Everything Beautiful

Riley Rose, atheist and bad girl, has been tricked into attending Spirit Ranch, a Christian camp. There she meets Dylan Kier, alumni camper and recent paraplegic, who arrives with a chip on his shoulder and a determination to perfect all of his bad habits. United in their personal suffering and in their irritation at their fellow campers, they turn the camp inside out as they question the meaning of belief systems, test their faith in each other, and ultimately settle a debate of the heart.

Riley Rose, atheist and bad girl, has been tricked into attending Spirit Ranch, a Christian camp. There she meets Dylan Kier, alumni camper and recent paraplegic, who arrives with a chip on his shoulder and a determination to perfect all of his bad habits. United in their personal suffering and in their irritation at their fellow campers, they turn the camp inside out as they question the meaning of belief systems, test their faith in each other, and ultimately settle a debate of the heart.

Children's Literature

Sixteen-year-old Riley, a smart-mouthed bad girl, cannot imagine how she will survive a week at Spirit Ranch Holiday Camp. Her newly religious father is sick of her antics and afraid to leave her on her own for a week while he goes on vacation with his girlfriend. He hopes the church camp will set her back on the right course, but Riley is determined to take her outrageous and rebellious act with her to camp. She takes an immediate dislike to everyone in attendance, except for the mysterious and wheelchair-bound Dylan. Her negative outlook and outspoken demeanor alienates her from her peers, which is just what she wanted. Riley makes it clear that she does not believe in God and finds most everyone else at the camp boring and pathetic. But despite her best attempts to remain completely unlikable, a few brave campers begin to chip away at Riley's cool facade. It is only after a pilgrimage with Dylan in search of a healing salt lake that Riley starts to understand she is changing. It is not necessarily her beliefs about God that change, but rather her understanding of herself and who she has been pretending to be. Riley, Dylan, and some of the secondary characters are wonderfully complex. They are smart, thoughtful, eccentric, and flawed. Though the setting is church camp, there are topics beyond religion that are grappled with, such as painful pasts, family dynamics, and sexuality. The unique setting (of a church camp in rural Australia) will entice readers, but it is the charismatic, offbeat characters that carry the sometimes slow plot. Reviewer: Amanda MacGregor

SIMMONE HOWELL’s short fiction has been published in journals and anthologies, and her short script, Pity 24, won the 2004 Australian Writer’s Guild Award. The film has played festivals from Australia to the United States. Simmone has a BA in literature from Deakin University. She lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her husband and their young son, and reads pulp fiction, watches ex-rental videos, listens to hillbilly music, and writes. Notes from the Teenage Underground was her first novel.