2021 Book Review #26: We Run the Tides

 

Wow.  Another new to me author.  Another good book.  A short read!  Thankful my sister Joy let me borrow this.  I only took 3 days to read it.  

STORY SUMMARY

Eulabee is a young teen girl who lives in the Sea Cliff area of San Francisco in the mid-1980s.  Her best friends are Maria Fabiola, Julie, and Faith.  They all attend the very private and exclusive school called Spragg. It is an all-girls school. These girls "own" the streets of Sea Cliff.  They know all of the houses, the people, the beaches, and the hidden secrets. 

One day while they are all walking to school, they witness a horrible act......or at least one of them think they witness something horrible.  Eulabee and Maria can't seem to agree on what they actually saw.  And this begins a rift in their relationship.   Shortly after this interruption of their friendship, Maria Fabiola disappears on her way home from school.  It is a potential kidnapping!   It shakes the entire community and it threatens to expose certain unspoken truths. 

Eulabee grows up.  Sadly, Maria doesn't seem to.  Eulabee and Maria run into each other years later in 2019.  And all is the same............yet......this time Eulabee sees things differently.   What happens to their friendship?  Can it stand the test of time?

MY THOUGHTS

This is a very poignant story. There's a lot of teenage angst, a little bit of family drama/community drama/school drama, a bit of romance, sadness, joyfulness, silliness, warmth. There's also a bit of mystery involved and a "coming of age" feel to this book. 

I loved the character development and I especially loved that this story is told by Eulabee. She was my favorite character.  I wanted to like and feel sorry for Maria Fabiola.  But I didn't. Her character is downright pathetic.  She's kind of like the sad little rich girl. Without her  realizing she's sad. 

This book has an underlying theme of jealousy in friendships.  At least that is my take on it.  It is all about what we do to seem better than others...the extent at which we will go. It's about the struggles young teens go through with self identity and feelings of worthiness. It's about the pain of having too much freedom in a pre-tech era.  It's about the loss of childhood innocence and bullying. 

I enjoyed this story because I really enjoyed reading the perspective of Eulabee. She's a refreshingly honest girl.

There are many character to this story but it isn't confusing at all.  It's quite well written although there were several editing errors which drives me crazy!

In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 14 and older. (there are some areas of mature subject matter but told from the perspective of a young teen).  There are no explicit scenes or bad language in this book.

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this an 8.