Deep and insightful, the book was not a let-down like some contemporary titles are these days. There was no insta-love, there was just enough teen angst and the main character was not an air head. Beautifully written. Loved it

4.5 STARS
I really love this book! It brings a fresh twist on the whole YA coming of age story. I find that most coming of age stories are focused on the identity of the character. They find out who they are in the story and everything else is basically just background noise. In this book on the other hand, the main character Anise, already has a sense of self. While she does discover more about herself, the book mostly focuses on friendship and family.
Anise is a flawed main character, but she isn't stupid. She thinks things through, and acts mature even when things are difficult. And while she does make mistakes, they are age appropriate and not something a seven year old would have had more common sense to do or not to do.
There's great diversity in this book seamlessly woven in, and in fact the love interest is both a person of color and has a disability. These things are discussed when necessary but not shoved in the reader's face as a testament that the author used diverse characters, which I appreciate.
I also love the family, friendship, and romance aspects of this book. Each one is complex and detailed. There also are many different types of relationships within her family and friends and each one is unique and fleshed out.
I was also happy to see the way Lincoln's disability was handled. He has one arm and the only time it mentions how that effects him, is when there's something that the reader wouldn't understand how he'd do. For example it never discusses how he skates so well even with one arm, because you don't need two arms to skateboard. But it does discuss how drives because that can be more tricky to do with one hand. I also liked how there was conversation between Anise and Lincoln about him being one armed and how those conversations were there and important, but not the focus of their relationship.
Anise's friendships were also a major focus of the book and I liked how she had a group of friends rather than her one best friend. You could see how each of the relationships were unique, but it was also clear to see why this group of very different people worked well together as a cohesive friend group.
The familial relationships were all good, but I found the twins to be a little too stereo-typically childish to really enjoy them. However, I did appreciate Anise's relationship with her dad, and how he was a big part of her life.
While I liked almost everything about this book, some of Anise's choices frustrated me. For the most part she was very level headed and made good choices, but she seemed to continue to make bad choices in one area. It didn't overshadow the good parts in any way , but it did detract a little from my overall enjoyment of this book.
All in all I'd definitely recommend this book because I had a wonderful time reading it. It's refreshing and new, while still containing the cute, fun elements that I enjoy in my contemporary books.

I thought this novel was fantastic! It’s a coming of age story of Anise who is juggling the love of her family and the love for her friends. She’s also confused about her own mother and the influence she’s made in their lives. I liked the novel as it is not overly heavy in the romance or the drama department and the novel made me laugh and smile repeatedly.

Anise is a surfer and a darn good one at that. Living at a beach house with her father, many of her friends will be leaving after this summer to pursue life after high school. Anise and her childhood friends are looking forward to spending every minute this summer together including the end of the summer, Surf Break Party. As she enters the house one evening, her dad crushes her plans. An accident has left her aunt immobile and she needs assistant. With no one to care for her three children, her dad has volunteered for them to spend the summer with them in Nebraska. No surfing, no friends and definitely no Eric, just when they had their first kiss. Anise is torn between her love of family and her friends, the ones that she feels she so desperately needs. Every day her friends will be together without her, doing the things that she loves, making memories without her, it just will not be fair. I could feel the pain and the heartache that Anise was feeling, some of her friends would be gone before she returns back home and others would be relishing in the stories that occurred while she was in Nebraska. Stories without her in them. Landing in Nebraska, she is torn between loving her family that is awaiting her and hating the situation that she is now placed in. It’s Nebraska, its hot and humid and the scenery is nothing like what she is used to. The children are antsy, they’re nervous about their mother and its summer and they want to do something. Anise is in charge of the children now, her father is working a temp job, and her aunt in the hospital still. Anise is worried about her mother, her mother the-revolving-door, will this summer be the time when the door opens and she shows up or will door continue to be shut? It’s all so confusing and being in this house is even more confusing. Taking the children to the park to get them out of the house, the story becomes richer and extensive as more characters walk into their lives and numerous events transpire.

