Kids in captivity
Megan E. Freeman’s new YA novel sets southern Colorado tweens in a bind
By Jamie Siebrase | March 27, 2025
EXTERIOR—EARLY EVENING.
ESTABLISHING SHOT of mother curled up on green couch, reading aloud to tweens. Tension is palpable. Cue scratchy sound of another page turn. Kids lean in.
If I had way more time on my hands, I might have written this entire review in the same clever, varied style as Away, Megan E. Freeman’s companion to her 2021 New York Times bestselling book Alone. (The new book is marketed as a companion title, but I suspect it would work as a riveting standalone, too.)
I read Alone with my boys a few years ago; we loved the plot and plethora of (loosely disguised) Colorado landmarks. Away covers the same time period as Alone, but now readers witness the other side of the story, as told through the narratives of four Colorado tweens and teens who are evacuated to a relocation camp by the government due to an “imminent threat.”
“People around here talk in ‘months’ now, instead of ‘days’ or ‘weeks.’ Time has stretched.”
Freeman’s ensemble cast works like a charm. There’s Ashanti, 12, a Greek mythology loving friend who couldn’t make it to protagonist Maddie’s sleepover in Alone because she caught a stomach bug. In Away, Ashanti links up with a budding journalist, Harmony, 12; an aspiring filmmaker, Teddy, 11; and Grandin, 14, who heralds from a Colorado ranching family and plans to join the military some day.
Across 462 quick pages, an enticing plot unfolds through a range of storytelling devices, including introspective free verse, letters to an aunt, transcripts of radio broadcasts, newspaper stories, film production diaries and scripted film scenes. Thanks to Teddy, there are plenty of fun pop-culture references for parents who read with their children.
At first, nobody knows what’s going on. Was there a natural disaster? Toxic chemicals? Conspiracy theories float around the relocation shelter with the broad strokes of so-called “chemtrails,” and in the absence of fact, people invent information.
“That could be an interesting theme,” Teddy notes in one of his film production diary entries. Oh, brother, you don’t even know the half of it!
Cut off from the rest of the world by phone/internet bans and armed guards, fear builds among evacuees as isolation takes hold. Freeman’s descriptions feel so honest, so authentic, that I suspect she spent quite a bit of time talking to real kids about their lives during the Covid-19 pandemic shutdown.
At first, everyone in the relocation camp waits “on the mercy of divine intervention,” as Ashanti puts it. As the clock ticks on, Harmony observes, “People around here talk in ‘months’ now, instead of ‘days’ or ‘weeks.’ Time has stretched.”
Read the rest of this review for free at Rocky Mountain Reader.
