Laurel Flores Fantauzzo

Reeling from her father's coma and kissing a female teacher, seventeen-year-old Corazon suddenly finds herself in the Philippines with a half-brother she had never met.

My Heart Underwater

KADY BURNS

While it wasn't my favorite book, I really do appreciate how they handled the student-teacher relationship and how Cory was made to see how wrong it was. It did feel like two different books and I think one of the subplots could have been eliminated to focus more on the others.

Kath Lau

Corazon is going through some though times. Her father is in a coma after an accident and the only person she thinks she can understand her is her history teacher, Ms. Holden. The truth is Corazon has feelings for Ms. Holden and when her mother caught the two of them kissing, Corazon is sent to the Philippines. She then discovers a lot of things about her own family and her distant half-brother.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part is set in the U.S and the second is in the Philippines. The second part is definitely my favorite and I liked that the setting somehow felt like a character too. I thought the author did a great job describing the different places and even give specific details on everyday lives in the Philippines. Reading this book made me miss living in the Philippines. Watching my favorite bands perfom (I love the UP Fair), eating fishballs, going to the beach and a lot more. There’s just one thing that I noticed. The author consistently mention the poverty in the country which I appreciate because it’s accurate and true but there’s no need to bring it up like every chapter. It became quite repetitive.

I loved the character development and the family dynamic in this book. I wasn’t entirely sure about Corey’s character at first because she seemed ungrateful and unrespectful. But I got to know her more throughout the story and I was able to sympathize with her. She comes from a Catholic family, goes to a Catholic school and she’s queer. This made her feel like an outsider and a disappointment to her parents. She is also scared and worried for her father.

I was very satisfied with how the teacher-student relationship turned out in the story. I thought that the romance (not the teacher-student) towards the end seems unnecessary. I don’t have problems with insta-love especially if I feel like I know both of the characters involved but in this book the romance felt like an afterthought. Overall, this was a great debut novel and I can’t wait to read more from this author.

Fans of Adib Khorram and Randy Ribay will love this coming-of-age debut about a Filipina American teen drowning under pressure and learning to trust her heart. “My Heart Underwater is a lovely, magnificent wonder of a novel that will leave you with the rarest of tender heartaches: life-affirming, life-inspiring, life-loving; a heartache of joy and becoming. You won’t walk freely, or willingly, from these pages.”— New York Times bestselling author Marjorie Liu Corazon Tagubio is an outcast at the Catholic school she attends on scholarship. Her crush on her teacher, Ms. Holden, doesn’t help. At home, Cory worries that less-than-perfect grades aren’t good enough for her parents, who already work overtime to support her distant half-brother in the Philippines. After an accident leaves her dad comatose, Cory feels like Ms. Holden is the only person who really understands her. But when a crush turns into something more and the secret gets out, Cory is sent to her relatives in Manila. She’s not prepared to face strangers in an unfamiliar place, but she discovers how the country that shaped her past might also redefine her future. This #ownvoices novel takes readers on a journey across the world as Cory comes to understand her family, her relationships, and ultimately, herself.

My Heart Underwater

Reviews