Waves

by Sharon Dogar Narrated by James Clamp

Overview

“Where is she? And what was she doing out on the waves that night?”

For Hal, now, this summer is different. Sure he's spending it, as always, with his family at their cottage on the wild west coast of England. But this summer he meets Jackie, beautiful, impetuous Jackie. Lying with her on the beach while she sculpts mermaids from wet sand-it's paradise. Or would be, if only he didn't keep hearing the desperate pleas of his lost sister Charley in his head . . .
For Charley, then, last summer was different. Pete, the impossibly gorgeous surf god, wanted her, she couldn't believe it! To lick the sand off his lips, to let the sun tan the outline of her hand over his heart-she'd do anything to be with him. Even if it meant sneaking out and leaving her tagalong brother Hal behind. Just for one night. How could she have known what would happen by dawn?
Set at a beach where growing up goes wrong, Waves is a coming-of-age mystery about first love and tragic loss. About a family drowning in sorrow, and the courageous son struggling against the tide to save them.

Editorial Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

Every year, Hal's family vacations at their summer home in Brackinton on England's coast. However, things are different this year: His spirited older sister Charley won't be there, and the family's return means painfully revisiting the site of Charley's mysterious accident, which left her comatose. From the moment Hal returns to Brackinton, Charley's thoughts eerily start mixing with his own urging him to remember the details of her accident. With the help of Jack, Hal's crush and the younger sister of Charley's boyfriend, Hal learns to listen closely to Charley's disembodied voice and to piece together memories of that fateful night until he finally understands the shocking truth behind Charley's accident. Skillfully narrated through Hal and Charley's alternating voices and thoughts, Dogar frequently and seamlessly shifts between time and place to create a haunting mystery packed with suffering, hope and personal growth. Riveting. (Fiction. YA)

From the Publisher

Booklist
Dogar will make more than a glancing impression on teens with this elaborately structured debut, encompassing grief, suspense, romance, and emotional bonds so intense they slip past the usual boundaries of consciousness. At the novel's center are the unknown events that left 15-year-old Charley washed up on a Cornwall beach, comatose. The following summer, her bereft family returns to the same seaside community, where younger brother Hal begins, inexplicably, to channel his hospitalized sister's memories, connecting her injury to the brother of the girl he loves. The fragmented narrative leaps chaotically among Charley's, Hal's, and their telepathically fused perspectives, and not every reader will buy the supernatural elements. But teens who don't balk at nonlinear narratives will sink into Dogar's lyrical, free-associative writing, as expressive about tender romantic moments (such as the sharing of breath, “sweet and close and tangling”) as it is about the burden of loss, “like being stuck in a half-life, like some nuclear dump, with millions of years to go before the poison burns itself away.” –Jennifer Mattson

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169124767
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	03/13/2007
Edition description:	Unabridged

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