Rating: ★★★★☆
In Girl Out of Water, Anise Sawyer finds her final summer before college interrupted when her aunt is in a devastating car accident, which forces her and her dad to make their way to Nebraska to take care of her cousins. Stuck in the triply landlocked state, with three restless cousins, Anise discovers the local skate park and also the charming, one-armed, Lincoln, where she swaps her surfboard for a skateboard.
As someone who isn’t a big YA contemporary reader, I really enjoyed Girl Out of Water. I don’t really know how to describe it. But it was entirely peaceful, in comparison, to the other books I’ve been reading. What we have is a heart-warming coming of age novel. Anise thinks she has it all sorted out, but when everything slowly falls apart, she has to take a step back. The more time she spends away from Santa Cruz, away from the sea and her friends, the more she starts to worry that she will become like her mother, who disappears for months on end.
Girl Out of Water is Anise realising that, necessarily, change has to come and that she doesn’t have to forget the friends she loves and the memories she has to make new ones. So the plot isn’t overly dramatic, but it is well-developed. Silverman’s characters were witty, hilarious and diverse. The punchy dialogue and style of writing really reminds me of Nicola Yoon’s Everything, Everything
Girl Out of Water is a story of first love, relationships, loss and change. I have no doubt that this will top the bestseller lists once it’s released. Its decent plot and cast of fun characters make me excited to see what else Laura Silverman will publish in the future.
I went on holiday! – I went to Marrakech with my family and, looking back on it, it was fun. But at the time, it seemed like everything didn’t go according to plan. But I did enjoy it, despite the majority of us getting sick towards the end.
(Please excuse the messy feature image. I made a much better one but for some reason, the file didn’t save properly so I had to rush a new one 
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as told by zaheerah 