Dryland

Description

From School Library Journal Gr 8 Up—Fifteen-year-old Julie Winter is just plodding through life. Her family and weekends are boring, her best friend is becoming more boy-crazy, and she doesn't find the skater boys cute. Things begin to change when Alexis starts paying attention to her in yearbook class and eventually convinces her to join the swim team. It would be great, but swimming reminds her of her brother who lives in Germany and who missed qualifying for the Olympics by seconds. Julie also meets mysterious Ben, who seems to know a lot about her and her brother, including why he really disappeared. Soon, Julie is trying to navigate a new life and her blossoming feelings for Alexis. Setting the story in 1992 Portland, OR, during the confusing height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic helps convey the unsteadiness that Julie feels as she navigates high school in this tumultuous time. She's trying to sort out why her brother disappeared and why no one talks about it. By joining the swim team, Julie struggles to figure out how to live from underneath his shadow. Complicating matters further is the budding relationship she may or may not have with Alexis. Teens will connect with Julie's crushing emotions of uncertainty, and they will feel frustrated when she doesn't get the help she needs from those around her. VERDICT A solid addition for libraries looking to strengthen their collections with fiction about the LGBTQ experience.—Faythe Arredondo, Tulare County Library, CA Read more Review “Jaffe's directness of style . . .lends itself well to the emotional tenor of adolescence.” - New York Times Book Review“Jaffe’s exceptional debut, a heartfelt coming-of-age story set in Portland, Ore., in 1992, exquisitely captures the nostalgia and heartbreak of youth.” - Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW“Its title notwithstanding, this moody coming-of-age novel is soaked in the damp of Oregon winters and poolside locker rooms. Julie, a high-school student, joins the swim team, hoping to orbit a female crush and to understand the disappearance of her brother, a former Olympic hopeful. She is exquisitely attuned to itches and aches―the constriction of a new bathing suit, the throb of a full bladder. Only the pool releases her to a dimension 'like sugar, like a dream.' Jaffe’s meticulous, frank texturing keeps the sex talks and scenes from sinking under tropes of adolescent awakening and presents queer desire as just one of Julie’s innumerable, unstoppable sensations.” - The New Yorker“Sara Jaffe is a damn fine writer and an important new voice.” - Justin Torres, author of WE THE ANIMALS“A coming-of-age story about a young girl’s growing awareness―of sexuality, loss, and family truths. . . . [W]e relive the awkward agonies of adolescence, so well-sketched by Jaffe . . . Moving sideways with its weight of secrets, this novel never strikes a false note.” - Kirkus“A solid addition for libraries looking to strengthen their collections with fiction about the LGBTQ experience. ” - School Library Journal“The chronicle of a teenage girl in Portland circa 1992, it reads like My So-Called Life's Angela Chase cut with Annie Dillard, plus something all Jaffe's own.” - The Portland Mercury“Remarkable. It’s realism, but its realism brushes ever so deftly against the allegorical, making the novel shimmer, part diary, part dream.” - Maggie Nelson, author of THE ARGONAUTS“Dryland is a gorgeous, layered, meticulous, clamoring, beating heart of a thing about a sullen teenager swimming and not swimming, kissing and not kissing, in Portland in the days of grunge. It will make you want to swim there back there back twenty times without stopping.” - Sarah Marcus, author of GIRLS TO THE FRONT“I love it. I don’t know that I’ve ever read a book that felt more sincere, that was so unbesmirched by knowing irony or commentary or authorial interventions. It’s a rare and sweet thing.” - Pete Rock, author of THE SHELTER CYCLE Read more See all Editorial Reviews