This is an incredibly powerful coming-of-age story about two teenage girls, Bethany and Phoebe, told from Phoebe’s perspective. They’ve been friends their whole lives, but as teenagers they start to face events and decisions bigger than those they’ve ever faced before. Throughout the course of the novel, Phoebe comes to see the world, and the people in it, more complexly than she has before, and Bethany learns that she is much stronger than she ever thought she was. 

While the first half of the book was fairly slow-paced, at around the half-way mark it really picked up and I couldn’t put it down! And all of the smaller plot points in the first half had nice endings and full-circle moments in the second, giving the book a great sense of both closure and new beginnings at the end. 

I loved how Phoebe’s autism was presented as something neutral. There were times it made things harder, but there were also times that it made her better equipped to deal with something. It was a part of her, just like any other aspect of someone’s personality, but not something that she needed to overcome. Equally, the events that happen in the book don’t happen because she’s autistic, or are made harder or easier by her autism. 

I also thought the choice to set the book on Lindisfarne was a brilliant one. I’ve visited a few times and as lovely as it is, I’m very glad I don’t live there! As you can only get on and off the island at low tide. As well as just being an unusual setting, it also worked really for a coming-of-age story. Sometimes the characters could travel on and off the island as much as they pleased, sometimes they were stuck on the island, sometimes they were stuck on the mainland. They alternated between having loads of freedom and being stuck in a community of 150 people you’ve known your whole life, which added a great dynamic to the characters’ journeys. 

This is a really fantastic book for teenagers, and one that will be a staple in school libraries for many years to come. That being said, I think there is something to take from this book at any age, which is a testament to the quality of this book. 

I received a free copy for review. All opinions are my own.