Review Detail

Reader reviewed by Allison Fraclose

From a very young age, Marlo Clemente has possessed an incredible artistic ability. He uses his art to escape his tempestuous home life, where his mother fights for her freedoms from an over-domineering husband and his father claims that the female sex creates all that is wrong with the world. Although Marlo worships his father and struggles to win his fathers acceptance of his art, he holds on to the hope that maybe, just maybe, there may be a girl out there who isnt like all the others. A girl who wont use her body to make him buy her material things and then dump him as soon as he can no longer give, the same way Gracie did to Danny, one of his two best friends.

One summer day, while on the beach with Danny and Ivan, Marlo finally meets such a girla girl with clear green eyes who seems to see right through him and the stunning sandcastle hes built. Marlo finds himself obsessed with this girl, and paints her picture so he can always remember her. When school starts again, fate accidentally places him in an advanced biology class&with his mystery girl, Desiree, as his lab partner. As he grows more in love with Desiree, Marlo has to fight against the shyness that has built up as a result of his fathers teachings, and somehow find his place in a world where traditional art is no longer viewed as a praiseworthy pursuit. Perhaps, with Desiree at his side, he can finally build the castle he seeksa castle that will last for always and not disappear into the sea with the tide.

Marlos existential journey did not touch me as much as it possibly could have, and I think a lot of that has to do with the final conflict in the story, where I did not understand the main characters actions and motivation. Also, something must be said for the sentence structure during the more internally focused paragraphs, where the narrator (Marlo as an adult, presumably) has a tendency to speak in a way similar to a certain short, green, and pointy eared character from Lucass STAR WARS. Setting these aside, I did manage to get involved in the story, and I think that this book would probably appeal to older, high school-aged males who may be facing similar issues.