Monday, June 23, 2008

Sea Change, Kate Cann


I spent Saturday and Sunday reading two of Kate Cann's books and I am pretty smitten. Kate knows how to write, that's for sure. And what is even more clear is that she enjoys creating vibrant interesting and contradictive characters that are so real they leap off the page.

In Sea Change we meet Chloe who is on the surface and average girl who goes to a relatively expensive school but she feels strongly that she does not fit in, at all. Her parents' relationship has blown up, her father is desperately trying to keep himself from breaking down completely and she feels, needless to say, very angry towards her mother whom she perceives as walking out on both of them. School is school - it's boring and vile and yet, suddenly an extra dimension unexpectedly surfaces in the form of Davinia, the new girl who is impossibly beautiful, glamourous and wealthy.

Chloe falls under Davinia's spell and I felt my heart sink as I watched this lovely girl being sucked into a destructive relationship with her new best friend. They set off on a summer holiday together, with Davinia's wealthy parents in tow. Initially, things are idyllic but then Davinia turns into one of the scariest and most uncontrolled characters I've come across in a book. In a word, this girl is vile. And Chloe realises it. Almost too late. And she's trapped in a hellish situation...but she is resourceful and escapes. And out from under Davinia and her controlling parents, Chloe finds herself, finds love and discovers her true worth as someone who is strong, capable and as someone who does not need anyone else to stand on her own two feet or to fight her own fights.

An utterly amazing and beautifully written book! I would recommend it highly to both teens and adults to read. I laughed when I read this review on Amazon just as I was about to publish this on blogger and decided to add it on here because, honestly, I couldn't say it any better:

Thank you to Kate Cann (my heroine of chick lit) for making fiction good again, giving all us single girls the hope that somewhere a nice guy does actually walk this planet.

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