Trigger warnings: Shipwreck
Read this review for context: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5223481629

4/10, I was hoping that I would enjoy this interesting novel after I read a fantasy book that turned out to be not so great but unfortunately this was no better and as you've guessed by the rating of this it's even worse, I found so many issues with this which makes me not want to pick this one up again, where do I even begin. It starts off with the main character Moss who lives on an island and it was believed that the entire world was flooded except this so that's where she must stay for the rest of her life. The plot moves slowly and I was wondering what was the Old World and why did it get flooded and where do all these magical things come from however this got explained towards the latter half of the book. It was revealed that Pa told the biggest lie in this story since he told me the world was flooded when it was not and it was only for his protection but why would he do that. Very weird how the author decided to describe Moss' period as and I quote, blood in the female spot and I can understand why the author would say that probably as a euphemism. Go read the Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger for a better fantasy adventure. ( )

Literary Merit: Okay
Characterization: Okay
Recommended: No
Level: Late Middle or High School

This was, to put it mildly, a very strange read. When I went to research it after the fact, I learned that this book is based loosely on William Shakespeare's The Tempest. As I have never read the play, I could not attest to this, and it probably also hindered my enjoyment of the book because I had absolutely NO IDEA what was going on for most of the book. The novel is written in a strange, halting style that gets a little tedious after a while, and parts of the book came dangerously close to putting me to sleep due to the lack of action or plot. While not entirely terrible, this book simply didn't do much for me, and I'm not sure exactly what audience I would recommend it to aside from avid fans of Shakespeare.

Storm-Wake, told in acts like a Shakespearian drama, tells the story of a young girl named Moss and her father, known throughout the story only as "Pa." It begins with the two wayward travelers being shipwrecked on a mysterious and magical island, then jumps ahead to the day when a mysterious boy named Callan washes up on their shore. Believing Callan to be some sort of spirit sent by the ocean, Moss and Pa teach him to communicate and show him the ways of their magical island. The story then skips yet again to Moss's fifteenth birthday, and it is now clear that she and Callan have a strange, inexplicable relationship that they are both desperately trying to navigate. Pa, meanwhile, is adamant about the fact that the world outside of their island has been lost to a devastating flood, and desperately sends out magical flowers every day in a ritual known only as "The Experiment." While he hopes to heal the island and the world, Pa keeps Moss sheltered on the island, never letting her stray beyond the shore to discover the truth. Everything changes, however, when two boys named Finn and Tommy (who are very alive and very normal) are also ship-wrecked. Sharing stories of the world outside the island leads Moss and Cal to wonder if Pa has been lying to them their entire lives, revealing a deep deception that they are both determined to get to the bottom of... before it's too late.

The thing that most annoyed me about this book was the bizarre way in which the inhabitants of the island (Pa, Moss, and Cal) talk. While Finn and Tommy speak like normal human beings, Moss and the gang use repetitive words/phrases like "full-gone, "full-dark," and "quick-fast." While I will admit that this is a unique and interesting style choice, it quickly loses its novelty and becomes annoying and tedious just a few "acts" in. I understand that the author is trying to convey how very disconnected and closed off from the rest of the world Moss and her family are, but it almost feels as though she's trying to smack us in the face with weird, jilted language to get her point across. It felt clunky and unnecessary, and was part of the reason this book was a frustrating read for me.

As I said above, I can't attest to how well this book adapts The Tempest,, as I have never read or watched the original play. Because of that, I am judging this book not as a retelling, but on it's ability to tell a coherent story without requiring background knowledge. On this front, I have to say that it falls flat for me. Aside from the mysterious Pa, most of the characters are a bit dull to me, and the world isn't explained or fleshed out enough for me to feel truly invested in this universe. For example, Pa's magic flowers are mentioned frequently throughout the novel, and yet we never know if the magic is real or if he and Moss are simply hallucinating because they're ingesting shroom-like plants. The novel is told in such a dream-like way that it's hard to tell what's real and what's imagined or hallucinated, making it frustrating and hard to follow. In fairness, this might have been intentional, making the reader feel as lost as Moss, but it ends up giving the reader more of a headache than anything else. I'm not saying that everything absolutely has to be spelled out for me on every page (a little mystery is good), but to be reading a stand-alone book and still feel like I'm missing three books' worth of content, I would have liked a little more background knowledge to pull from.