I liked that Anise is not just thinking of herself but she is thinking of others in this novel. She is committed to her family and knows that they need her but she is also worried about missing out with her friends over the summer. She is torn but she cannot be in both places. She also is concerned about her mother, the impact that she has made on them and how she has affected Anise as a person. I liked the relationships within this novel. The relationships with family, with friends and with the males in her life. I really enjoyed this novel and I highly recommend it.
I received a copy of this novel from NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire in exchange for an honest review.

I flew through this book it was so easy to read but after turning the last page it left me feeling underwhelmed, the ending wasn’t satisfying although I’m not sure what I would have wanted instead. I have a problem with the beginning and the ending but loved almost everything in between. In the first chapter your introduced to a group of friends who all seem to have a strong bond and a lot of potential. But after Anise moves she stops talking to them and all that potential goes practically nowhere. After she moves to Nebraska the story becomes more interesting Anise is completely out of her comfort zone and family takes center stage as she takes care of her cousins. Her cousins are adorable and just annoying enough to be realistic, I love her whole family her aunt and dad don’t have a ton of page time but are still good, distinctive characters.

Anise is a refreshing protagonist she’s sometimes aggravating and makes mistakes but learns and grows from them, she really cares about her family and tried her best to be there for them. The love interest, Lincoln is a sweetheart he was really nice to read about, he’s so positive and seemed to always know what Anise needed they worked well together. The romance felt natural and developed at a realistic pace, the characters don’t even say that they love each other that’s not something I encounter often in YA standalones.

If your a fan of diverse, character driven contemporary’s with adorable love interests who have dimples then this book is for you. Perhaps you’ll appreciate it more than I did, I still feel as if it’s missing something. Overall it is a great summery book that you could easily read in just a day it has lovable characters, skateboarding escapades and fantastic and immersive writing

A fun summer read! Anise is a likable main character, and I especially appreciate how Laura Silverman focuses on Anise's passion for surfing and her quest to learn to skateboard--two hobbies I haven't read about before. The romance is really well done, and the family dynamics are, too.

Anise Sawyer is a super confident fun loving surfer girl! She loves her dad, friends, and her town. So much so she plans to never leave. It was really nice to be on that side of someone's mind. I am super close to mom and just moving two hours away has been hard for me. It was really amazing to watch Anise grow into someone a little more independent.
I loved her relationship with her cousins so much! She tried so hard to take care of them and show them love. I loved the binge watching and going to the skate parks. It made happy!
Lincoln my love! He was such a strong character. He has had one arm since birth and that did not define him what so ever. He was confident, sexy, and full of himself at times. Let me tell you I was so here for that! He was also considerate and helpful. Never menacing during any of the situations he had to face with Anise. He was pretty swoon worthy. I could go for a whole origin story book on him. Even a sequel that follows him after Anise going on his trip after high school.
There are a few things that bugged me. Anise is very one sided so she said some super nasty things about skateboarders in the beginning. I understand though because it helped show the progression of her growth as a person. She was super about wanting a relationship with someone in the beginning but one look at Lincoln and its like it never happened. It felt a little pointless to me. I had a hard time feeling sorry for her in the end because she did not handle the situation with him well at all. I felt bad for him the whole time even though I was loving Lincoln.
All in all this was a good fast read that took no time to get through! This is a 3.85 stars but will be rounding up to 4!
Favorite Quote
"Thats dimple is like a go*damn super power."

I am so excited I got to read this book. I've been hearing about it here and there and when I saw I got approved for the arc I was super excited. This book is such a perfect summer contemporary. It's fun and exciting. I loved every second of this book. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of Morgan Matson.

Why DNF? Girl Out of Water is not a bad book and that is the hard part about letting it go. I just know that I could (and have) put it down and forget about it. It is in that middle area of its okay but I’m not engaged by it.

