A Water-Based Adventure

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This book ticks a lot of boxes for me- interesting, imaginative world building, strong female lead with a traumatic past, an underdog quest with a clock ticking, and lots of action/dialogue. All of this is in this book; unfortunately, it just didn't work for me. Based on ratings, it does work for many.

I really wanted to love this book and had high hopes. To go with the water analogy, it stayed too shallow for me. I would have liked to have gone deeper in character development, character relationships, and world- building. So much was happening- really exciting, fun, fast-paced scenes- that it was hard to ground it all into a continuous story arc that showed growth and development. That might be my problem- I was looking for growth and development of the characters and really this is an adventure story. I am sure it will fit the bill for many. I would also say this stays true to the 7th grade and up audience. I would be comfortable with either of my teenagers reading this.

Thanks to BookishFirst and Putnam for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for a digital review.