Summary: Ramona Blue lives in Mississippi in a trailer with her hard-working dad and her pregnant sister. Their family is still recovering from Hurricane Katrina and struggling to pay their bills while preparing for a baby. Ramona is happy with and knows who she is, a lesbian who only wants to protect her sister. She has no expectations for college or a life beyond taking care of her family, but then her childhood friend, Freddie, returns. He introduces her to swimming, which she quickly falls in love with. Soon her emotions for Freddie begin evolving into something that confuses her.
I ended up really enjoying this book. It was a good summer read that was relatively quick (I'm a fast reader and read it in a day).
The book is mainly about struggling with the weight of responsibility and surviving through the obstacles a natural disaster gives to people. Often times when we hear Hurricane Katrina, we think of New Orleans. However, this book showed me that we neglected so many other places. Ramona's family ended up in a trailer park and is meant to be an example of those families that were forgotten.
It's also a lot about attempting to move on from the past. Katrina might have broken Ramona's family, but she eventually had to let go of the hurt from that time. She was a character though who took on too much responsibility because she could not trust that things would work out. I really admired Ramona's strength, but it was also hard when I wanted her to ask for help and not take it all on herself. While it's good to be responsible and take charge, that can also end up being back-breaking. It was a good message for balance between taking responsibility and also accepting help.
I loved how much representation there was in this book. There was more than one LGBTQ+ character and instead of describing the characters' skin colors by referencing the color of food (cue my eye-roll), Murphy stated it like we would in everyday life. Characters would be described as simply being "black" or "white." It was not hiding their races behind descriptions of food that authors do oh so often.
You can probably guess by the summary that Ramona realizes she might be bi or pan instead of just a lesbian so I've seen a few reviews of people taking that to mean the horrible, "She met the right boy and was turned straight again" instead. Nope that's not what happens. Also some of those reviews are from people who haven't even read the book! You can't judge a book by just its summary! Ramona makes it very clear that she still likes girls and was just as confused by the new feelings and what they meant.
I am straight and so I obviously cannot understand these issues as well as people who are actually LGBTQ+ can. However, this was telling the story of a bi or pan girl and that's just as important to represent.
I'd say this book was pretty predictable, but thankfully that did not detract from my greatly enjoying the story.
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