Bibliography:

Plot Summary:  Katie didn’t expect to like the boarding school, she didn’t want to be away from her older brother Will.  But it was great to be out of their little town, and nice to have a whole set off people, of teachers and classmates who don’t know Will’s past.  She can just be one of the girls, and focus on swimming and schoolwork.   So why then does she tell everyone he’s dead?  It is easier than talking about his schizophrenia and some of the things he has done.  But is it the same as wishing he were dead?  When she discovers her roomate has secrets of her own, they form an unbreakable bond, secrets that no one else knows.  But can it survive the unimaginable and unthinkable?

Critical Analysis:  Stunning and immediate, this debut novel sucks you into Katie, her world, emotions, doubts, fears, family, friends.  Semi-autobiographical with the first draft written as a teen, Warman makes Katie and her family, her situation, her friends, the boarding school come alive.  There have been many recent novels dealing with exclusive prep schools and boarding schools recently, but this one is the one that I will remember for its complex characters and situations.  Katie’s roommate is especially interesting.  (Warman is writing a book with some cross over characters, I can only hope Mazzie is one of those.)

In just a few short scenes together, the bond between Katie and Will is cemented and strong, which makes her later denial of him seem almost Shakespearean or even Biblical.  Katie doesn’t want to be how she sees her parents treating Will, but she can’t be the person Will wants her to be either.  Somehow she has to figure out how to be herself and how that fits with Will and her family.  I think the boarding school setting is perfect for this, the whole no parents but expectation of achievement leads to working hard and playing harder.  The images of water and swimming and trying to breath are also well done, as Will is the drowning man clutching Katie and pulling her under as she tries to save him and fails.  She can let him pull her under or leave him behind and try to save herself.  Another great portrait of mental illness in young adult literature that shows just how it effects everyone.

Readalikes:  For the boarding school vibe, try Looking for Alaska by John Green.  For a boarding school of a different sort (no less exclusive but much harder to leave) read The School for Dangerous Girls by Eliot Schrefer.  For another look at a sibling with mental illness, check out Sonya Sones’ Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy. A much quieter look at a family effected by mental illness is Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta which shows how Francesca’s mother’s depression is slowly tearing their family apart.

Review Excerpt: “But Warman’s achingly realistic scenes and characters transcend cliché, and with rare, refreshing honesty and flashes of wry humor, she writes about the intimacy of boarding school, the anguish of family illness, finding a sense of self in sports and in life, and the small, mysterious, imperfect moments that add up to love in all its forms.”–Booklist, starred review

“The only place Katie can breathe easily in this debut, semi-autobiographical novel is the swimming pool. As she defines her friendships and her love-hate relationships with Will and herself, she begins to feel more at ease on land, too. Warman draws out Katie’s emotions and her complex life and family with immediacy.”–Kirkus Reviews

Reviewed from publisher provided advanced copy.

Bibliography

Philomena “Pip” was swimming almost from the moment she was born.  Restless and unsleeping, her parents took her to her first swimming lessons before she was a year old.  From that moment on, Pip knew she was born to swim.  No matter what happens in her life, she swims through it, getting better and faster and more competitive.  To the Olympics, to college, to life long friends and jobs as a sports commentator and a motivational speaker.  But what happens when she can’t swim any more?  She has to deal with all the things in her life that appear when she is not protected by the buffer of the water.

The cover of this debut novel is refreshing and cool and makes you want to dive right in.  Funny with a few hints of almost magical realism, this novel follows Pip as she grows up, deals with tragic and triumphant events in her life, and keeps swimming through it all.  Pip is compelling, and the voice that Keegan creates and maintains for her is perfect.  Pip’s family is not so much dysfunctional as ordinary but changed by extraordinary circumstances.  A real feeling of there but for the grace of God…Pip struggles with taking her place in the family and wanting to swim away from it all.  Is it selfish and wrong to hone her talent and skills?  What about when tragedy strikes and her mother all but falls aprt?  What about when her somewhat controlling boyfriend asks her to leave the sport?  At first, swimming is her place to shine, to excel.  She knows what happens and how it makes her feel when she gets in the water.  Later it changes and becomes something different, darker even.

This is a great adult book that is also teen friendly.  Much of the book is Pip’s coming of age, going to school, swim meets, training, and the Olympics.  Combine that with first love. best friends, sisters, mothers and loss of virginity and a great teen/young adult voice for a more literary beach read to pick up and savor this summer.

Review Excerpts:

“…Keegan’s linguistic playfulness moves the story at a fast clip, even if it sometimes muddles what’s going on-particularly toward the end. This is worth reading for the prose alone.”  –Publisher’s Weekly

Plot Summary:  15 year old Matt and his two best friends are excited about this summer.  Every year they set a new goal to reach, and this year its a doozy–to see a real-live naked girl even though none of them have ever even asked a girl out.   Movies don’t count and neither does seeing your sister in the bathroom.  But that’s a piece of cake when compared with swimming the 100 fly, another challenge Matt sets for himself to impress the new girl on the swim team.  Along the way, he’ll see a dead man, what he looks like dressed as a girl, get caught spying at a party and more, all of it funny and raunchy and at times even poignant.

Critical Analysis:  This is a real boy book.  Some librarians, teachers and parents out there are going to be turned off by the crude raunchiness of it, although I think raunchy might be too strong a word.  There is much talk of bodily functions, and wanting to see girls naked and several truly funny scenes that involve laxatives, kittens wrapped in Christmas paper, and sneaking into the snobby country club to swim in their pool and too many more to list here.  And yet, there is more there there.  These three boys are real friends who will do anything for one another.  Matt lives with his mother, brother and grandfather, and their family may be somewhat different, but they love each other, they eat together, they go to funerals together.  Matt wants to see a girl naked because he’s fifteen and he made a pact with his friends.  But he also wants a girl to like him for who he is, even as he is trying to change to impress one.

For these reasons, this is a book I think girls and moms and dads and just about anyone will realize that they enjoy.  And everyone will love that Matt discovers much about himself, his family, his friends, and girls, naked or not, over the course of the summer he decides to swim the fly.

Readalikes:

Sleeping Freshman Never Lie by David Lubar.  Not quite as raunchy, but just as funny and just as perfect picture of an adolescent male.

Kissing Vanessa by Simon Cheshire.  Kevin falls hard for the new girl, and he’ll do anything to get her to notice him, even the crazy schemes suggested by his friend Jack.