Access What The Waves Know Narrated By Tamara Valentine Presented As Mobi

won this book through GoodReads First Read program,

This is Valentine's first book but you can tell she is a gifted writer, The characters in this book are well developed including the minor players in the story, My favorite character in the book is Remy, I liked how she was feisty but had a good heart, Other characters that were enjoyable were Grandma Jo and the owner of the grocery store, I am sure there will be more books coming from Valentine,

This story is about ayear old girl who hasn't spoken since she wasyears old when her father, who she loved, left the house for good.
Izabella Rae Haywood was mad at her father for fighting with her mother all the time, As her dad was leaving with his bag she shouted that she hated him and that he shouldn't come back, This all took place on an island off Rhode Island,

InIzzy's mother decides to take her back to the home on the island to see if this will get her to deal with the memories of the day her dad had left.
They had left the island soon after and hadn't returned,

When Izzy and her mom, Zora, come to the island they are about to celebrate the Yemaya Festival on the island.
Izzy meets the other characters on the island including Remy, Mr, McLaughlin, kids her age, the grocery store owner, among others, Everyone seems to look at her differently and all have a different reaction to her not speaking,

This was an enjoyable read and I am looking forward to Valentine's next book, I picked this up because it was a "book of the month" at our local library, It seems a typical east coast novel just like so many others in that genre, The setting and characters seem stereotypical and the story contrived, At the same time, it's a readable book, There are images I appreciate, It did help me think about how we all have stories we may struggle to tell and about the reality that other people's choices impact our lives.
It's an okay read. this book hadflaws there is a paragraph that ends without punctuation but i dont use caps or apostrophes, so who am i to judge and, it ended. that is it those are the only two flaws i found in this amazing story about a girl who finds security in her insignificance and insecurity in her significance.


this story brought out a realization in me that we all have that "inner voice" and most often, this voice is our most honest voice.
it is this private voice that is the hardest to let out into the world, we overtalk all the time, but small talk, too often the conversation that really matters never takes place out of fear fear of loneliness, fear of pain, fear of consequence,

one of the things i really enjoyed about this book is while i was fully absorbed into the town and the people, the visuals were left up to me.
I could make each person my own, each store my own, each field, home, room, porch, cliffside my own, the author does an incredible job of giving us these things without making them too exact, i lived in that town on the island for a few days, and it was heaven, i felt the stone of the Yemaya and it was smooth, soft and warm, . . but the author never told me any of that, i saw the ocean below the cliff crash and break apart, . . because it was my ocean,

this story held me, . . it is a shame it had to end, In the graceful narrative tradition of Sue Monk Kidd and Beth Hoffman comes an exquisite debut novel about a young woman's quest to reclaim herselfand the voice she left behind on the gritty New England island where she lost both.


Nineteen miles off the rocky Rhode Island coast lies the tiny isle of Tillings and the memory of Izabella Rae Haywood's sixth birthday when her universe reeled sharply off course.
Tucked deep in her pocket, Iz carries a small amber seastone and the secret of the evening her father disappeared taking her words with him.


Eight years later in the autumn of, Izs mother is through with social workers, psychiatrists, and her daughter's silence, In one last attempt to return Iz's voice, the pair board the ferry back to Tillings in hopes that confronting the past will help Izabella heal herself and begin to piece together the splintered memories of the day her words ran dry.


But heartbreak is a difficult puzzle to solve and truth is elusive where magic and madness collide, When the residents of Tillings greet them with a standoffish welcome it becomes clear that they know something about Izabella's dreamer of a father that she does not.


