Girl Underwater

Girl Underwater by Claire Kells is a novel I loved.  When I closed the book I felt myself sigh a bit, sad that I was done with reading this novel.

Avery has spent her whole life on the water - from swimming lessons to swim team in high school and now in college.  She's the youngest child and only girl in a family of four, a stable and loving home life with professional parents.

Life is good. 

And then on her way home for Thanksgiving break the plane she is on crashes in the Rocky Mountains in a small lake.  There are only five survivors: Avery, three young children, and her swimming teammate, Colin.  

The group spend five long days in the mountains, just trying to survive until help comes.  

The chapters move back and forth between the present where Avery is dealing with the emotional aftermath of what she went through, and the time she spent in the mountains immediately after the crash.

Despite the fact that I already knew Avery and Colin survived, reading about their time waiting for rescue was suspenseful and I found myself racing through each page with the hopes that the group would be found.

Avery is a likable character, a girl I wanted to survive, to be happy again.  However, what she endured is still with her, and the water that she has always turned to that has given her peace now feels like the enemy.

Girl Underwater is a book I feel has flown under the radar.  It's well written and I was absolutely sucked in from the first page.  I am looking forward to other books by Claire Kells in the future and am having fun recommending this book to friends already.