Plot:

Life and a dismal last name are the only two things Beyah’s parents ever gave her. After carving her path all on her own, Beyah is well on her way to bigger and better things, thanks to no one but herself. With only two short months separating her from the future she’s built and the past she desperately wants to leave behind, an unexpected death leaves Beyah with no place to go during the interim.

Forced to reach out to her last resort, Beyah has to spend the remainder of her summer on a peninsula in Texas with a father she barely knows. Beyah’s plan is to keep her head down and let the summer slip by seamlessly, but her new neighbor Samson throws a wrench in that plan.

Samson and Beyah have nothing in common on the surface.
She comes from a life of poverty and neglect; he comes from a family of wealth and privilege. But one thing they do have in common is that they’re both drawn to sad things. Which means they’re drawn to each other.

With an almost immediate connection too intense for them to continue denying, Beyah and Samson agree to stay in the shallow end of a summer fling. What Beyah doesn’t realize is that a rip current is coming, and it’s about to drag her heart out to sea.

Review:

This month’s first BookClub reads I have no words for it. I just enjoyed this book so much. One thing I will point out is that, Sara is someone you would want as your sister / best friend.

One quote I really enjoyed:

“I didn’t realise what seeing the ocean would mean to me…it should be a basic human right, a necessity it’s like years of therapy rolled up into a view”

The main character Beyah has had a tough upbringing. With a crappy mum who had an addiction with drugs and a father that was not really there. I so wished both the daughter and father had of communicated better so she had what she has now, throughout her childhood.

Not long in the novel her mother passes away of course due to an overdose and so this is her opportunity to escape sooner rather than later. Beyah phones her dad who she hasn’t really spoken to much throughout her life and decides to spend the summer with him. Throughout most of the novel she does not tell him about her mum. As it turns out he didn’t know much about her addiction issues.

Beyah is somewhat very judgemental however as the novel progresses she develops more as a person. She was very judgemental of how she expected her step-sister to be like. Oh how wrong she was.

Sara is so nice and caring as a person and then towards her sister before they had even met. This summer, it’s the two sister’s, Sara’s boyfriend Marco and his friend Sean Samson, who apparently lives next door. Sara tries to set the two up and of course it succeeds to an extent.

Both Beyah and and Samson have an end date set as they are to part on their journeys towards the end of summer as they agree to keep their relations in the ‘shallow end’.

Colleen Hoover reels you in to make you think you have figured out the novel but the plot thickens as it twists to something you didn’t completely expect.

The way this novel ended or shall I say progressed was very well done as it wasn’t expected for these type of reads so of course I enjoyed it as it was well written.

I listened to this novel whilst I go about my busy days and I still managed to follow it as there was a sufficient amount of characters and a plot to actually keep you more than interested, it keeps you wanting more!

I loved how the novel’s plot develops and you can see what happens a few years later and where the four of them all are with their lives by then and how they intertwine.

Overall, this is a must-read. I, as a fussy reader would know when a novel is good and this is definitely a must read. I found zero faults with this whatsoever. The plot is gripping at a steady pace, with some plot twists to keep you wanting more with a reasonable amount of characters and it is easy to follow so what are you waiting for?

5/5 Stars