I will not be giving feedback on this book as I couldn’t really get into it but I think others may enjoy it.

It’s the perfect book that will possibly remain on your TBR for a little while, for you only to kick yourself silly when you finally read it.
Perfect easy read romance for the summer.

A heart-wrenching exploration of grief, Wild Blue Wonder brought me to tears twice – unfortunate, as I was reading it on my phone and walking around town both times. It’s difficult to explain exactly why I loved this book so much, but there is literally nothing I can criticise about it. The way Carlie Sorosiak organises the story – jumping from the winter following Dylan’s death back to the summer leading up to it happening – gives you a bittersweet sense of inevitability that propels the plot along at a breakneck speed, while the way it’s told is utterly beautiful. I’m looking forward to reading If Birds Fly Back as soon as possible, because at this point I genuinely believe Sorosiak could become one of my favourite authors.

In brief:
- Opens with references to some tragedy that took place a few months ago
- Set in a summer camp (both in and out of season)
- Alternates between past and present
- Subtle hints of magic
- Family dynamics, especially between the three siblings
- Atmospheric
- Would quite like to listen to the Sunshine Hypothesis podcast
- Kinda makes fun of British traits and sayings
- Spoiler for Moby Dick
- Quinn constantly referring to herself as a monster gets annoying
- Predictable final plot point

This was BEAUTIFUL and heartbreaking, and just a perfect hard-hitting contemporary. I particularly loved the characters and my emotional connection with them was so strong I cried for hours!

A few weeks ago I read Wild Blue Wonder by the lovely Carlie Sorosiak and I fell completely head over heels in love. This last year has been a particularly difficult one for me and this book has really struck a chord with me.

“your joy fizzed around you like sparklers”

Wild Blue Wonder is wonderful. It’s a story of love, family, friendship and grief. This book is told on two timelines: the present shows us the aftermath of Dylan’s death, the guilt and the effects of grief on Quinn and her family whilst the past shows us the lead up to Dylan’s death. I loved the way the two different timelines ran alongside each other because they allowed for such emotion to flow whilst I read. I was simultaneously feeling Quinn, Fern and Reed’s grief and puzzling over what could possibly have happened to effect their sibling relationships so profoundly whilst also feeling anxious in the past about what was to come and whether it would change my feelings about the characters in the present. It lead to having a perfect about of tension and build up in terms of the story and the emotion.

One of the most profound things about this book for me was the way in which it shows just what grief can do to a family. Most people assume that grief pulls a family together, but this book shows exactly how it can do the opposite. In the past Quinn and her siblings, Fern and Reed, are incredibly close, playing silly games and pranking one another yet in the present they are resentful, barely speaking and clearly holding grudges and I just needed to know why! There are so many gorgeous descriptions of grief and emotion in this book and it really did strike a chord with me.

The characters themselves are excellent. As well as Quinn, I just adored her best friend Hana who is literally everything you could want in a bestie. Female friendships are one of my absolute favourite things both when reading and in life in general and the friendship between Quinn and Hana felt so authentic. I am also a sucker for grandparents in YA books and I flipping adored Nana Eden. Not only did she provide some of my favourite quotes from the book but she is also just flipping hilarious. The ”Build Your Own Coffin” moment had me seriously laughing out loud and I fell in love with her character straight away.

“My mother used to tell me that sometimes when a woman’s in darkness, she doesn’t need a goddamn flashlight. She needs another woman to stand in the dark by her side.”

I also have to give a shout out to the romantic relationship in this book because Alexander very quickly became one of my favourite characters. I adored his dorky British sense of humour and him making casual jokes about snapchatting ‘Liz and the corgis. But aside from the light touch, I loved seeing how the relationship between Alexander and Quinn grew and adapted as she came to terms with Dylan’s death. There are some very lovely moments between them.

Something unique about this book that I really enjoyed was that Quinn has a passion for marine biology and is an avid listener of a podcast about weird and wonderful marine creatures. It was so interesting to read the passages from the podcast and get an insight into some of these weird and wonderful creatures as a reader too.

