Gateway Reviews

Havenwood is exactly what it sounds like: a haven, an escape from the outside world, an idyllic refuge for those who need it. So long as you never leave again. For these nine girls, Havenwood is all they've ever known. They grew up here, after all. They know how to tend the bees, bake the bread, listen to Joseph when he preaches. They are nine of them altogether, a singular unit, a younger generation. There have always been nine of them. Until suddenly they are eight. Because Rose is missing.  If Rose ran, she won't be allowed back. But they know Rose. They know how impulsive she is. They know if she made a decision in the heat of the moment, she will want to return to Havenwood, return to them. So they hide her disappearance. They don't mention her. They make excuses when asked. But something isn't right. The longer Rose is gone, the more they discover about her. The more intention they see in her disappearance... not all of it hers. 

Barclay Elliot has everything going for him. Basketball hero, captain of the team, a championship season in front of him: in his small Alabama town, Barclay is a hero. But he hasn't been honest. He hasn't shared all of his truth, and he's tired of hiding himself away. That's why he decides to come out at the opening pep rally. It's what his grandfather, former basketball star and star basketball coach, would have wanted. Barclay just wants to be free to live his life out in the open finally. But Barclay might have overestimated just how far stardom would take him. Because everything changes with that pep rally. Former fans won't look at him. Friends can't seem to make time for him. And his teammates, the guys he relies on, aren't so much cold as hostile. When they run Barclay off the team, everyone wants to blame him for the losing streak that comes next.  Only his friend Amy remains on his side, but Amy has bigger fish to fry. Homophobia isn't the o...

#MeToo feels a little murky when you didn't say "no." But Ariana Ruiz would have said no if she could. Ari isn't afraid to dress to impress. As an autistic girl with selective mutism, that's really the only way to get noticed by her peers. Always silent in public, she often flies under the radar. Until Luis Ortega, that is.  In Luis, Ari thought she had a friend. She thought they might even be something more. She thought he noticed her, liked her, cared for who she was. But then there was that party... It's hard to say "no" when you can't say anything at all. Ari's ready to go through the aftermath alone, just as she always has in her life before. But then she receives a note in her locker, an invitation to a special group who might just know what she's going through. And they're not willing to take it in silence anymore. 

Stevie and Nora had big plans--plans to escape their small town and finally live out in the open. To be free. Wyatt isn't the place to have the kind of relationship they do. They have to be a secret. They're tired of it. Then Stevie has a fall. Stevie has a head injury, and now Stevie doesn't remember any of it.  Not the once-in-a-lifetime romance. Not the years of history. Not the plan to escape their lives here for good.  When Stevie wakes up, she remembers nothing of the last two years of her life: not Nora, not coming to terms with her sexuality, not falling out with her friends and making plans to see the world. Suddenly, her life is different, off kilter, and she doesn't know why. Stevie just wants everything to go back to the way she remembers it, wants to set herself back on the path her fifteen-year-old self always envisioned. A path without Nora.