I have to admit I found the book situations precarious and slightly morbid. Being the daughter of a fisherman didn’t allow for much of a life for Sarah. Being overly controlled by her father and the mean boys next door didn’t allow for much light hearted reading. The book take an otherworldly presence when she commits suicide and it shadows the rest of the read. So not for the faint of heart. The neighbor boy Grant trying to make things right was a good step but then the book just plunged into darkness. I had a hard time finishing. Just too depressing. One star… no reading pleasure.

The stealing by S.A. Sutila.
Sarah Vise's life is a literal dead-end street. Abandoned by her mother as a child, she lives on a coastal road to nowhere, working endless hours on her domineering father's fishing boat in the shadow of a run-down lighthouse. As her high school graduation approaches, the end of the relentless monotony seems to be on the horizon. She is accepted into college and has an intriguing encounter with Grant Eriksen, the tall, blue-eyed neighbor who appears intent on making amends for past mistakes.
A good read. Likeable story. Slow but readable. 3*.

DNF

Ho ricevuto l'arc tramite Netgalley per questo libro e devo essere sincera. Non l'ho finito. Già dopo tre capitoli mi sentivo soffocare dalle descrizioni prolisse dell'autrice su pesci morti e intestini, per non parlare della vita miserabile e deprimente della protagonista. Ma mi son sforzata e ho continuato a leggere. Fino a quando questa povera disgraziata prova a suicidarsi ma non ci riesce.
Capitolo seguente: uno strano figuro si aggira attorno alla sua casa e non si capisce se lei stia vedendo la scena al di fuori del suo corpo mentre sogna, o qualcosa del genere...
Qualche pagina dopo muore, anzi viene uccisa.
E si ritrova in una specie di paradiso che assomiglia a dove viveva ma senza alcun segno di case o altri esseri umani a parte questo tizio che pare volerla fare felice.

Mi sono fermata qui. Questo libro per me non ha alcun senso. Mi manca seriamente il fiato ogni volta che l'autrice si prolunga in descrizioni hyperdescrittive su qualcosa. Sopratutto su pesci, tartarughe e animali vari...va bene qualche riga...ma interi paragrafi no grazie!

Dubito lo riprenderò in mano in futuro. Ma non si sa mai. Comunque non è decisamente il libro che fa per me.
Mi spiace!


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DNF

I received the arc through Netgalley for this book and I have to be honest. I haven't finished it. Already after three chapters I felt suffocated by the author's verbose descriptions of dead fishes and intestines, not to mention the miserable and depressing life of the protagonist. But I tried hard and kept reading. Until this poor wretch tries to commit suicide but she doesn't succeed.
Next chapter: a strange figure is wandering around her house and it is not clear if she is seeing the scene outside her body while she dreams, or something like that ...
A few pages later she dies, no sorry... she is killed.
And she finds herself in a kind of paradise that looks like where she lived but with no sign of houses or other human beings other than this guy who seems to want to make her happy.

I stopped here. This book makes no sense to me. I seriously can take anymore of the author's hyper-descriptive descriptions of something. Especially of fish, turtles and various animals ... a few lines are fine ... but whole paragraphs no thanks!

I doubt I'll come back to it in the future. It is definitely not the book for me.
I am sorry!

This book surprised me at every turn and I never got my "sea legs" (get it? she's the captain's daughter) under me.

Sarah is a troubled young girl. She's been made fun of all throughout high school because of her father's profession, her ability to be part of a ship's crew, and, it turns out, because she's secretly coveted by the guys. As graduation looms, she's excited to escape her small town and start fresh. The neighbor boys have been a particular thorn in her side for her whole life, always bullying her and making fun. Grant, however, decides that now is the time to ask for forgiveness and pursue her. While there are some sparks, she quickly ends up in a suicidal tailspin when her dad says she can no longer go away to school.

There are some very dark themes in this book and I found myself cringing at times to get through Sarah's morbid thoughts. One such trauma ends with her adrift in a spirit world, where a narcissist ends up taking her life as punishment and/or a learning exercise (still a little unclear there). Max, this mystical being, transforms her into something more and sends her back to earth, leaving her hoping it was all just a dream and she doesn't have a ticking clock on her life.

