Sib is sweet, funny and completely under the thumb of her best frenemy, Holly. Lou is smart, sarcastic and so sad over the loss of her beloved boyfriend Fred she’s gone mostly silent. The two of them have been thrown together in a dorm with four other girls at a wilderness education program in the Australian outback. There they will hike, learn basic survival skills, gossip, sneak off with boys and try not to kill each other over who’s going to clean the hair out of the shower drain. At first, Sib is too busy managing her crush on hottie Ben and Holly’s subsequent jealousy to notice Lou. And Lou is too busy managing her grief and ignoring everyone and everything else to notice Sib. But as Sib begins to finally understand that Holly isn’t just a mean girl, she’s cruel and Lou begins to pull out of her depression, they discover that friendships can bloom anywhere–even in the middle of the wilderness. Author Fiona Wood tackles first kisses, first loves and THE First Time with a confidence and finesse that reminds me of one of my all time favorite reads, Saving Francesca