Wild Blue Wonder- One Author's Take on Sorrow and Identity

Monsters. Romance. Teenage self-identity. Girls in science related fields (STEM). Kooky grandmas. Carlie Sorosiak’s YA novel has all of these things and more.

Book Synopsis:

There are two monsters in this story. One of them is me.

Ask anyone in Winship, Maine, and they’ll tell you the summer camp Quinn’s family owns is a magical place. Paper wishes hang from the ceiling. Blueberries grow in the dead of winter. According to local legend, a sea monster even lurks off the coast. Mostly, there’s just a feeling that something extraordinary could happen there.

Like Quinn falling in love with her best friend, Dylan.

After the accident, the magic drained from Quinn’s life. Now Dylan is gone, the camp is a lonely place, and Quinn knows it’s her fault.

But the new boy in town, Alexander, doesn’t see her as the monster she believes herself to be. As Quinn lets herself open up again, she begins to understand the truth about love, loss, and monsters—real and imagined.

---

Wild Blue Wonder, released in June 2018, was a random pick from the library and I can honestly say I am glad I found it. It is a quick read, with a somber story of first love, family, and the mystery that surrounds a small town in Maine.

Carlie Sorosiak creates a magical world of inexplicable winters and magical summers through Quinn’s eyes in her sophomore novel. 

Quinn Sawyer lives on her family’s land in Winshop, Maine which serves as the Hundreds Camp during the summer, and their home for the rest of the year. It follows her life before, during, and after an unfortunate death that she witnessed and was unable to stop. Her best friend, Dylan, drowned while trying to save her from what they believed was a Loch Ness-type lake monster. She was able to break free from the 'seaweed' which had attached itself to her, but he jumped in to save her and did not make it out alive.

The pace of the book is interesting. The plot is slow, but the story line is good. I enjoyed that the author does not give everything away all at once. It leaves you wondering and makes you want to keep going to discover all of the puzzle pieces; the information comes through in hazy bits and pieces, as if Quinn is attempting to remember it all. The book chapters alternate between summer and a current narrative, detailing the aftermath of Dylan’s death in an almost letter-like narration to her friend:

Dylan, you were drifting with me in the Hundreds' cove, an hour before the campers arrived for the first week-long session in June. Time was already thick and lazy, soft and slow. Yellow sun washed over us - enough heat that your freckles were starting to pop (p. 11).

Quinn spends several months hating herself for something that she believes she could have prevented from happening and because she believes she ruined her family's lives and her siblings no longer love her. (She is a nationally ranked swimmer whose best friend and first love died on her watch in her family’s lake). In reality, they were all reeling from the accident that there was hardly any time to clear the air- to check in on each other and make sure that whatever was happening could have been explained in a few simple words.

Here's how it goes now: Fern throws eye daggers, Reed triggers earthquakes everywhere he stomps, and I'm...well, it's safe to say that none of us are fine (p. 2).

During this time following the accident on the lake, Quinn’s family is seemingly falling apart. Her siblings no longer talk to her. Her younger sister Fern has been sneaking out at night to drink and get into trouble. Her older brother Reed has stopped conversing with her and his life has turned into more of a mystery than it was before that fateful summer day. It is widely known, and ignored, between the siblings that they were all in love with Dylan. Dylan was only privy to part of this. But all of the siblings knew, even before they had mentioned it or told Dylan.

The book beautifully explores a torn family as they quite literally fall apart and as they come back together, healing Quinn and her family.

In an effort to better understand herself as a monster and to somehow get a better grasp on reality, Quinn sets out to restore the boat from which the lake incident occurred. Her grandmother helps her, and pretty soon, Hana and Alexander have joined in on the efforts, along with Hana's boyfriend, Elliot. Quinn sees it almost as a penance...fixing the boat that ruined her life...that perhaps if she can find the monster, than Dylan's death could be further explained than just by her negligence.

---

The characters are great. The story-line is magical. The friendships are true. Hana Chang- Quinn's best friend. Alexander Kostopoulos- a Greek-British student who recently moved in to town with his grandmother. Even Fern in her teenage rebellion and Reed in his lack of motivation. I do not think that any of them left anything to be desired. From Hana and her obsession with costume makeup, to Alexander's love of cooking and level of understanding towards Quinn; Reed's relationship with his boyfriend, to Fern's love of photography and ballet. There is something about every character that draws you in, something magical.

This was the first, and not the last, book I have read by Sorosiak. Her writing is poetic and beautiful in its meaningful nature. I laugh. I cried. And I felt the pain along with the characters. Ultimately, Sorosiak shows how people deal with grief in their own ways and why it is OK to allow others in to keep you grounded.

If this YA book is not on your TBR list, it should be. If you have read it, let me know what you think!