CarolAnneShaw
Ruby Bell is almost eighteen, and she is not happy. It's 1978, and small-town life in Echo Falls is suffocating. Living with her Uncle Emmett and Uncle Hank is even more so. They're both forty-five going on ninety, and they refuse to let her grow up. But Ruby has a plan. She's going to graduate, withdraw her savings, and get out of Dodge in search of something better.
With Otto, her pussycat-of-a-pit bull riding shotgun, Ruby sets out in a 1969 Mercury Cyclone only to discover that the highway ahead contains more twists and turns than a prairie tornado. What started out as a straightforward dash across the province quickly turns into something else altogether, thanks to three unexpected travelling companions.
There's Lucy Witt, a jilted 20-something farm wife, Fintan Hart, a heavy metal musician who can't catch a break, and Cleo Lyons, a street-smart girl who is secretly afraid of who she really is. Throw in a pair of highly coveted red Chuck Taylors and a deranged pair of twins, and Ruby is in for the ride of a lifetime.
When she eventually finds herself on BC's Vancouver Island, at the Emerald Isle Retreat--a sacred centre run by Oswald Wise, a well-known spiritual teacher--Ruby is finally forced to reevaluate her definition of place, and more importantly, "home."
Gasoline Rainbow is a novel loosely based on the age-old classic, The Wizard of Oz. It is the story of a girl who finds what she is looking for in the most unlikely of places and learns a little something about friendship, authenticity, and belonging, along the way.