Barely Floating
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
A dazzling story full of heart about how one twelve-year-old channels her rage into synchronized swimming dreams, from the author of The Education of Margot Sanchez and Never Look Back, Lilliam Rivera.
Natalia de la Cruz Rivera y Santiago, also known as Nat, was swimming neighborhood kids out of their money at the local Boyle Heights pool when her life changed. The L.A. Mermaids performed, emerging out of the water with matching sequined swimsuits, and it was then that synchronized swimming stole her heart.
The problem? Her activist mom and professor dad think it's a sport with too much emphasis on looks—on being thin and white. Nat grew up the youngest in a house full of boys, so she knows how to fight for what she wants, using her anger to fuel her. People often underestimate her swimming skills when they see her stomach rolls, but she knows better than to worry about what people think. Sometimes, she feels more like a submarine than a mermaid, but she wonders if she could be both.
Barely Floating explores what it means to sparkle in your skin, build community with those who lift you up, and keep floating when waters get rough.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rivera (We Light Up the Stars) makes a splash with this charming novel about a fat Latinx 12-year-old who dreams of becoming a synchronized swimmer. Natalia De La Cruz Rivera y Santiago knows it's "hard to contain a person like me," a short-tempered hustler who spends her summer days at the public pool challenging other young swimmers to races she knows she'll win. After watching a performance by Black-owned synchronized swimming team the L.A. Mermaids, Nat is spellbound and immediately wants to join the squad, but her hyper-activist mother forbids her from trying out, believing that the sport is anti-feminist because of its focus on costuming and traditionally slender and white beauty standards. Nat secretly joins anyway, making new friends and finding security in her fatness. But clashes with thin, affluent teammates and increasing emotional distance between Nat and her best friend sour her newfound passions. Nat is a confident protagonist whose stalwart self-acceptance makes her a character worth rooting for. In laugh-out-loud, blunt prose, Rivera cultivates a touching and unapologetically positive interpretation of one tween's desire to break the mold. Supporting characters are racially diverse. Ages 9–12.
