Fish Out Of Water is the third novel by Australian author, Kate Hendrick. Fifteen-year-old Finn is smart, good-looking and a race-winning swimmer, like his father. He trains with an almost religious fervour, driven to the pool by his older sister Connie.

But then, one day something makes him falter, lose a race. Finn impulsively decides to quit. Misses two training sessions. Realises nothing else quite works to focus his energy: he feels like a fish out of water. He swims again. Connie pinpoints the problem: he’s thinking of his father, his coach, who disappeared without explanation three years ago.

During that short dry interval, two important things occur that have some impact: an interaction with the class swot, Aaliyah Osman and, when he returns to training, a new guy, Loki, who outswims him.

Aaliyah repeatedly engages him in intelligent and reasoned discussions: about his choices and the impact they have on others, about his attitude, about his academic abilities. When she criticises his mindset, pointing out his advantage by genetic lottery, he reacts poorly. She challenges his arrogance and calls him out for gaslighting her. Finn doesn’t even know what that is, but when he finds out, he vaguely recalls witnessing it at close quarters.

Loki ought to be a rival, but they connect so effortlessly, he becomes a friend instead, perhaps Finn’s first real friend. Everything they do together: training, working out, climbing, just hanging out, it’s all stress -free, so easy. Loki is a valued sounding board for whatever bothers him. And lately, things are bothering him, about his dad, his hero. About his mother and her lame boyfriend. About girlfriends. And about himself.

Hendrick’s ability to put the reader inside the head of a fifteen-year-old boy is nothing short of remarkable. While this is a coming-of-age story, it has a strong mystery element, some dark humour and a slow reveal to an excellent twist. Some aspects of the story are quite dark, as Hendrick focusses on the psychological damage to children who witness domestic abuse in the form of physical and mental cruelty and coercive control. A thought-provoking, insightful and powerful read.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Text Publishing.

This is a book that surprised me. I started it, expecting to go in one direction, and then it veered off into something that was not entirely unexpected, but not where I thought it would go. It’s about respect, abuse, masculinity and identity. How you can live in a house and see one version of events, and it’s not until you start listening to another side of the same story, you see things in a new light. It would be a great choice as a class text, a lot of layers, with a real twist.

Wow, I needed to sit for a while after reading this YA novel. This certainly wasn't the book I thought I was going to read when I picked it up. That's not to say it wasn't a good read, but it was a dark read, with dark subjects, subjects that aren't spoken about enough, familial domestic abuse, domestic violence, gaslighting, verbal abuse. There was a dark foreboding as I read that had me unable to put the book down even as Finn's life and what he thought he knew spiralled further out of control.

As he learns what gaslighting is and slowly starts to realise the way his father treated his mother and how he was copying that behaviour, I could feel the horror as he came to understand what had been going on in his family.

As the book goes on his life slowly starts to spiral out of control as things he'd forgotten purposely or subconsciously, come out into the light. It was like watching a car crash in slow motion, knowing that when everything stops, nothing is ever going to be the same again.

While dealing with this, Finn also has to deal with his feelings towards his new friend Loki, feelings that add to the stress he is already going through and which I felt were a big part of tipping his subconscious over the edge. While one of the tags for this book was LGBTQI, this was a very tiny part, it definitely played a role in his mental health, but wasn't the focus of the story.

Secrets, lies, misunderstandings, denial, a dysfunctional family, there was a lot in this YA novel and everything that happened built to a climactic /explosive outcome.

Thank you to NetGalley and Text Publishing for a digital copy in return for an honest review.

I really, REALLY wanted to like this book. I kept pushing through hoping for some kind of character breakthrough, needing to know how it ended even though I was sure I already knew, but in the end I was just disappointed.

It didn’t feel enough for Finn to acknowledge he didn’t want to be like his father after having to listen to his selfish, stupid, misogynistic internal monologue for the entire book, and it also felt odd for him to acknowledge Aaliyah was right because despite her being technically right, she was also rude and presumptuous without even knowing him.

And the ending. Wanting to know what happened to Finn’s dad was the only reason I kept reading even though I feel like I worked that out very early on. It was so obvious I was hoping I was wrong.

I dunno. It all felt flat to me. There was no emotion, no likable characters, only a half-captivating plot with a predictable ending.

Also, this was marketed to me as LGBT+ but that entire subplot was put on the back-burner and never developed.