Grant and Sarah as a couple was a combination of awkward high school romance and borderline stalker-ish. With all the other stuff going on in her life, though, his family seemed like a nice place for her to discover her true self worth. That's the ultimate HEA for me in this book, and the overall romance is secondary. I'd warn that if you are easily triggered by the darker types of paranormal storylines, this book may not be for you, but otherwise, it was definitely unexpected.

I liked the gothic tone of the novel. It's an interesting combination to take small town, gothic, folklore, and the supernatural and mash them all together. There's something eerie and slightly out-of-control that made it a story I couldn't stop reading.

There are details about what it's like to work on a fishing boat, and they were really engrossing (and gross) and fascinating. Same with flying a plane. Those moment really captured my interest.

At the same time, this was a book where I spent a good amount of time shaking my head at the plot. Sarah and Grant are both incredibly immature and emotionally stunted, and Sarah in particular is all over the place with what she's thinking and feeling. As an eighteen-year-old, that's kind of understandable, but it's never addressed. There's often little connection from one chapter to another.

Her feelings toward everyone in her life, with the exception of her best friend, vacillate to the extremes with little rhyme or reason: her father, Max, Grant, Lance & Brady. I was never sure what were her true feelings and the novel is very distant so although we have access to Sarah's thoughts, I never felt that connected to her. It's more of an outside observer.

People's reactions to things from the community down to the individuals didn't ring true for several big plot points. (view spoiler)

There's also the very problematic recurring theme that Sarah's great beauty somehow "causes" men to react like possessive jerks. As a society, this blaming the female victim stuff is a real thing, and I didn't care to see how it played out in the story. (view spoiler)

The romance was incredibly shallow and distant. The love seems to come from nowhere other than their mutual attractiveness, and I never felt any chemistry or cared all that much.

However, part of that distancing actually worked in tandem with the distance of the narrator. Reading the novel is almost like a fever dream, where things don't make sense and there are these leaps of logic and there's a ton of confusion and actions that don't seem to belong next to one another. So even though there was a lot I didn't like about the novel, it was really compelling.

This book was absolutely fantastic. I've already added it to our list for order this year and will recommend it to students.

The concept of the book is fairly unique and the overall vibe that you get while reading is definitely moody/creepy/suspenseful. The story focuses on Sarah, a young girl about to graduate high-school who hopes to escape her life in her small town where she works for her abusive fisherman father.

This book is set in the 1980s which is fact I somehow forgot while I was reading, and I kept being disturbed by everyone smoking nonstop.

I think that the writing was done beautifully, and the author excelled at making you feel the overall esthetic and atmospheric setting. At the same time, while the middle of the book seemed to drag, in actual time only two weeks passed. And based on what events happened and how the relationship between Grant and Sarah developed it made me very critical of them as it became a very Romeo and Juliet type of story.

If you will read this book, do check the TWs as the story includes child abuse, violence, suicide, stalking, kidnapping and bullying.

The story itself is good and keeps you interested but really this book was not for me. My work and home background really made me feel uncomfortable and a bit angry with some of the (male) characters. Sorry but it was not for me.

Huh, interesting and…bizarre

A very unique concept. I was worried at first I would get bored, but I didn’t. I enjoyed the setting.

I was sort of lost as to where the book was headed sometimes, I wasn’t sure who I was supposed to root for. By the end I still had some unanswered questions.

The supernatural elements fell away at some point for a bit and then I felt like I was reading something akin to a Fallen Crest High novel.

Sarah is wishy washy and, while I know she’s a teen, kind of dumb. He’s not a “bad boy” Sarah, he’s a spirit who took you without your consent.

Grant has good and bad moments but I was on his team.

There is a tragedy and the end that really bummed me out but there is still a good ending

This seemed like a stand-alone but the epilogue made me question that? I’m just going to pretend I didn’t see it.

*thank you to S.A. Sutila, Advantage, Forbes books and Literally PR for giving me a copy of the book for review*