Surfacing by Nora Raleigh Baskin
Sep. 27th, 2013 11:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Is there such a thing as too much truth?
School swim-team star Maggie Paris has an uncanny, almost magical ability to draw out people’s deepest truths, even when they don’t intend to share them. Her classmates are avoiding her and even her parents, busy at avoiding each other, have become wary, not wanting to confront the secret at the heart of their devastated family.
A lyrical and deeply moving story about finding the courage to confront your ghosts – one truth at a time.
16 year-old Maggie Paris is the star swimmer on her high school team but she’s not popular. Most of her classmates avoid being alone with her due to the fact that they find themselves confessing their deepest secrets. Despite her best friend Julie’s warnings, Maggie is attracted to Matthew, the jock captain of the school wrestling team, her crush a welcome distraction from her parents’ arguments. Because there’s one truth that neither Maggie nor her family want to hear, which relates to the death of her sister several years earlier. And that’s the truth Maggie’s going to have to confront …
Nora Raleigh Baskin’s YA novel is a contemporary tale of grief and loss with a magical realist twist but while the flashback scenes showing the relationship between Maggie and Leah are credible and moving, the contemporary scenes with Maggie felt underdeveloped and a little hollow. Although Maggie’s desire to chase a fantasy is entirely in keeping with her character, it is difficult to relate to and the fact that the supporting characters (notably Matthew, her parents and boyfriend Nathan) are so thinly drawn means there’s little for her to react to.
The best scenes are the flashbacks between Maggie and Leah and the events leading up to Leah’s death. Leah’s narration is particularly effective as Baskin captures the complex emotions of jealousy and love that big sisters can have for younger siblings and the wisdom that only comes with death. It’s because these scenes are so good that the later scenes of Maggie and her family (complete with younger twin brothers) are much less satisfying – her parents being reduced to clichéd divorcees in waiting and her twins saddled with annoying twin speak that was too cutesy to be engaging.
Although Matthew is underdeveloped, I could just about buy into Maggie’s crush on him and I liked how her fantasy compares to the seedy reality. In contrast, I never really understood the relationship with Nathan because he’s so thinly drawn I didn’t understand why they were drawn to each other (although the pay-off was believable and made a nice change from other books of this type). The magical realist element reads as a convenient plot device and I was never quite sure of the
All in all, this is an okay but slight read that didn’t quite pull off its themes for me although I would read Baskin’s other work.
The Verdict:
Nora Raleigh Baskin’s YA novel is a contemporary tale of grief and loss with a magical realist twist but while the flashback scenes showing the relationship between Maggie and Leah are credible and moving, the contemporary scenes with Maggie felt underdeveloped and a little hollow. Although Maggie’s desire to chase a fantasy is entirely in keeping with her character, it is difficult to relate to and the fact that the supporting characters (notably Matthew, her parents and boyfriend Nathan) are so thinly drawn means there’s little for her to react to.
SURFACING was released in the United Kingdom on 4th July 2013. Thanks to Walker Books for the free copy of this book.
School swim-team star Maggie Paris has an uncanny, almost magical ability to draw out people’s deepest truths, even when they don’t intend to share them. Her classmates are avoiding her and even her parents, busy at avoiding each other, have become wary, not wanting to confront the secret at the heart of their devastated family.
A lyrical and deeply moving story about finding the courage to confront your ghosts – one truth at a time.
16 year-old Maggie Paris is the star swimmer on her high school team but she’s not popular. Most of her classmates avoid being alone with her due to the fact that they find themselves confessing their deepest secrets. Despite her best friend Julie’s warnings, Maggie is attracted to Matthew, the jock captain of the school wrestling team, her crush a welcome distraction from her parents’ arguments. Because there’s one truth that neither Maggie nor her family want to hear, which relates to the death of her sister several years earlier. And that’s the truth Maggie’s going to have to confront …
Nora Raleigh Baskin’s YA novel is a contemporary tale of grief and loss with a magical realist twist but while the flashback scenes showing the relationship between Maggie and Leah are credible and moving, the contemporary scenes with Maggie felt underdeveloped and a little hollow. Although Maggie’s desire to chase a fantasy is entirely in keeping with her character, it is difficult to relate to and the fact that the supporting characters (notably Matthew, her parents and boyfriend Nathan) are so thinly drawn means there’s little for her to react to.
The best scenes are the flashbacks between Maggie and Leah and the events leading up to Leah’s death. Leah’s narration is particularly effective as Baskin captures the complex emotions of jealousy and love that big sisters can have for younger siblings and the wisdom that only comes with death. It’s because these scenes are so good that the later scenes of Maggie and her family (complete with younger twin brothers) are much less satisfying – her parents being reduced to clichéd divorcees in waiting and her twins saddled with annoying twin speak that was too cutesy to be engaging.
Although Matthew is underdeveloped, I could just about buy into Maggie’s crush on him and I liked how her fantasy compares to the seedy reality. In contrast, I never really understood the relationship with Nathan because he’s so thinly drawn I didn’t understand why they were drawn to each other (although the pay-off was believable and made a nice change from other books of this type). The magical realist element reads as a convenient plot device and I was never quite sure of the
All in all, this is an okay but slight read that didn’t quite pull off its themes for me although I would read Baskin’s other work.
The Verdict:
Nora Raleigh Baskin’s YA novel is a contemporary tale of grief and loss with a magical realist twist but while the flashback scenes showing the relationship between Maggie and Leah are credible and moving, the contemporary scenes with Maggie felt underdeveloped and a little hollow. Although Maggie’s desire to chase a fantasy is entirely in keeping with her character, it is difficult to relate to and the fact that the supporting characters (notably Matthew, her parents and boyfriend Nathan) are so thinly drawn means there’s little for her to react to.
SURFACING was released in the United Kingdom on 4th July 2013. Thanks to Walker Books for the free copy of this book.
