3.5 stars
Carly works the evening shift as a cook at a small cafe, so she can spend her days surfing. She’s estranged from her family, and dropped out of university, and keeps herself mostly to herself. The thing she can’t tell her family is that surfing is the only thing that makes sense to her anymore, and that helps her not to dwell on the incident after her high school graduation two years ago, when she got drunk, separated from her friends, and woke up in a strange apartment having been raped by three strangers. Carly doesn’t want to be a victim, and telling people about rape, always makes them pity and see you in a different light – so she doesn’t talk about it, and she allows no one to get close.
While Carly may want to stay isolated, there are people around her who want to get closer. Hannah, a Dutch woman estranged from her husband,lives upstairs from her (but has to keep using her shower because her plumbing is bad) and tries to take Carly salsa dancing and makes her breakfast. Danny, a persistent kid she meets while surfing has synesthesia and won’t leave her alone, even when the colour he sees her as is occasionally unpleasant. He keeps wanting to hang out and discuss surfing movies, and persuades Carly to get him a part time job at the cafe. Lastly, there is Ryan, who stands out from some of the crowd of macho surfer dudes. He doesn’t hide the fact that he’s just out of jail, and that he’d like a chance to get to know Carly better. He wants to turn his life around into something better, and if Carly will let him, he wants her to be a part of that life. The question is if Carly is ready to let him in?
More on my blog.
Cannonball Read V 