Dryland is an atmospheric coming-of-age novel with an interesting narrator and tone. This review by Megan Milks on Goodreads points out the way that the novel “defies expectations of coming of age narratives,” and I think that’s right on, and is one of the satisfying things about the story. The narrator, Julie Winter (who’s a high school sophomore) doesn’t figure everything out by the end of the book, though she figures some things out. Her first semester on the swim team (which she joins without ever having really considered it before, just because the team captain, Alexis, asks her to) doesn’t culminate in some triumphant victory; her first experience with sex isn’t presented as part of a story about true love; there isn’t some moment where her family comes together and addresses the silence around her older brother, Jordan, who was almost an Olympic swimmer but wasn’t, and who now lives in Berlin. Over the course of the book, Julie realizes she’s queer, but this isn’t a coming-out story. It’s more everyday than that. If there’s a shift, it’s in the direction of openness, but just a little—in how the silences and lies and omissions in Julie’s relationship with her best friend, Erika, are counteracted by the honesty (eventually) of Julie’s friendship with Ben (who’s older, and who knows Julie’s brother).
I liked the style of this book a whole lot: it’s first-person narration that’s done really well, intimate and conversational and full of great descriptive sentences, these little bits that feel so right, like:
In my gray-blue raincoat I was the same color as the rain and the buildings and the sidewalk. The smoking men stared out at the street. Some people’s parents might not have let them walk around downtown in the dark by themselves. With my hood up, I felt invisible. Meaning safe. (13)
Or this, when Erika’s asking Julie if she thinks a boy on swim team is hot: “Looking at Kyle and trying to gauge his hotness, I felt as if I had never had a feeling in my body in my life” (91).
Or this, which is Julie talking about being at a party that Alexis is also at:
It wasn’t even that I wanted to talk to her agin, or for longer, or for her to be sitting on the couch next to me. I wanted to keep being in the same room with her and sensing her like heat. (105)
I first heard about Dryland from this post on Jenna Freedman’s blog, and then my friend Erin enthusiastically recommended it to me, and I’m very glad I picked it up. Also, I agree with Jenna: Sara Marcus’s blurb for this book (which Jenna quotes in her post) is so right on.
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