It’s 1992, and the world is caught up in the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the Balkan Wars, but for fifteen-year-old Julie Winter, the news is noise. In Portland, Oregon, Julie moves through her days in a series of negatives: the skaters she doesn’t think are cute, the trinkets she doesn’t buy at the craft fair, the umbrella she refuses to carry despite the incessant rain. Her family life is routine and restrained, and no one talks about Julie’s older brother, a one-time Olympic-hopeful swimmer who now lives in self-imposed exile in Berlin. Julie has never considered swimming herself, until Alexis, the girls’ swim team captain, tries to recruit her. It’s a dare, and a flirtation—and a chance for Julie to find her brother, or to finally let him go. Anything could happen when her body hits water.
| I almost don't know what to do with this book. One of the blurbs on the cover described it as "part diary, part dream" which definitely feels right but I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. The lack of punctuation for dialogue really threw me off and left me confused half the time. I both loved and hated how open-ended the book was. I wanted some better understanding of what was going on with Julie's brother, but I liked how open Julie's own future and story seemed, not tied up in a neat happy ending. This book has been sitting in the back of my head for almost a week and I'm still not sure how to sum it up or what all to say. Definitely a unique reading experience for me, though. |
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