Avery Delacorte's primary concern is college swimming
until
she takes a plane home for Thanksgiving. When the plane
crashes, she is left to survive with four other people:
Colin, whom she knows from her swim team, and three young
boys that can't fend for themselves. Together, Avery and
Colin have to work together to survive the frigid
mountains
where they landed.
GIRL UNDERWATER, told during both the time of survival on
the mountain and the time of after the rescue, is one of
the
best books I've read this year. Claire Kells absolutely
suffocates the reader's heart with the emotionally charged
energy. Avery's narration is painful, as unpredictable as
the water, and entirely engrossing. This is the kind of
story you can't put down without it consuming your
thoughts
until you can read more.
The blend of action and character development is
perfection.
Avery and Colin's time on the mountain is terrifying and
dangerous while the fear of death, the reality of loss,
and
the desperate desire to save the young children and
somehow
survive surround the atmosphere. The few integrated scenes
of life prior to the crash especially bring Colin and
Avery's complex relationship to a new light in their
situation.
Balancing the action from the mountain is the
heartbreaking
present for Avery, starting with her at the hospital after
the rescue and continuing on for several months afterward.
Her pain is nearly palpable, and the state of her emotions
and mentality is depicted realistically. Her pain is the
kind that is nearly crushing to read but impossible to
stop
put down, forever hoping for some sort of small peace.
Readers who have been eager for a story with a new
adult-aged protagonist without the intensive romance
should
grab GIRL UNDERWATER immediately. I also highly recommend
it
to anyone looking for an emotional, deep, and beautiful
story. I am beyond impatient to see what Claire Kells
writes
next, and if it is anything like this one, tissues will be
needed.
An adventurous debut novel that cross cuts between a
competitive college swimmer’s harrowing days in the Rocky
Mountains after a major airline disaster and her recovery
supported by the two men who love her—only one of whom
knows
what really happened in the wilderness.
Nineteen-year-old Avery Delacorte loves the
water. Growing up in Brookline, Massachusetts, she took
swim
lessons at her community pool and captained the local
team;
in high school, she raced across bays and sprawling North
American lakes. Now a sophomore on her university’s
nationally ranked team, she struggles under the weight of
new expectations but life is otherwise pretty good.
Perfect,
really.
That all changes when Avery’s red-eye home
for Thanksgiving makes a ditch landing in a mountain lake
in
the Colorado Rockies. She is one of only five survivors,
which includes three little boys and Colin Shea, who
happens
to be her teammate. Colin is also the only person in
Avery’s
college life who challenged her to swim her own events, to
be her own person—something she refused to do. Instead
she’s
avoided him since the first day of freshman year. But now,
faced with sub-zero temperatures, minimal supplies, and
the
dangers of a forbidding nowhere, Avery and Colin must rely
on each other in ways they never could’ve
imagined.
In the wilderness, the concept of
survival
is clear-cut. Simple. In the real world, it’s anything
but.
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