I really enjoyed this book an felt like it was a quick read. Anise is a surfer, California raised and loves her free spirited life. The summer before senior year seems promising before she finds out that she is moving to Nebraska to help out with her aunt's children after her aunt was in a terrible accident. Uprooted from her home and her passion of surfing, Anise needs to find a way to enjoy Nebraska and find a way to get through her summer as it is different than she planned. While in Nebraska she meets Lincoln at the skate park and finds out that there is more to life than just surfing. This is a story about growth and understanding of the world. Anise needs to find herself and escape from the shadow her missing mom has cast on her life. Well written and enjoyable.

Not my favorite book, but I think this will be a good title for teens who like the books of Sarah Dessen. Given her popularity, it's always nice to have comparables for her.

This is an enjoyable read, but the writing style wasn't for me. It's a little bit repetitive and the rhetorical questions every few pages got annoying, The characters are relatively bland but pleasant. Overall it's a nice, diverse story.

I really enjoyed this book! Anise has the summer before senior year all planned out. Before her friends all go separate ways to college, they have concerts, bonfires, and food to enjoy together. But when Anise's aunt is in a terrible car accident, she and her father must pack up and spend the summer at her aunt's helping her cover and taking care of her young cousins.
While there she meets Lincoln and learns more about herself than she had imagined she could. While it wasn't the summer she expected, it was the one she didn't know she needed.
Definitely recommend this book.
I am thankful to Netgalley, Laura Silverman, and Sourcefire books for the opportunity to get an early look at this great debut novel!

Girl Out Of Water Book Review
bookishdiana:https://bookishdiana.wordpress.com/
Posted: April 17,2017


Published: May 2nd

Genres: Young Adult

Reading from: ebook

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Pages:320 pages

Recommend: Sure, great summer/spring read, very fun and light

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Summary from Goodreads:

Anise Sawyer plans to spend every minute of summer with her friends: surfing, chowing down on fish tacos drizzled with wasabi balsamic vinegar, and throwing bonfires that blaze until dawn. But when a serious car wreck leaves her aunt, a single mother of three, with two broken legs, it forces Anise to say goodbye for the first time to Santa Cruz, the waves, her friends, and even a kindling romance, and fly with her dad to Nebraska for the entire summer. Living in Nebraska isn’t easy. Anise spends her days caring for her three younger cousins in the childhood home of her runaway mom, a wild figure who’s been flickering in and out of her life since birth, appearing for weeks at a time and then disappearing again for months, or even years, without a word.
Complicating matters is Lincoln, a one-armed, charismatic skater who pushes Anise to trade her surfboard for a skateboard. As Anise draws closer to Lincoln and takes on the full burden and joy of her cousins, she loses touch with her friends back home – leading her to one terrifying question: will she turn out just like her mom and spend her life leaving behind the ones she loves
THANKS TO THE PUBLISHER WHO PROVIDED A COPY, ALL MY OPINIONS ARE ,MINE THOUGH.

"Is it possible to leave a place without leaving anyone behind?"

Girl Out of Water is a story about Ansie who has to go and live in Nebraska to help out taking care of her family when her aunt gets in car wreck leaving her severely injured. She has no desire to to leave to go to Nebraska. She really cam't imagine leaving her friends behind over the summer, when she has it all planned out. But as she gets to Nebraska she starts to get really comfortable with her life in Nebraska. But she fears to start turn like her mom, who just leaves and then shows up without any warning.

So this book was a fun read, but isn't against to be one of those that sticks with me in the few months. It just isn't something completely unique.

The whole story was really cute, and will be probably(hopefully) what readers will like most of this story. He's really sweet and charismatic. Beyond charming and really fun. He's your nice guy but still really funny, he what people look in a friends and partner (I would think). He's a disabled (he has one arm) and African American male(YAY FOR DIVERSITY)


“Home isn’t a place. It’s people. And I’ve always been with my people.”

