Details

Length: 334
Story Build: quick through diary entries, but slow plot
Character development: solid with personality 
Age Recommendation: 6th grade and up
Reasoning: protagonist is in middle school, dealing with the death of a friend (by drowning)

Summary and Review

First and foremost, be prepared to learn a great deal about jellyfish from this novel. It’s riddled with factoids about the balloon-like sea creatures, and you are intaking them from the “mouth” of a 7th grade girl who is both awkward and endearing. 

Suzy or Zu, as her mother affectionately calls her, is a strong, independent, and mostly silent narrator. She hates small talk and doesn’t see the point of filling space with mindless chatter; therefore, after her best friend, Franny, drowns, she decides not to participate in this societal norm. She thus becomes basically mute much to the dismay of her mother and father. 

The novel is split up using the scientific process as a way to relate to each section, which is rather creative and is accompanied by an illustration of a jellyfish. 

So why jellyfish? Well, on a class field trip, Suzy reads about a kind of jellyfish that is so deadly and so hard to detect that many deaths could be misclassified as drowning when in reality it was because of a murderous jelly. This causes Suzy to wonder if, in fact, her best friend was actually attacked by this dangerous sea creature. Suzy is then on a mission to prove to the world that “things don’t just happen” and that there is a reason and a cause. Plus, she can’t get her last “interaction” with Franny out of her head, and she definitely feels some guilt. 

Along the journey to discover if the jellyfish was the culprit, Suzy must deal with moments of discomfort with peers, remembering her friendship with Franny and how it evolved over the course of time, and ultimately coming to an understanding that might lead to some self-forgiveness. 

Suzy is a funny and loveable character whose world is definitely shattered by an incident that no child or parent should have to endure. However, her voice, strong and quirky, makes the book less of a downer, and the characters that Benjamin creates help push the story in a positive direction. 

Celebrations

I really, really enjoyed the character of Suzy. The way her mind worked was insanely logical, and Benjamin captured the ideas of a 12/13 year old so well. Furthermore, she also displayed the (sometimes) natural course of a girl friendship through elementary to middle school, which is both heartbreaking and true. I could relate to some of what Suzy was enduring, and my heart broke for her. I also loved the secondary characters like Justin, a classmate, who shows a genuine interest in Suzy and who also has some of his own quirks that he owns. Aaron, Suzy’s brother, and his boyfriend, Rocco, were both excellent additions, and I liked that the novel included queer characters without any drama; it was natural–the way it should be.

Hesitations

I WISHED Franny and Suzy had had one more interaction… it made me so incredibly sad that they didn’t. However, that is life, right? We don’t always get what we want, and I know that it was purposeful that they didn’t have a moment before Franny left for vacation.