FICTION:  Thirteen-year-old Caroline has been raised and home-schooled by her father in a wild nature preserve on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon. There they inhabit an elaborate cave shelter, wash in a nearby creek, use a makeshift septic system, tend a garden, and follow a rigid code of behavior that enables them to survive in this wilderness. Once a week, they go to the city to buy groceries, attend church, and otherwise merge with the civilized world. Yet one small mistake allows the authorities to discover them. Their forced relocation is only a brief respite in their flight from a world that can’t understand them.


Inspired by a true story and told through the startlingly sincere voice of young Caroline, My Abandonment is a mesmerizing, completely original story of survival, hope, and triumphant transformation.