My Thoughts:
I have not really done white YA literature recently. When I choose books, I am looking for more diversity that is closer to the kinds of students I have as well as the students they have (I teach middle level and secondary teachers). Perhaps that is why it has sat on my Kindle for so long considering my version is an advanced digital version and the book was published in 2019. However, mental health has no color. Queer is also its own color so suffice it to say I took a while to read this.
Saying that, this was a story about survival. "Fuck perseverance," this was really about survival and searching. The answers were not found to the original questions. However, unasked questions were indeed answered. Perhaps we need a metaphor. The metaphor is the sea as destructor and life bringer. The sea seems to be our last unconquered frontier. She is a mystery and will remain a mystery for time immemorial. That is what this book is like. It holds mystery and darkness, secrets and magic. In then end there is no end, there is just survival.
From the Publisher:
The Larkin family isn't just lucky—they persevere. At least that's what Violet and her younger brother, Sam, were always told. When the Lyric sank off the coast of Maine, their great-great-great-grandmother didn't drown like the rest of the passengers. No, Fidelia swam to shore, fell in love, and founded Lyric, Maine, the town Violet and Sam returned to every summer. But wrecks seem to run in the family: Tall, funny, musical Violet can't stop partying with the wrong people. And, one beautiful summer day, brilliant, sensitive Sam attempts to take his own life.
Shipped back to Lyric while Sam is in treatment, Violet is haunted by her family's missing piece—the lost shipwreck she and Sam dreamed of discovering when they were children. Desperate to make amends, Violet embarks on a wildly ambitious mission: locate the Lyric, lain hidden in a watery grave for over a century. She finds a fellow wreck hunter in Liv Stone, an amateur local historian whose sparkling intelligence and guarded gray eyes make Violet ache in an exhilarating new way. Whether or not they find the Lyric, the journey Violet takes—and the bridges she builds along the way—may be the start of something like survival.
Shipped back to Lyric while Sam is in treatment, Violet is haunted by her family's missing piece—the lost shipwreck she and Sam dreamed of discovering when they were children. Desperate to make amends, Violet embarks on a wildly ambitious mission: locate the Lyric, lain hidden in a watery grave for over a century. She finds a fellow wreck hunter in Liv Stone, an amateur local historian whose sparkling intelligence and guarded gray eyes make Violet ache in an exhilarating new way. Whether or not they find the Lyric, the journey Violet takes—and the bridges she builds along the way—may be the start of something like survival.
Publication Information:
Author: Julia Drake
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (October 1, 2019)
Pages: 400
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