From the Publisher
My Heart Underwater is a lovely, magnificent wonder of a novel that will leave you with the rarest of tender heartaches: life-affirming, life-inspiring, life-loving; a heartache of joy and becoming. You won’t walk freely, or willingly, from these pages. — New York Times bestselling author Marjorie Liu
Beautifully unsettling and deeply satisfying, My Heart Underwater should be read by all—and it’s a gift to any community, not just the YA community, that such a heartfelt, literary novel is now in our hands. — Gina Apostol, author of Gun Dealers' Daughter, PEN/Open Book Award winner
A wise, complex exploration of a young person on the cusp of adulthood as she navigates the in-between: being Filipinx in America and American in the Philippines. Readers who yearn for stories closer to the nuances, contradictions, and messiness of real life will love Cory and root for her.
— Grace Talusan, author of The Body Papers, winner of the Restless Books Prize
“A (home)coming out story that rides a deep undercurrent of love.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“This emotionally powerful YA debut sensitively portrays the tension between Cory’s American upbringing and attempts to stay true to her cultural roots.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Not to be missed." — School Library Journal
“This soulful #OwnVoices story explores how love for family and tradition can conflict with personal dignity." — Booklist
“Smoothly woven and intriguing glimpses of Filipino culture, language, and economy pop up throughout this #ownvoices novel.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
“Fantauzzo’s emotional story extends beyond Cory’s search for identity and belonging, adding insights about both historical and metaphorical colonization, while readers are immersed in the uncertainty that surrounds new and ongoing family crises, resentment, and forgiveness.” — Horn Book Magazine
Gina Apostol
Beautifully unsettling and deeply satisfying, My Heart Underwater should be read by all—and it’s a gift to any community, not just the YA community, that such a heartfelt, literary novel is now in our hands.
Grace Talusan
A wise, complex exploration of a young person on the cusp of adulthood as she navigates the in-between: being Filipinx in America and American in the Philippines. Readers who yearn for stories closer to the nuances, contradictions, and messiness of real life will love Cory and root for her.
Horn Book Magazine
Fantauzzo’s emotional story extends beyond Cory’s search for identity and belonging, adding insights about both historical and metaphorical colonization, while readers are immersed in the uncertainty that surrounds new and ongoing family crises, resentment, and forgiveness.
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
Smoothly woven and intriguing glimpses of Filipino culture, language, and economy pop up throughout this #ownvoices novel.
Booklist
This soulful #OwnVoices story explores how love for family and tradition can conflict with personal dignity."
New York Times bestselling author Marjorie Liu
My Heart Underwater is a lovely, magnificent wonder of a novel that will leave you with the rarest of tender heartaches: life-affirming, life-inspiring, life-loving; a heartache of joy and becoming. You won’t walk freely, or willingly, from these pages.
Booklist
This soulful #OwnVoices story explores how love for family and tradition can conflict with personal dignity."
Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
Smoothly woven and intriguing glimpses of Filipino culture, language, and economy pop up throughout this #ownvoices novel.
null New York Times bestselling author Marjorie Liu
My Heart Underwater is a lovely, magnificent wonder of a novel that will leave you with the rarest of tender heartaches: life-affirming, life-inspiring, life-loving; a heartache of joy and becoming. You won’t walk freely, or willingly, from these pages.
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2020-08-12
Corazon “Cory” Tagubio is a Southern Californian FilAm caught between her duty toward her hardworking immigrant parents and her sexual awakening.
When her mother catches 17-year-old Cory kissing Ms. Holden, her 25-year-old White Catholic school history teacher, she sends Cory to the Philippines to live with Kuya Jun, an older half brother whom she has only met through Skype. Cory arrives in the Philippines heartbroken twice over: Her beloved father is in a coma, and, separated from Ms. Holden, Cory feels untethered and deeply alone. In her YA debut, Fantauzzo’s gorgeous writing presents an emotionally wrought American-born teenager on a journey to define her present as well as understand her family’s past. The unethical relationship with Ms. Holden is effectively used as a device for Cory’s journey of self-inquiry and growing understanding of real love, bolstered by her cousin’s and friends’ more developed ethical and political consciousnesses. One of a cast of splendidly drawn characters, Cory faces hidden truths about familial separation and lasting bonds that provide a layered backdrop for her own catharsis. In tight sentences, Fantauzzo packs a punch, describing Cory’s fraught emotional tightrope as she negotiates Catholic dogma of right and wrong, repression, and rage in ways that will surely resonate with anyone who simply cannot live any longer without questioning norms. Tagalog and Taglish are interlaced throughout, adding an atmospheric texture that refreshingly lends rarely depicted insights into authentic Filipino humor, conflict, and expressions of love.
A (home)coming out story that rides a deep undercurrent of love. (Fiction. 14-18)