Now, as the island's annual Yemayá festival prepares to celebrate the ties that bind mothers to children, lovers to each other, and humankind to the sea, Izabella must unravel the tangled threads of her own story and reclaim a voice gone silent or risk losing herselfand any chance she may have for a futureto the past.
Fluff. Very light read with no insights, I received an advanced review copy from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review,

Wow, this was a great book, Izabella Haywood loses her father at their family's home on Tillings Island, and eight years later, she still cannot speak, Her mom finally accepts that the only way for Izabella to move forward is to go back, Back to the island. They move back into the family home in midsummer with hopes for a full recovery,

As time goes by, Izabella makes friends with the neighbors and townspeople even without a voice, Each new discovery on the island takes her one step back to remembering everything that happened that night,

The writing was amazing, the characters are lovable and I was sad when I reached the ending, I will definitely be on the lookout for more books by this author, “Departing is when all the tiny pieces that make you whole spring away from you like a big fat touchmenot and get lost in the grass beyond any hope of coming back together.
It is the very moment when all your stories tumble from you, and you are reduced again to the weakest for of “to be” in the universe, leaving nothing to do but begin again.
” p.

I worry that there is a school of writing that says that having a child protagonist makes the story easier to tell and helps the readers be sympathetic to the account.
There are times that this works extremely well, Many of us love Scout To Kill a Mockingbird or have met and enjoyed Flavia de Luce The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie or Bee in Whered You Go Bernadette.


However, I am not sure that a young narrator is always helpful to moving a story forward, There are things that a child or young adult cannot know because they dont have the life experience, I was worried that What the Waves Know was going to be a struggle because Izabella would not be able to carry the weight of her story.
I have read other novels with young characters that have not worked very well,

I should not have worried, Izabella is unable to speak, but she made her life and its changes very clear to this reader, Not only is she clear, but she tells her story in such a way that I was engaged and wanted to know how it all worked out.


This is a first novel, Valentine does an excellent job and I look forward to her next story, I suspect she will grow into an author that many people will want to read,

Thank you to Edelweiss and HarperCollins for introducing me to both Tamara Valentine and her interesting characters,
I received a copy of this book from the publisher William Morrow Paperbacks in exchange for an honest review, It was just released yesterday,

This is a story for those who like to see a coming of age/overcoming a trauma, It follows Izabella as she struggles with her past and her fathers disappearance, It highlights her guilt.

While not a fast moving story, it was touching with all of the characters coming together, All unique and a little odd in their own way, it showed Izabella that she was not alone,

If you can handle a story that moves at a slow pace, this may be of interest, Ayearold girl's father disappears one night, From then on she does not speak, Her mother takes her back to the place it happened to find out if that will help her free her tongue,

My motherinlaw gave me this book to read, a book first given to her from her sister, I just really could not get into this book, I readish pages and did not feel connected to any characters and decided to call it quits, This book is beautifully written, I love the way the girl narrator lives inside of the words that won't come out of her, I love the evolution of each character, the mom who is living in the wake of trauma herself, the hippy grandma doing her grandmabest to help, the mean girl who has her own backstory.
Loved it. Ayear old narrator that hasn't spoken since she was six, On her sixth birthday her parents fought, she told her dad she hated him an asked him why he didn't just leave, He left. She ran after the car, but couldn't catch him, Some might call this a coming of age, but it is so much more than that, Obviously the little girl is hurting, but she has also blocked her memory of events after her father left, Her mother is hurting as well, both for her husband leaving and her daughter not talking, The writing is wonderful. I'm just a reader, but the writing in this book draws you in and wraps you in the story, I didn't want to put it down and I didn't want it to end, Highly recommended. An easy to read story about a young girl dealing with the disappearance of her father, As often happens with books with young protagonists, the maturity of her thinking is far beyond her years but that is necessary in order to relay the story I guess

Anyhow, pleasant enough read.
Told through the eyes and the voice of a child WHAT THE WAVES KNOW is

a brilliant, touching and heartbreaking story that is not only original, but also captivating.
It was beautifully written, thought provoking and a read that will stick with me for a long time, This is one of those books that would be perfect for book clubs because there is so much to discuss and so many emotions to process.

