Book Review: Faithful

By Janet Fox

Published by Speak/Penguin

Released on May 13th, 2010

Source- Bought

4 stars- I really enjoyed it

Sixteen-year-old Maggie Bennet's life is in tatters. Her mother has disappeared, and is presumed dead. The next thing she knows, her father has dragged Maggie away from their elegant Newport home, off on some mad excursion to Yellowstone in Montana. Torn from the only life she's ever known, away from her friends, from society, and verging on no prospects, Maggie is furious and devastated by her father's betrayal. But when she arrives, she finds herself drawn to the frustratingly stubborn, handsome Tom Rowland, the son of a park geologist, and to the wild romantic beauty of Yellowstone itself. And as Tom and the promise of freedom capture Maggie's heart, Maggie is forced to choose between who she is and who she wants to be.

Faithful is fantastic historical fiction set in the early 1900's in the wilds of Yellowstone and it's surrounding areas. Janet Fox has done a brilliant job at capturing the turn of the century feel in the wild west. At the heart of the story is sixteen year old Maggie, who's been whisked away from her life of privilege on the east coast and brought to live in a wild, untamed landscape.

It wasn't hard to understand Maggie. She's been raised a certain way that at first comes across snobbish. She's grown up in a high society where women are worldly and their status determines the type of man they're marry, which is of course a big thing for Maggie since she's almost seventeen and of age. I completely understood Maggie's frustrations and her acting out as she's brought to Yellowstone understand false pretenses, thinking her father took her there to find the mother that left them years before. It's here where Maggie's character grows the most and she discovers who she really is. She uncovers the truth about her family's hidden secret, she learns about the vast landscape and the importance of preserving it and what I liked most about her is seeing how much she changed.

With the beautifully detailed rugged landscape of MT and WY to bringing to life what it was like to be a sixteen year old girl brought up in this time period with the mannerisms, to a women's place in society, to the development of new technologies, I felt this time period really came to life within in the story. I really liked the way in which Faithful was written, and I was completely hooked with the story. I absolutely loved the setting. Having visited Yellowstone before, I felt Janet did a wonderful job describing what it must have looked like in 1904. The characters were all fascinating, and in-depth much like the story they're apart of. There's romance, adventure, deception, self-disovery and so much more. If you're a fan of historical fictions, I highly recommend picking up Faithful.

I'll be posting my review for Faithful's companion book, Forgiven along with an interview with Janet Fox shortly.