Wild Blue Wonder and its characters have imprinted themselves onto my little heart. Grief is something that affects us all and has affected me on several occasions this year and this book definitely helped as part of that process. With gorgeous settings, lyrical writing and layered, lovable characters, this is a story that will stay with me for a long time and hopefully find a special place in the hearts of many.

“Life isn’t this infinite thing”

Even though I read a finished copy of the book, I would like to thank MyKindaBook and Carlie Sorosiak for having provided an eARC of Wild Blue Wonder in exchange of a fair and honest review.

This book pulled up a lot of my own issues for me, so I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have really, through no fault of the book. It was a fantastic setting with great characters with a lot of magic, monsters and a really strong story line of guilt, grief and a family torn apart by one small thing. I think I could have really enjoyed it if it hadn't triggered so many of my own feelings.

I liked all the stuff about monsters and sea creatures. This book has made puffer fish my new favourite fish, so I have it to thank about that! (If you don't know about the mating rituals of the puffer fish, you /have/ to google them. I also liked the symbolism of the sea monster, the desperation that Quinn had to find it because it gives her something to pin the blame on other than herself.

I truly think that this is a well crafted book with a great story and I'm sad that it was so tempered by my own emotions. I hope in the future once my head is back in a better place that I can read it again and give it the enjoyment it deserves.

There is a part in Wild Blue Wonder where one of the characters, who is British, says “I always wanted to go to American summer camp as a little boy’ and I could completely relate to him in that moment because I have ALWAYS wanted to go to an American summer camp. Since I am a 46-year-old British woman this probably isn’t going to happen to me now, but I am a tiny bit obsessed with all things American and summer camps seem like one of their better ideas that we should probably have over here. They always look like such great fun in the movies – camp fires, s’mores, singalongs, sports, water fights, friendships . My sister went as a camp counsellor to one in Canada and she said it was amazing. It is probably one of those things that might not translate well, as we don’t have those vast remote forests over here, but I have to admit that, as a parent about to face those long summer holidays with two kids to amuse, packing them off for a week or so for some good, outdoor fun has its appeal…

Anyway, one of the things that drew me to this book on NetGalley was the setting in an American summer camp, deliciously set in one of my favourite corners of the US, the state of Maine. I was expecting a very light-hearted, teenage angst coming-of-age story but this book really surprised me because it had so much more depth than I was anticipating.

The story is written from the main character of Quinn, a seventeen-year-old girl whose parents’ run a summer camp called The Hundreds where, every summer, Quinn and her brother and sister are counsellors. The book is written partly as Quinn addressing a person off stage, who we come to realise is Dylan, a friend of the family and camp counsellor and the central story revolves around the relationship between Dylan, Quinn and her siblings and the happenings at the camp the previous summer. There is a dual timeline with the previous summer’s drama slowly revealed amidst chapters set in the present, which is the subsequent winter, and the contrast between the bustling seaside town and camp at the height of summer, and the quiet, dead time in the winter is a revelation and something that few people think about I guess. I have certainly never considers what happens to these places when the short summer season is over.

The contrast in seasons cleverly mirrors the mental state of several of the protagonists as Quinn and her family struggle with the aftermath of things that happened during the last camp season and the author does a fantastic job of really bringing the location and environment to life. I really liked the quirky nature of the camp and Quinn’s eccentric family. The amazing, close, inter-generational relationships they clearly have before the dramatic events of the summer make the disintegration of those relationships even more heart-breaking later.

The characters are beautifully drawn and sympathetic and I really felt for Quinn and everything she was going through. I could feel all that teenage pain and confusion acutely and I was racing to the end to see how it finished and I felt like it was a very realistic portrayal of what it is like to be dealing with those teenage feelings and how difficult it can be to deal with those feelings when people don’t talk to each other.

The writing is really beautiful and evocative and Carlie has some lovely turns of phrase that perfectly sum up what she is trying to convey. “When we press our hands together, it’s like my skin knows his skin.” I understand precisely what she is trying to convey here, I recognise that feeling completely and there were a lot of moments like that throughout the book. It was a joy to read.