It really is a MUST READ,There's something that draws me to child narrators, Maybe it's the wisdom that comes from their precocious view of life or maybe the truths that often come from their naïveté, truths that adults just wouldn't speak of or even know.
This year I have met and fallen in love with Boo of sitelinkBoo, Elsa of sitelinkMy Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry, Caitlin from sitelinkAquarium , to name a few and of course there's Reuben from an all time favorite, sitelinkPeace Like a River which I read several years ago.
Izabella or Iz, as her mother calls her or Bella or just Be as her father calls her is now on my list of favorite child narrators.


On her sixth birthday, her father leaves and so does her voice, After eight years of doctors and therapy , she still doesn't speak, It's only in her fleeting memories that we glimpse what might have happened , what Izabella is shutting out , what is gone along with her ability to speak.
Eight years later back to the island called Tillings , off of Rhode Island, where they were when her father left, we learn there's something that Izabella doesn't remember from that day on herth birthday.
She blames herself for her father's "departure ",

She's lonely , homeschooled, has no friends and an uneasy relationship with her mother, This could easily be called a coming of age story but it was more than that, It was about a little girl becoming a young girl and having to come to terms with some difficult truths about her father.


There's a myth, the Festival of Yemaya, maybe a witch or maybe a goddess but don't let that keep you away from this story because that's not really what it's about.
There are some wonderful characters who I couldn't help but love Remy , Mr, O'Malley and Grandma Jo. It's about a young girl, dealing with trauma and loss, It's ultimately about family , about understanding and acceptance, about forgiveness of others as well as oneself, I found it to be well written , a touching story yet I'm giving it almostbecause the ending was a bit predictable.
However, I wouldn't have wanted it to end another way,

Thanks to William Morrow/HarperCollins and Edelweiss for an advanced copy, Izabella Rae Haywood adores her father who she says is "oneeighth Narragansett Indian and seveneights mystery", He takes her to Tillings Island, where he has roots, They fish together and share a deep bond, But her parents argue more and more, On her sixth birthday after the fighting mounts her childish frustration she screams at him "I hate you! I wish you would just go away!" Believing she has somehow invoked her birthday wish, she blames herself when he does leave.
She can no longer speak,

The trauma caused by the loss of her beloved father has rendered her silent,

She is weakened by her muteness, ostracized by her peers, misunderstood and fearful, Eight years pass and despite the intervention of therapists, counselors, social workers and psychiatrists Izabella's silence continues,

In, on the occasion of Isabel's fourteenth birthday, her mother presents her with a Shar Pei puppy which she names Luke and resorts to desperate measures to restore her voice.
In an attempt to get to the causes of Izabella's muteness, they return to Tillings Island where her father disappeared, They encounter island folk who seem to know more than they are saying, Like her father, the island is shrouded in mystery and magic, But it is here, where her father was last seen, that she hopes to gain an understanding of why she is mute and also to understand her relationships with those she loves the most.
What will this tiny island reveal

Once ensconced on the island, Izabella makes friends and enemies that turn into friends, She comes to understand that words have power and meaning, and that the tone in which they are delivered is a communication all its own.


She meets Remy, a woman who knows her mother and remembers her father, Though an adult, Remy is a kindred spirit to Izabella and helps her to come to terms with her guilt and teenage angst.
As Remy enlists their help to prepare for the October Festival of Yemaya, events conspire to bring forth Izabella's recollection of that fateful night when her father left.


Unlike real life, fiction is one place where it is simple to 'listen' to the mute, We have the advantage of hearing Izabella's thoughts, We yearn for her to speak and to understand the trauma that led to her years of silence, We come to understand that trauma when she does, through her memories,

A wellrendered debut novel with vivid imagery and characters that will be hard to forget, A slower paced yet thought provoking story that speaks to the elusiveness of memory and the destructive force of memory to both heal and torment.
It is a story of the mentally ill and how their illness has the ability to ripple out to others in their lives.
Especially the children of the mentally ill,

A novel of loss, memory, mothers and daughters, loneliness, and about how we judge others, often without a full understanding to base our judgement upon.


Thanks to William Morrow/HarperCollinsPublishers via Edelweiss for providing me with an uncorrected digital ARC of this novel in exchange for my unbiased review.
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