Debut author Helena Fox tells a story about love, grief, and inter-generational mental illness, exploring the hard and beautiful places loss can take us, and honoring those who hold us tightly when the current wants to tug us out to sea. Or maybe-maybe maybe maybe-there's a third way Biz just can't see yet. It might be easier, better, sweeter to float all the way away? Or maybe stay a little longer, find her father, bring him back to her. Her dad disappears and, with him, all comfort. But after what happens on the beach, the tethers that hold Biz steady come undone. So Biz doesn't tell anyone anything-not about her dark, runaway thoughts, not about kissing Grace or noticing Jasper, the new boy. And she has her dad, who shouldn't be here but is. It tackles mental health, depression, sexual identity, and anxiety with beauty and empathy." A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year A Chicago Public Library Best of the Best of the Year Biz knows how to float, right there on the surface-normal okay regular fine. Will take your breath away." -Kathleen Glasgow, author of Girl in Pieces "Give this to all your friends immediately. Although confronting and hard to read at times, it is ultimately a book about hope, resilience and survival."Profoundly moving. The road trip that Biz and her friend Jasper take is a clever authorial device for bringing about this climactic deterioration in Biz's mental health.
The episode of her breakdown is shocking and believable and the author's skill makes the reader feel Biz's pain.
For her, a relatively minor event escalates overnight into something major. The disclosure of her father's death, when she was a little girl, and her feeling of guilt about this is distressing and revealing.Īs readers, we find out just how long Biz has been using this ability to 'float' to cover up her real feelings. There is a gradual revealing of the background to Biz's state of mind and the author uses each word and wonderfully-crafted sentence to portray an unravelling of the tapestry of Biz's grief and depression, fusing the past and present until she is holding on by a thread. The first-person narrative allows the reader to develop a special rapport with Biz and understanding of her relationships with others. The title refers to Biz's feeling she can float above everything and survive as she tells teachers and counsellors and anyone else who cares to ask she's 'fine'. She has constructed a world in which she believes she doesn't need to tell anyone anything as she tries to convey an image of self-sufficiency. Her isolation and disassociation from reality is sensitively handled. Biz, the main character, is endearing, nuanced and convincing. It is a beautifully written, poetic and heart-breaking portrayal of grief, trauma, guilt and mental illness. 'How it Feels to Float' is a debut novel by Helena Fox.
0 kommentar(er)
