![]() ![]() ![]() Ellie’s instability is the narrative locus, and the portrayal of teenage addiction occasionally feels unconvincing and melodramatic, as does the puppy-dog rendering of Charles, Maya’s adoring and one-dimensional TA. Meanwhile, her brother flounders through his freshman year, and her parents drift further apart. ![]() From then on, the chapters shift between present and past: a present where Ellie is away from home, recovering from a vaguely alluded-to tragedy, and the past, where Ellie has begun to spiral out of control toward the mistake that will unravel her and her family. “I’m fine,” her daughter says, although the reader always suspects this isn’t true. An English professor and overbearing mother, Maya tumbles fully-clothed into the ocean to rescue her young daughter, Ellie, from a wave in the foreshadowing first chapter. Strong’s debut novel features some familiar elements-an unhappy academic family (in Park Slope), children flailing, one spouse emotionally distant, the other tempted by a student-but it is saved by the convincing emotional gymnastics of Maya Taylor. ![]()
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