Don't Call Me a Hurricane
-
- $15.99
Publisher Description
An affecting and resonant YA novel in verse that explores family, community, the changing ocean tides, and what it means to fall in love with someone who sees the world in a different way.
It's been five years since a hurricane ravaged Eliza Marino's life and home in her quiet town on the Jersey shore. Now a senior in high school, Eliza is passionate about fighting climate change-starting with saving Clam Cove Reserve, an area of marshland that is scheduled to be turned into buildable lots. Protecting the island helps Eliza deal with her lingering trauma from the storm, but she still can't shake the fear that something will come along and wash out her life once again.
When Eliza meets Milo Harris at a party, she tries to hate him. Milo is one of the rich tourists who flock to the island every summer. But after Eliza reluctantly agrees to give Milo surfing lessons, she can't help falling for him. Still, Eliza's not sure if she's ready to risk letting an outsider into the life she's rebuilt. Especially once she discovers that Milo is keeping a devastating secret.
Told in stunning verse, Don't Call Me a Hurricane is a love story for the people and places we come from, and a journey to preserve what we love most about home.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Inspired by teen activists, as detailed in an author's note, Hagan (Watch Us Rise) pens a hefty novel-in-verse centering a fictionalized account of the year-round locals of Long Beach Island, a real-life New Jersey beach community, recovering from hurricane devastation. Like many residents, white Eliza Marino, 17, and her family lost nearly everything in the hurricane five years ago. The Marinos have since rebuilt their home and the seafood shack they co-own with the family of Eliza's best friend, Isa, who is Puerto Rican. Determined to save their barrier island from outside development, Eliza, Isa, and their two friends form the Climate Justice Seekers. But their mission is complicated by Eliza's growing feelings for a wealthy summer visitor, New Yorker Milo Harris. Repetitive climate change rhetoric slows plot momentum and sometimes overwhelms Eliza's otherwise moving internal battle between her passion for the ocean and her terror of its destructive capabilities, which manifests in frequent panic attacks as she relives her younger brother Jack's near-drowning. Periodic harrowing hurricane flashbacks and evocative descriptions—"the shoreline and sunsets sinking into the bay and rising over the ocean"—buoy this love letter to LBI's coastal landscape and tight-knit community. Ages 13–up.
