'Body Surfing' by Anita Shreve
September 10, 2007

By Lacy Adams
Crusader staff

Yes, I know some of you may not be interested in reading books and seem to find it a pointless thing to do for pleasure when it's not even winning you a decent grade in class. For me, though, it's somewhat like an out of body experience and can literally make it seem like I'm experiencing the adventure along with the main character in the book. I'm not here to push anyone to read books for kicks if they don't want to, but if that is something that some of you enjoy doing I recommend this one.

"Body Surfing" takes place on the beautiful New Hampshire coast. Sydney is a young woman who is only 29 years of age and has had the god awful luck of experiencing the death of one husband and a divorce from another. She notices an ad in the paper of a family who is in need of help from a tutor for their daughter. This is what brings Sydney to the New Hampshire coast. She immediately senses that the family is well off and that Mrs. Edwards, the lady of the house, treats her strictly as help and not affectionately or warmly whatsoever. Sydney respects Mr. Edwards and grows fond of the young girl she is tutoring who turns out to have an uncanny ability to produce art. She has quite the struggle in school but turns out to be an artistic genius. Soon she meets the two successful handsome sons, Jeff and Ben. Ben is the older reals estate executive, and Jeff is a professor.

I'm not about to reveal the entire plot, for goodness sakes, but all I'm going to say is that an almost-to-be wedding, a lesbian relationship and a family member passing away all unexpectedly unwind form this well-put-together novel. Sydney thinks that she has experienced all of the hurt possible in dealing with marriage and love, but she is wounded yet again after that summer on the New Hampshire coast. After realizing that she had not grown up with much of a family, this became her new family. The close knit relationships and feelings that she formed with the Edwards family ended up changing her, hurting her in some ways but making her stronger. In the end there turns out to have been someone gentlemanly enough with the best intentions next to her all along whom she was tricked from seeing.

There is a content feeling when finishing the last page of this book, yet it leaves you to invent an ending of your own. Twists and turns evolve which seem preposterous, and you question yourself in if they actually happened. The unpredictable plot of this book is what prevents the reader from placing the book mark inside to mark your spot and keeps you from doing your homework, folding the laundry or running the dishwasher.