This book review is about a fiction book called Sand Dollar Summer. I read this book because the blurb sounded interesting and because I had nothing else to read. I thought that this book was definitely more interesting than I imagined it to be. I liked this book because I was able to feel empathy for all of the characters and because I liked the suspenseful ending.
This story is about a girl named Lise with a little brother named Free. They have an awesome life until their mom gets into a car accident. Her doctor says that it would be good to get a change in scenery, so they move to Fiddle Beach for a while. Lise hates it there because there is nothing to do, but her mom wants to stay. Lise meets a man across the island named Ben and they become good friends. Ben is an old man and one of the kids that she meets calls him crazy. There is a huge storm and Lise wants to see if Ben wants to come to the storm shelter to save him…
I liked this book because I felt empathy for the characters. I was able to do this because the author was very descriptive and detailed about how they were feeling. I was always able to really get how they were feeling. I could also really understand what they were sensing. As an example, at the end of the story there is a huge hurricane and Lise wants to save her friend Ben from the storm and ends up in the water trying to get back to shore. She is then saved by her mom’s friend who is driving them to the shelter. The author really describes how Lise is feeling, like how she is scared of the water and I wanted her to be ok. Another example of the author’s good emotional descriptions is that the author was very detailed about Lise’s fear of the ocean and how she is nervous about all the creatures in it.
“I looked out at the miles and miles of nothing but water-moving, churning water-and I realized there could be anything out there, anything at all. Where I could see the bottom, there might be a piece of glass or a sharp shell hidden under the sand waiting to slice my soft feet, and where I couldn’t see the bottom, who knows? … And there was always the pull, the pull of the tide that sucked the sand from beneath you grain by grain, trying to suck you with it.”
This quote shows how scary it can be for Lise to be surrounded by ocean. The author also really showed the feelings of all the characters. Even though Free didn’t talk, I was still really able to understand what he was feeling.
Another thing that that I liked about this book was that it had a very suspenseful ending. I don’t want to give anything away. I thought that the ending was very suspenseful and it left me on the edge of my seat. I didn’t want to put the book down. One of the major parts that was really sad was when someone died and an animal died too. Many lives were in danger.
I definitely recommend this book because it is very good with explaining everything and I think that it is very kid friendly. I think that some kids will really relate to this story. I would give this book a five star rating.