Mandy Malham wants to win.

Ever since she and her family moved to New Zealand from the UK, Mandy has never fitted in. All through primary she was on the edges, waiting to be asked to join in, or hiding in the toilets after being bullied, again.

This bully named Jen, has followed her to high school and to Surf Club, and things aren’t much different there either. At Surf Club, Jen’s own mother is the coach of their team and follows Jen’s lead in calling Mandy, Orca, and not in a complimentary way. Mandy knows she’s not sleek like the other girls in her team. She knows she’s not the fastest runner on the sand. But she also knows she’s a good swimmer when in the waves. Her dream is to beat Jen. To show her team, and her coach that she deserves a place on the squad.

She was fighting back, making a pledge to herself that she will become sleeker, faster, better – when she loses her beloved, funny and clever six year brother on the very same beach she is training on. It only took one rogue wave to snatch Casey, and in turn it snatches Mandy’s internal compass as well.

She is lost without Casey, his laughs and sometimes seriousness, and dives further into her drawings and sketches of a comic she has been working on. Mandy often sees her daily life as a comic, split into boxes with lines in between each action. She draws and draws, wishing she could redraw that day Casey was lost to them. Go back frame by frame to moments before it happened, so she could turn and run and save him like she should have.

This impossibility becomes another thing she cannot control in her life, on top of the bullying and her lack of focus at school. Her comic however soon becomes her lifesaver, her buoy to hold her above the surface of all her grief. It holds her up as she pulls herself back together, and in turn becomes about her not saving Casey, but saving herself.

This New Zealand novel is about bullying, PTSD, grief and watching your family splinter. I found the main character prickly, angry, almost impossible at first – at least until I began to understand her. Years of bullying, by mainly one girl who has followed her through life, and watching her parents drift apart has made Mandy bitter. She begins to believe what others say about her. She’s crazy. She’s not worth befriending. She’ll never be anything in the Surf Squad.

But this novel is no pity party. Mandy has a lot on her plate, but with some help, she digs in hard and puts her life back together. She remains a little prickly, but in the end I liked that about her, as she is standing up for herself. I also enjoyed the reveal of a secret that took the wind out of bully Jen’s sails.

Mandy’s comic is part of the story, so the reader can see the journey she must make through the novel and also the creativity that saves her.

Author – Rachel Fenton

Age – 14+

(2022, AHOY!, The Cuba Press, NZ, New Zealand, Loss, Grief, Drowning, Surf Lifesaving, Competition, Self Esteem, Bullying, PTSD, Blame, Guilt, Relationships, Beach, Sea, Ocean, Team, Comics, Graphic Novel)