REVIEW | To Hear The Ocean Sigh by Bryant A. Loney

To Hear the Ocean Sigh by Bryant A. Loney was read 27 of 2016 and I gave it three out of five stars. I was sent an ebook copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book is about a boy named Jay in his sophomore year who spent his previous high school year rather alone.  When he gets a phone for his 16th birthday, he anxiously awaits his first new text to no avail until a random number accidentally texts him thinking it's someone else's number.  An unlikely friendship via text is created between this girl who texted him not knowing who he is and Jay.  Along with that, Jay also makes some friends at school. 

These two facts begin a coming of age novel about sneaking out from strict parents, going to church, making mistakes, and dating.

This book does have a trigger warning for suicidal thoughts, and I also think that while I won't go into detail because spoilers, I did think this was the best part of the novel.  It was surprising while still hinted at and I think it was well done in the way that often times when you know someone who has committed suicide or is thinking about it, you don't realize or recognize the signs until its far too late.

The tag line of this book is "strict parents create sneaky kids," and that was what made me interested in reading this book.  While the characters are sneaky and do go out to parties and such, I was a little let down with the way the kids who had strict parents acted.  The two characters with the most strict parents were also the two kids who were the least sneaky.  They were also the ones fastest to point out what the group was doing was wrong, etc.  (i.e. They go to a party and then get mad when they find out their friends smoke pot).

There was also a lot of cheating in this book and while I thought the portrayal of how those involved make those choices were realistic, I also was disappointed that the people who were betrayed let everyone get off easy.  Cheating does not sit well with me, and I didn't like reading that everything was fine eventually.

While this wasn't my favorite book, I did enjoy certain parts of it, especially toward the end.  Contemporaries are hard to please me so take that into account as well when deciding if you'll give this book a chance.

Until next time,
MissSassyKassie