So i really loved the whole family relationship for me it was very very very realistic and insanely cute, i loved the boys and whole relationship between the family.....


But the ending felt abrupt for me, it was cute. But it felt like my book was missing about 50 more passages. I didn't really feel closure with the whole sorry. Also I felt it was a bit more open ending than I wanted it to be...... maybe just me??????????????

Overall it was insanely cute, and i recommend it for people who love summery and cute reads.

OH OH OH AND THERE'S SOME SURFERS, AND SKATEBOARDERS....COOL RIGHT

"Is it possible to leave a place without leaving anyone behind?"

Anise needs to discover this, abandoned by her mother who only appears from time to time,she was raised by her father and since child she loves the sea , find her realization and her personal fulfillment . She loves to surf and loves her friends, every year anxiously waits for the summer, which is the time when she can spend the whole day defying the waves and enjoying her friends. This year will be special and full of memories because it was the last year everyone will be together before college.

The book begins with her challenging a big wave to the beach pattern in which she surfs and dwells and ends up being swallowed by it at the end and with this analogy that the writer Prepares the reader for the change of pace of Anise's life.

Her aunt, her mother's sister, has been seriously injured by a car accident and her father volunteer to help take care of the house and her three children. The detail is that it will be all summer and in a city that does not even have a beach.

Even though she is very sad, she travels and because she is a very responsible girl and loves her cousins, she takes care of them, the twins being agitated and the oldest 12 years old girl who is going through a crisis and does not want to talk With no one about it.

"I've been torn from comfort and stability, thrown out to be without a buoy."

Thanks to the cousins, she knows a park near the house of the aunt and is also there that she will meet the guy who will force her out of her comfort zone. Lincoln is a boy who challenge her to discover new horizons and make new discoveries, shows Anise how each place has its fascinating site and helps the girl to adapt to her new
life even if it is temporary.

With a smooth flowing writing, Laura Silverman takes the reader to follow the personal growth of Anise and still shows how she discovers if she is able to keep her friends independent of where she is. The romance only serves as a backdrop, but the main focus of the book is to show how Anise will overcome her pain and overcome herself.
In addition to it raises many questions that serve for any age.

I really enjoyed the quiet way everything happens without dramas or exaggerated tragedies and with characters very well characterized and with strong influence in life
Of the protagonist . I only found it to be a bit repetitive sometimes, especially when she questioned her mother's behavior.

Narrated in the first person and full of messages of optimism and challenge, I was sucked by the story and when I arrived at the end, I was left with a very good taste and need more books.

As much as I like to read the acnowledgments , I found out that the writer was a student of the fantastic and controversial David Levithan and for sure she learned all her lessons very well.

5/ 5 stars.
Kisses,Myl

3.5 Stars- I enjoyed this coming of age story. The writing was good, the characters were complicated (I think all stories should have that), and the big ideas were relatable. My favorite character was Lincoln because he was so easy to like. Overall a solid read. I'd definitely add it to my classroom library.

Anise had her summer plans locked down. She was going to spend her days surfing and lazing about the beach with her best friends, as this was the last summer they all would be together. All her plans are destroyed, when Anise's aunt is in an awful car accident, that leaves her with two shattered legs and three pre-teen children to fend for themselves. Anise and her father heed their family obligation, and jet off to Nebraska to help as her aunt recovers. Being far from home sets Anise a drift as she attempts to navigate this new life away from everything she knows.

"But maybe that's part of what family is -- loving people you have nothing in common with."

I pretty much plowed through this book. I found the story interesting, amusing, touching, realistic, and relatable. I fell in love with many of the characters, and found that it was terribly important to me, that Anise resolve her various issues before the end of the book. Or, at least resolve some of them. I needed her to move towards healing, so that she could get out from under that cloud and shine. Bottomline: I was totally invested in her.

"I wonder if, when you have children, your DNA mutates so that you'll do anything to make your kids happy........I wonder if my mom's DNA forgot to mutate."

