Underwater by Marisa Reichardt

I spent a couple of hours at urgent care with my husband last night, so I got a bunch of reading time in. I finished this book! When I started it a couple of weeks ago, I wasn't very impressed. Here was another book about a teenager with agoraphobia, and it was set up so the cute boy next door was going to be the one to rescue her.

To be honest, there was a little bit of that. Maybe a lot. The cute boy gives her a reason to want to get better. The thing that made this a little different was the reason for her agoraphobia. She was at school the day a boy brought a bunch of guns to school and killed a bunch of people. Since that day, she's been afraid of being around people because she expects it to happen again. She holds a lot of guilt about that day; she thinks she could have saved more people.

It was interesting to watch her make steps toward getting better. Literal steps, like stepping onto the doormat on her apartment stoop.

The boy was fine. He was normal. The tragedy at her school touched him, too, but he deals with it differently. I can see how this main character would get annoying. She is pretty much thinking only about herself and how weird she is, and how hard she is to love.

Side note: I used this book for the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge: Read a book with a cover you hate. This cover seriously stresses me out. I have issues with water. This freaks me out.

Anyway, I finished the last half of the book last night. I had a couple of spots where I gasped out loud, so it wasn't completely predictable. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would.

7 bookmarks.