Review
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Title: Swimming in a Sea of Stars
Author: Julie Wright
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Genre: YA realistic fiction
Year Published: 2023
Number of Pages: 304
Binding: Hardback
ISBN: 978-1-63993-101-9
Price: $19.99
Reviewed by El Call for the Association of Mormon Letters
Before I start this review of Swimming in a Sea of Stars in earnest, I want to provide some content warnings for both the book and this review, (since I’ll be mentioning these topics.) Many of the events I’m about to mention occur off-screen, as the book primarily deals with the characters’ reactions to those events. Specifically, this book touches on suicidality, physical, sexual, and verbal abuse and cancer.
Swimming in a Sea of Stars takes place over the course of one day: the day Addison returns to high school following a suicide attempt several weeks earlier. Each chapter begins with a “real-time” diary entry with Addison as she processes her feelings about going back to school and then switches to a different viewpoint character, often overlapping with the previous viewpoint character.
As discussed in the content warning, this book deals with incredibly weighty topics. Each student is dealing with a different crisis of some sort; while also navigating friendships and school timetables. And while those crises are incredibly difficult, the author also makes them seem manageable. This is primarily seen in how the characters are able to get help when they reach out for it. For one character, coming forward about abuse doesn’t turn into an indictment of foster care and CPS.
Additionally, the teens model fairly decent conflict resolution skills. To be fair, the bar of “ignoring each other instead of actually talking about what’s bothering you” is not a very high bar, but it was fairly typical in my own high school experience. The characters don’t feel forced into reconciliation but rather, appear to already have practice with these skills.
I was a bit hesitant going into this book, considering my own experiences with depression, but it didn’t end up being a triggering experience for me. The fairly quick scene changes helped to break up topics before they felt too heavy to carry as a reader. I teared up towards the end, more due to the characters’ kindnesses to each other than specific dialogue.
It’s been a while since I was in high school, but Swimming in a Sea of Stars feels like one I’d enjoy after finding it on a shelf in the library. I don’t know if I would have reacted in the same way if I had been required to read it or if it was given to me. I do think that high schoolers will be able to see themselves in the characters, even if the specifics don’t relate.