3.5 stars rounded up

The blurb for "The Forgotten Girls" perfectly pinpoints the question Monica Potts sets out to answer: "An acclaimed journalist tries to understand how she escaped her small-town in Arkansas while her brilliant friend could not, and, in the process, illuminates the unemployment, drug abuse, sexism and evangelicalism killing poor, rural white women all over America."

Potts' family in Clinton, Arkansas, has seen many of these "deaths of despair" in Clinton Arkansas. Her best friend from childhood, Darci, grew up in marginally better circumstances than Monica. Her family had two incomes, and Monica admits that Darci was more charismatic, smarter, more curious than she was. The two girls planned to leave town and go to college together, but by sophomore year in high school Darci was already on a different path. Why?

Potts believes that the reason may have to do with the fact that Monica's mother had lived elsewhere and seen another way of life. She endlessly encouraged her daughters to make a plan and get out. The family scraped together money for summer programs and college applications. The local high school offered minimal college counseling, generally focused on local state colleges, so her mom encouraged her to explore any college names she heard. Her family was also not Southern Baptist with its embrace of early childbearing and belief in the role of women as modest helpmeets.

Perhaps Kathy Potts took her desire to get and keep Monica and her sister Courtney out of Van Buren County a little far. She did not tell them about their father's illness until the very end because she didn't want them moving back to help her care for him. Darci has no such encouragement.

"Forgotten Girls" is written with heart, as Monica tries to understand where the brilliant friend she still loves so dearly swerved toward addiction and destitution.

Potts develops theories for why she made it to the middle class while Darci did not, but there are no answers. Her heartbreak for her friend shimmers on every page, but no matter what she does to help, there is no answer and seemingly no way to change course.

This is an engrossing book, and a maddening one. There don't seem to be any programs or plans to broaden anyone's view or guide children in how to make the most of their gifts. Such waste.

Thank you, NetGalley, for the free ARC of this book. My review is posted on Goodreads. I will share the link below.