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16-year-old Miranda Merchant is great at science...and not so great with boys. After major drama with her boyfriend and (now ex) best friend, she's happy to spend the summer on small, mysterious Selkie Island, helping her mother sort out her late grandmother's estate.
There, Miranda finds new friends and an island with a mysterious, mystical history, presenting her with facts her logical, scientific mind can't make sense of. She also meets Leo, who challenges everything she thought she knew about boys, friendship...and reality.
Is Leo hiding something? Or is he something that she never could have imagined?
Review:
Going into Sea Change, I wasn't too sure what to expect, since the reviews I've read about this could easily be described as iffy and my previous experience with Friedman's work left much to be desired. Though, I finally decided what the heck and gave it the try it deserved, and I have to say I'm so glad I did!
Sure, Sea Change isn't going to be described as the finest peace of literature out there, but it was fun and cute, two things that make for the perfect summer read, in my opinion, and you can never have enough of those, now can you?
From the first page you are thrown into the world of Selkie Island, a place where merman are suspected to roam and where the rich and average Selkie citizen are divided Outsider style. I loved Friedman's descriptions of Selkie because there was never a moment where it didn't seem like a beautiful place, one where I would love to visit if it were real, especially if I could find someone as great as Leo there!
Miranda was a main character who was smart (I loved the fact that her science abilities made an interesting little side to the story), tough, and sweet. I could easily understand her feelings over the dilemmas she faced back in New York and relate to them because who hasn't felt betrayal from a friend and/or boyfriend before? Also, I loved seeing her understand the importance of second chances through this and other situations.
Adding to this, her relationship with Leo was sweet and one of my favorite parts of the book, but I have to admit, I wanted more substance to it, along with a better resolution. I also enjoyed reading about the other relationships Miranda had in Sea Change, varying from the complicated one with her mother to her friendship with CeeCee, anther key player in making this the cute summer read it was.
Though, as with most reads, I did have a few problems with Sea Change, including the one with Leo and Miranda as mentioned above. Another was the fact some of this book lacked the key development that would have made it even better to lack of resolution at the end. Though, overall, not the biggest problems of problems, but they still manged to annoy me at times.
In all, I can understand why some reviewers didn't think this was Friedman's greatest novel yet, though I still enjoyed it for what it's meant to be, in my opinion. And that is? A light summery type read that moves you to a different place, one that I'm sure you won't be able to get enough of!
Grade: B+
Sea Change is now out, and in paperback I may add!
Source: Chelsy at Big Honco Media. Thanks, Chelsy!
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