This book explores some difficult subjects and a real range of reactions and emotions and was a very captivating and emotional read. I closed the book with a warm and satisfied feeling, which is the most I ever ask from a book and I really enjoyed it. So much so that I have bought a paperback copy to give to my three teenage daughters to pass around; I am sure they are going to love it. Although, they may start pestering me to go to an American summer camp themselves once they have read it.

I really loved this book. There were a lot of aspects. It was very emotional, very well written. It's not such an original topic, but how the writer focused on family and friendship was really impressive.
The book alternates in time within a few months. In the past, Dylan is Quinn's best friend. And we read about her stories, how she fell in love with him. It's not only her who's keen on Dylan, but also her siblings. So, Dylan becomes a focal point.

The present chapters, we read about Quinn's struggle dealing with Dylan's death. He drowned on a boat alone with Quinn, when they were on holiday with her parents, They were looking for a sea monster Wessie. Quinn keeps looking after the incident, because if it's not real, Dylan died for nothing.

It was heart breaking at times, but I liked how Sorosiak fleshed many emotions in the book. If you're interested in an emotional story, where family and friends are at the heart, it's a good book to read.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for granting a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Wild Blue Wonder is Carlie Sorosiak’s second novel. It’s YA, and tells the story of Quinn, who is grieving for her best friend Dylan, who died in the summer. The story takes place during the October, with flashbacks to the summer, when Dylan was still alive.

The book, I have to say, was average. Nothing really stuck out to me, and the story was simple and sweet. There was gay representation in the form of Reed, who reminded me a lot of the brother in If God Was A Rabbit, as he also has a boyfriend named Charlie. The book also explored Quinn’s relationship with her sister Fern, and how they had grown to hate one another.

The love interest of the book, Alexander, was a very bad British stereotype. I don’t know where Sorosiak, who is American, was getting her information about British teenagers, but it was incredibly wrong. Alexander says words like bugger, a word I have only heard my sixty year old mother use when she accidentally stubs her toe. Alexander doesn’t feel real, and therefore I didn’t care about the relationship.

There is a sort of magical realism in the book, with ever flowing blackberry bushes, wishes on the ceiling, and of course, the sea monster that lurks in the water. I would have liked more of this, because otherwise it was just a few separate events that didn’t match the tone of the book. The ‘monster’ them didn’t really work because Quinn didn’t deliberately hurt Dylan, or injure him in anyway. It was a complete accident, and others were more to blame than herself.

Overall, Wild Blue Wonder would be a better middle-grade book than YA. Quinn acts like a young teenager, and with a few swear words cut out, this book would be perfect for someone around the ages of 14-15.
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

Such a heartbreaking and beautiful book. I read this book in less than 24 hours and pretty much weeped the entire time, but it was exactly what I needed. Definitely one of my new favourite books of all time. Already looking forward to rereading it. If you like hard hitting contemporaries, please do yourself a favour and pick this one up when it releases this summer.

This book deals with grief and moving on which is something I find really interesting and I enjoy reading despite how heartbreaking it might be but I couldn't really connect with the characters so that hindered my enjoyment. That being said I really enjoyed the writing and want to read more from this author.

Three siblings, Quinn, Fern and Reed all fell in love with their friend Dylan one summer at camp only there's a shocking twist i didn't see coming...



Quinn tells the story in perspectives split to current day and back in the summer at camp which their parents own. Now, the siblings aren't close like they used to be and Fern is staying out more with friends like Reed stays at his. Quinn however sticks with Hana her friend and fellow camp counsellor as well as new boy Alexander.



The book deals with grief and how moving on and accepting the loss of someone can hinder us for ages after. The family as a whole all are affected but each in different ways as they cope differently to each other as they all knew the person. It was moving, emotional but hopeful too as we see Quinn learn to accept what happened. Anyone who's lost someone can relate.



Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!