Girl At Sea
Maureen Johnson
HarperTeen, 2007
Genre: Romance/Adventure
Read if: You love adventures, fear jellyfish, and want a little romance in the mix.
Best for: High school students who want a fun, clever, fast paced read that ties romance, realism and travel together.
If you like it, try:
13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson
An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
Rating: 4.5/5
Clio's summer is going to be perfect: she just got the the job of her dreams in an art store, where she'll be able to to get discount art supplies and get to know the gorgeous guy who works at the counter.
But Clio's father has a way of ruining things. First, he left Clio and her mother when she was twelve. Now he's back, and he wants her to spend all summer on a boat with him, his new girlfriend and his crew. The purpose: to be part of a team looking for a buried treasure deep in the Mediterranean Sea.
So, instead of selling art supplies and making her crush her boyfriend, Clio cooks for the crew, helps read maps, avoids Aidan, her father's surly research assistant, and begins to unravel a mystery. There are secrets in the sea and on the ship, and everything is not as it seems.
What do jellyfish have to do with love? This book answers all.
Girl At Sea is a smart and romantic adventure novel. Or maybe its an adventurous romance novel. Either way, Johnson skillfully blends a mystery with exotic settings, great action sequences and real emotions to create a fun and thoughtful novel about family, risks, and first love.
I've thought a lot about the label "romance novel" this year in library school. Romance is a difficult genre in a lot of ways because for a lot of people it has immediate, and often negative, connotations. The implication is if it is romance, it is probably not a very good book. Girl at Sea is definitely a romance, and it is also definitely a good story. Like all genre's, there is a varying range of quality in romance writing. Girl At Sea is a very high quality romance, but it is also just a very high quality young adult novel that deals playfully but also sensitively with something on every teens mind: relationships.
Unlike the previously reviewed Does My Head Look Big in This and Twilight, Girl at Sea deals with a teen romance without reducing the characters to stereotypes. Clio is vividly depicted and easily relatable. While the romance is a main focus of the book, it grows out of a shared adventure, and that is what makes this read rich and exciting. Truly funny, sweet and fun, this is the romance you've been waiting for.
One more thing: Johnson also keeps a really entertaining blog that has a lot of interesting things to say about being a YA author.
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