Deborah Blumenthal

Spending the summer at her aunt's beach house, teenaged Sirena struggles with her parents' divorce and falls in love with a mysterious lifeguard.

The lifeguard

Manda

When I first read the synopsis for this book, I was expecting a run of the mill story about a sad girl who goes off to the beach, meets a cute boy and they fall in “love” with each other. I generally enjoy books with that typical story line because they are cute and easy to read. That was not what I ended up reading in The Lifeguard.

First off, I loved Serena. She is a strong willed girl with an amazing voice. Deborah Blumenthal wrote such a funny character with Serena. Everything surrounding Serena’s character is just great. Her dialogue, inner and outer, was one of my favorite things about this book. There really wasn’t any moments when I was disappointed in who Serena was.

I also enjoyed every other character written for this story. I usually find a lot of unnecessary characters when I read YA fiction, and this was not the case with The Lifeguard. Everyone was greatly written and had a purpose for being a part of Serena’s life. You’ll adore each of them just as much as I did, especially Antonio, Marissa, and Pilot. Pilot is just incredibly dreamy and I found myself letting go of quite a few squees.

Now on to the storyline, I enjoyed this book a whole lot. It kept me reading from page one. I only have a couple issues with the plot that I have to point out. First off, I felt like there was a lot of moments that were discussed too quickly and some important factors were thrown in quickly and not given enough detail. I would have loved to know a bit more about Pilot toward the end of the book and I think Deborah Blumenthal could have gone into more details during some of the bigger moments. I felt at times that major plot points were being rushed and I would have liked to see a few things taken a step further.

Otherwise, this was a great read and I would recommend it to anyone into girly YA fiction. There is a bit of romance, a bit of paranormal and a bit of adventure. Like I said above, I think a few things could have been given more detail, but I guess I wasn’t left confused, so it was ok. Definitely one to check out and I will be surely reading more from this author.

The lifeguard

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