Float by Kate Marchant is a young-adult, realistic-fiction romance story about finding yourself in a world full of ups and downs. It’s about a teenage girl named Waverly who has never really fit in anywhere. She lives in Alaska with her divorced parents, and never feels a sense of belonging at school or either of her homes. So when she gets sent to Florida to stay with her aunt for the summer, she figures it’s just another town where she’ll be out of place; especially because the beach–and everything related to it–is a foreign concept to Waverly. But she soon finds herself befriending locals and bonding with her aunt’s next-door neighbor, a boy her age named Blake. But all good things come to an end, and this summer is no different. When it’s time for our heroine to return to Alaska, she’s conflicted. After all, she’s finally found a place where she really belongs. As Waverly learns in the story: before you learn to swim, you have to learn to float. But what happens when you sink instead? This book was a very summer-y, happy story that took place on the beaches of Florida. I think this was a good book about someone finding their place when they usually feel like a fish out of water. I feel like this story only covered surface level issues, though, and never really looked deeper into the feelings of loneliness that Waverly felt at the start of the novel. I felt that it could’ve used the action of her parent’s divorce to display this idea of loneliness. There are plenty of books that include teenagers, the beach, and romance. This one wasn’t much different than those other ones, but a fun touch was the fact that Waverly was from Alaska and knew virtually nothing about the beach and swimming. Another unique addition was that the author started writing the book when she was a teen herself, making it feel more realistic than if any other author had written it. All in all, Float by Kate Marchant is a relaxing beach read that I would recommend to anyone craving the warm summer air or the sweet feeling of finally belonging.
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