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A review by liralen
The Camino Club by Kevin Craig
3.0
Camino fiction! Here, a group of 'troubled' teenagers are sentenced to walking the Camino de Santiago in lieu of juvenile detention or otherwise facing consequences (for various actions) that could go on their permanent records. This has been a tradition for almost as long as the Camino has been in existence: criminals sent to walk to Santiago instead of serving jail time, people walking the Camino as their own sort of penance, etc.
These particular kids are all basically good kids who have either been blamed for other people's actions or acted out after other people have treated them badly, and I'm not sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, it makes them easier to sympathise with; on the other hand, I have a hard time believing that this is a trip for juvenile delinquents. Might have been more realistic for it to have been an organised trip that just...has a couple of kids with problems on it.
Could have used slightly tighter editing—Troy describes another pilgrim as 'a cute Japanese boy' (114) without any idea of where he (or his family) is from. 'Miles' are used instead of 'kilometers' multiple times (124, 197), which is sort of...sacrilege on the Camino? Believe you me, one knows how many kilometers one has left to walk on the Camino, and one does not confuse that with miles.
These particular kids are all basically good kids who have either been blamed for other people's actions or acted out after other people have treated them badly, and I'm not sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, it makes them easier to sympathise with; on the other hand, I have a hard time believing that this is a trip for juvenile delinquents. Might have been more realistic for it to have been an organised trip that just...has a couple of kids with problems on it.
Could have used slightly tighter editing—Troy describes another pilgrim as 'a cute Japanese boy' (114) without any idea of where he (or his family) is from. 'Miles' are used instead of 'kilometers' multiple times (124, 197), which is sort of...sacrilege on the Camino? Believe you me, one knows how many kilometers one has left to walk on the Camino, and one does not confuse that with miles.