Anise was a pretty great person. She was athletic, competitive, a good friend, a great cousin, a wonderful daughter, but she struggled with several issues that held her back. First, she grappled with her abandonment issues. Her mother apparently had some serious wanderlust, and would drift in and out of her life. This gouged a huge hole in her heart, and made Anise afraid of leaving her home and her friends. She feared that she was just like her mother, and that if she left, she would just disappear, never to return. This robbed her of experiences, and planted a lot of doubt in her mind, which later complicates things with her friends.

"The irony doesn't escape me that my mom's favorite sport is running."

Not to fear, though. Silverman filled this story with some stupendous characters, who were there to help Anise wade through these difficult waters. Her best friend, Tess, is very different from Anise, but compliments her in so many ways. She is steadfast and forgiving, but also very honest. Everyone needs a BFF like that, who will keep them centered and dust them off when they've fallen down. Anise also had a wonderful father. His world was also shaken when his wife deserted their family, and she left him to care for their young child on their own. He rose to the challenge, and provided Anise with a great upbringing. He was open and was able to face those difficult topics with his daughter. He was just a wonderful dad. I saved the best for last - Lincoln. Lincoln was so, so special. Every page he inhabited sparkled and shined. His personality, his smile, his dimple, his lust for exploration -- it was all so infectious. When he was with people, he always made them a better version of themselves. Lincoln knew when to approach and retreat when dealing with Anise. He helped her dig deep and face those hard truths that she needed to confront in order to move on and free herself. He just called himself a
"skateboarding evangelist", and there was definitely some truth in that statement. In addition to simply being an amazing human, he represents people with disabilities and adoptees and so much more. He was by far my favorite character in this book.

I sort of love all the ways you can interpret this title with respect to Anise and her story. There is the literal, that when Anise has to leave her beloved beach and go to Nebraska, she finds herself more or less landlocked. I am not a beach person, but the way Anise waxes about the ocean, the feel, the sounds, even made me sort of wistful for it. The ocean was her comfort zone. There she had mountains of confidence and could easily navigate the waters. She was also able to carry this confidence onto the sand, but this was all stripped away in Nebraska. Without the ocean, the beach, and surfing, Anise seemed to lose her identity and her confidence. She was unnerved as she was thrust into new situations, and was slow to acclimate.

I was so happy with how Silverman allowed Anise to grow and find her way. It was a rocky journey, but she was definitely in a better place at the end of the story, than at the beginning, and that is what I expect in a good YA book.

Overall: A charming coming of age story filled with character who pop off the page and touch your heart.

I was really looking forward to reading this one but in the end, it just wasn't for me. I could not get into nor could I connect with any of the characters. Quite the opposite actually. Anise annoyed me. The entire portion of the book I read was extremely repetitive and full of a whiny teenager. I decided to DNF at 56%. Because I chose not to finish I will not be rating this book because I honestly have no idea what I would rate it anyways. 1 star is too low and 2 stars is too high.

As a fan of contemporary novels, I knew I couldn’t pass up the chance to read Silverman’s debut. While I know approximately nothing about about surfing, a “fish out of water” story is always intriguing.

Anise is used to living near the ocean, surfing daily and spending time with her friends. When her mom’s sister has an accident that breaks her legs, Anise and her father leave Santa Cruz for Nebraska. Anise misses her friends and the last summer she’d get to see some of them, and taking care of her smaller cousins is not something she’s used to. But she quickly finds that she can take her family to the park, and in the process meets Lincoln. As the summer continues and her relationship with Lincoln grows, Anise has to confront whether she’s that different from her mom, who flits from place to place and forgets who she has left behind. Girl Out of Water is a take on the classic “fish out of water” story in a truly original way.

I really enjoyed reading about Anise’s journey, and I can tell that Girl Out of Water is a novel perfect for the summer as the vivid descriptions of surfing and summer heat will make you itch to read near a cool breeze.

