THE LOWDOWN:
A twisty story about love, loss, and lies, this contemporary oceanside adventure is tinged with a touch of dark magic as it follows seventeen-year-old Wendy Darling on a search for her missing surfer brothers. Wendy’s journey leads her to a mysterious hidden cove inhabited by a tribe of young renegade surfers, most of them runaways like her brothers.
Wendy is instantly drawn to the cove’s charismatic leader, Pete, but her search also points her toward Pete’s nemesis, the drug-dealing Jas. Enigmatic, dangerous, and handsome, Jas pulls Wendy in even as she’s falling hard for Pete. A radical reinvention of a classic, Second Star is an irresistible summer romance about two young men who have yet to grow up–and the troubled beauty trapped between them.
FIRST IMPRESSION:
I can smell the bonfire even before I get out of the car. It’s dusk, and the sun is low on the water. According to my watch, it’s been exactly four hours since I graduated high school. But I don’t feel any more grown-up now than I did this morning.
—ARC paperback edition
SNAPSHOT:
Eighteen-year-old Wendy Darling has stepped into adulthood mere hours before the opening of her story. Months ago, though, she stopped moving forward, stuck on the disappearance of her younger twin brothers, John and Michael. Despite that her parents and police have moved on, Wendy knows that her brothers are still out there, surfing the waves they so often chased after. With college a mere summer away, she is determined to finally bring them home.
Wendy is an intelligent and vivacious young woman on the brink of new life, held back by her pain and loss. When surfer-boy Pete flies into her life, skimming over the ocean, Wendy follows him until she finds his oceanside hideaway called Kensington, the crew of runaway lost boys he hangs with there, and his on-again off-again girlfriend Belle. Surfers all.
The romance between Wendy and Pete is sweet and chaste, though quickly pushed aside whenever Wendy remembers her mission to find her missing brothers. Once she becomes entangled with dust-dealing older surfer boy Jas, though, the search picks up—and so does the questions not only of Wendy’s heart but also her sanity.
The two semi-relationships highlight the different parts of Wendy’s life and love: carefree childhood sweetness with Pete contrasts with the darker and more adult realism that she must face with Jas. As though choosing to care for one more than the other seals her fate as perpetual girl-child or full on woman. Again, though, readers looking for serious romance will not find that here. Wendy’s relationships with others are secondary to her relationship with herself and her own future identity.
The question of whether or not the Kensington beach homes and their inhabitants exist, whether Wendy’s mind is addled by her grief, is fascinating. Her mental health issues are mostly handled with grace and respect.
Fans of Peter Pan will notice similarities between this Wendy’s story and the more subtle plot points of the original’s, but will find plenty shifted from the J.M. Barrie classic such that enough twists and turns do appear. The story is more an homage than a straight out retelling, and it is all the better for it.
Appropriate for ages 13+. Some strong language, underage drinking, drug use. Intense situations, teenage runaways, and criminal activity.
Deals with death and loss, self-identity, drug use, mental health, love, and responsibility.
GET IT ON YOUR SHELF:
If you…
- Love questionably unreliable narrator protagonists
- Are a fan of all things Peter Pan
- Enjoy reimaginings of classic children’s tales
- Have ever been not ready to grow up
THE ESSENTIALS:
YA Contemporary
Hardcover & Ebook, 256 pages
Published May 13th 2014 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) (ISBN 0374382670)
http://us.macmillan.com/secondstar/AlyssaSheinmel
(Review copy provided by MacMillan.)