The Girl Who Could Breathe Under Water

December 1, 2021

Kendra's first novel was a huge success, but now she's on a deadline and cannot write a thing. Her attention is consumed with a letter from an anonymous reader, who seems to know exactly how much Kendra's novel was based on past summers in Hidden Lake, MN. Cami Rainier was adopted from Korea by a famous novelist, and she and Kendra spent many magical summers imagining on the lake, until Cami's parents adopted a teenager named Tyler with a troubled past. Tyler's actions soon change the course of both girls' futures and their friendship. Now Cami is missing, and Kendra returns to the lake to see if a clue lodged in her memories can unlock the past--and maybe her own future. VERDICT Emotions leap off the page in this deeply personal book from Bartels (All That We Carried) that explores abuse, rape, suicide, and the fluidity of memory. Expertly written, this is much darker than her other books but will draw readers into the minds of her characters.--Christine Barth, Scott Cty. Lib. Syst., IA

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 4, 2022
Kendra, an acclaimed young writer, returns to the cabin on a lake in northern Michigan where she spent summers with her grandfather while growing up. It is an attempt to ease her writer's block since her second novel is imminently due to her publisher. Her difficulties developed after she was devastated by a letter signed by "a very disappointed reader" accusing her of being a "selfish opportunist" who has monetized the suffering of others. Kendra suspects it was written by Cami, her best friend since age nine, the adopted Korean daughter of Robert, a best-selling author who lives across their small lake. Now Cami has vanished, and her family, including her brother, Tyler, is struggling in her absence. Bartels (The Words between Us, 2019) has Kendra speaking to Cami in her mind, reminiscing about the drama and trauma of their childhood and teen summers and their later estrangement. Kendra's efforts at writing her second book are further interrupted when Andreas, the translator who is working on the German edition of her first book, comes to stay at the lake. Cami's disappearance provides suspense as Bartels explores troubled relationships, questions of truth and memory, and how stories are created and told.

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