Two characters I did really enjoy were Cal and Finn, who seemed to have the most interesting arcs aside from Pa. Cal, who was rescued and essentially raised by Pa alongside Moss, begins to resent Pa for treating him like a criminal for having legitimate questions about the island and why they're supposedly trapped. This resentment comes to a boiling point when Pa hits Cal for daring to stand his ground after spotting distant land, and Cal feels betrayed when Moss takes her father's side rather than his. This was actually an extremely interesting plot point when it wasn't getting lost in the book's weird prose, and I would've liked to see more of that.

Similarly, Finn begins the journey as being very skeptical of Moss and the island, but soon begins to doubt his own eyes and thoughts when the "magic" (or hallucinogenic drugs; it's not very clear) begins to take hold. In the end, he wonders if his experiences were a dream or reality, perhaps echoing the reader's experience of the book. I liked that the author placed him and Tommy, two average boys, in an environment where they were completely out of their element. In this way, it felt like they almost represented the audience, seemingly as lost as I was for most of the book.

Another thing I liked about this book was the very frank discussion about menstrual cycles, which is (as I've mentioned in other reviews) very rare in YA literature. It often seems like a topic that authors would rather not broach, whether for fear of offending parents or exposing a child to puberty before they're ready. As Moss is someone who has spent her entire life trapped on an island with only men for company, however, it makes sense that she would see her period and think she's severely ill. I liked that she, without any prompting from Pa, eventually figured out that what was happening to her was normal and connected to her own fertility. In this way, I think this book would be appropriate for middle school girls, as they might be getting their periods without having the reassurance that everything happening to their bodies is normal. I will always appreciate references to natural bodily functions in YA, so I commend Christopher for adding this in.

The last bit of praise I will give this novel is that I enjoyed the unfolding mystery of Moss and Pa, who Finn and Tommy remark looks absolutely nothing like her. For the first half of the book, the reader never questions that Pa and Moss are related, as we don't hear many physical descriptions that cue us into this fact. It is only when Finn and Tommy arrive and remark on how they look nothing alike that we begin to suspect all is not as it appears. The element of mystery surrounding Pa and his illness (known by Moss as the "Blackness") makes for an interesting read, but it's undercut with so much tedious dialogue and slow moments that it's hard to stay invested. If this book had been written more conventionally (without all of the strange hyphenated words and dream-like prose), I likely would have enjoyed the unfolding mystery and magical realism a lot more.

I'm honestly still not sure how I feel about this book. While I can tell a great deal of effort went into it, something about it just didn't click for me. I was bored and confused for a lot of it, and even the parts I did enjoy were so burdened by the strange style that it overshadowed anything I might have otherwise praised. As many other reviewers have stated, I felt like I needed to be on some sort of substance myself to understand this book, as it seemed to be saying a lot that I wasn't grasping through the stilted language. I'm honestly not sure if any teens would enjoy this book, as it's just so unbelievably strange. Even for fans of Shakespeare's work, this book felt very odd and disconnected from Shakespeare's style. While I liked that it was split into acts and scenes like a play, it didn't read anything like a play otherwise, and I fear that the style is too niche to garner a wide audience. At the very least, the cover and synopsis is intriguing enough that teens will likely pick it up, but I'm not sure if it can hold the attention of a teenager when even I (an avid reader and lover of YA lit) struggled to stay awake while reading it.

All in all, this isn't the worst thing I've ever read, but it was weird and frustrating, and likely won't stick with me for very long after I'm done with this review. There was nothing particularly memorable about it outside of the weirdness, and I just wasn't invested enough to care about what was going to happen. Even the ending felt lackluster, leaving me with more questions than I had when I started the book. Everything about this story was just "meh," which is unfortunate because I really wanted to like it. Unless you're a die-hard fan of Shakespeare's plays, I would recommend giving this book a pass. ( )