler to reveal) and often enough that it is a documented event (in the initial conflict) while overtly getting a story of two women just trying to do their best. Hyde does an excellent job of humanizing both the strengths and the weaknesses of most characters, though the secondary characters get a bit less of this and the one-off characters get even less, by their very nature of only being shown once or twice. Still, a truly excellent work that explores at least one idea that is all too real for all too many, yet isn't discussed much in mainstream fiction. Very much recommended.