Anise’s characterization was definitely well-written, and it was great to see her grow and change throughout the novel. I also loved all of the other characters, especially the love interest, Lincoln, who teaches Anise how to skateboard. Anise’s family was also great to read about.

I also loved the way in which Anise’s world was so diverse, as it reflects the reality of our world. If you’re tired of contemporary novels that feature an all-white straight cast, Girl Out of Water will definitely be a refreshing read.

Overall, Girl Out of Water takes a classic trope and crafts a truly unique story. I highly recommend it for those looking for a unique and refreshing contemporary novel, perfect for the spring and summer.

Girl Out of Water doesn't take the easy way out. The character of Anise is not 100% easy to love right away, but that it because she is dealing with change in an honest way. The author also doesn't choose to tie everything up into the neat bow that it seems like Anise might desire by the end of the book. This is okay, too, since life doesn't often end up that way either.

The book is a quick read, starting with the life I know I wished I had as a teen - sunlight bouncing off of the ocean water, hanging out with true friends in the sun and surf - but transitioning to the reality of moving to the (decidedly ocean-free) Midwest due to the health needs of a family member. Throughout the book Anise wrestles with love, family, loss, willingness to step out of one's comfort zone and try something challenging and new, not wanting history to repeat itself... many of the issues that teens may face in their own lives. Much of Anise's growth is gently guided by the character of Lincoln.

Nice debut by Laura Silverman. I look forward to her next novel.

I am so thankful to be given an e-ARC of this book from NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire. I was highly anticipating this book from Laura Silverman, an author that I was following on Twitter, and I'm so glad that I read this book at this time of my life when I could relate the most.

We have Anise, a Santa Cruz local and surfboarder converted to skateboarder who has to spend the summer in Nebraska to take care of her aunt's children after her aunt had a near-fatal accident that injured her legs. So she has to leave her senior year summer behind and temporarily live in a foreign place to me.

I've been hearing this being pitched as a unique and different idea. And I was beg to disagree, this seemed to have a typical contemporary romance premise and plot. However, what makes the book shine in my eyes was the diversity of the side characters and the way that this author handles teenager relationships realistically. The dynamic between the “single parent”-her father was extremely well-developed, it wasn’t exactly the stereotypical relationship that tends to come to mind when you think about that parent-child relationship.

The number one thing for me was to my perspective accurate representation or different cultures and ethnicity that were just casually embodied by the friends and side character of Anise. She has a Polynesian best friend, a black boyfriend who has one arm, and it was by no means a focus of the story, just something that was normally adding into our colorful world.

Also it was so adorable to see her interacting with her younger cousins and really caring about them. What didn’t happen was that she got so caught her in her summer romance that she completely forgot that there are three younger people under her responsibility. Emery seems like an extremely mature tween/pre-teen who went through the real emotions that should happen when such a tragedy like this happened.

It was doubly adorable to see her relationship with Lincoln. He was honestly just a gentlemen and motivator, and just to see the care that he took to make Anise feel happy and comfortable was extremely touching. I was basically screaming “relationship goals” throughout the whole romantic subplot, swooning, and walking around like a heart eyes emoji.

My only minor complaint that wasn’t even a big deal, was that at some points in the book Anise started getting extremely whiny and complaining constantly about not being at the physical place that she wants to be in life. At other parts she acted so immature that I just wanted to cringe at the way that she was treating some people in her life. Another little thing is that I wanted the car accident to be more of a factor, or the actual incident explained the scene in detail.

The best element that I thought the author captured in a glass bottle was your heart being torn between two places. The escalating excitement, joy, regret, loneliness, and want to go back “home.” While Anise started slightly adjusting to her new environment, I was really rooting for her transition and the start of her new relationship.

I’ve not seen many authors successfully accomplish painting this clear picture of the idea of home is where your people and family are. That sounds really cliche describing that way, and the reason why readers can approach that with such hesitation is maybe because it hasn’t been done all that well previously; this is the exception.