Title: Riptide Author: Lindsey Scheibe
Published: May 8, 2013
Genre(s): Realistic/Contemporary
Page Count: 288
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:For Grace Parker, surfing is all about the ride and the moment. Everything else disappears. She can forget that her best friend, Ford Watson, has a crush on her that she can’t reciprocate. She can forget how badly she wants to get a surf scholarship to UC San Diego. She can forget the pressure of her parents’ impossibly high expectations.
When Ford enters Grace into a surf competition—the only way she can impress the UCSD surfing scouts—she has one summer to train and prepare. Will she gain everything she’s ever wanted or lose the only things that ever mattered?
I walked into Riptide ready for a breezy summer read with surfing, cute teen romance, and maybe some more serious issues thrown in on top. Rather, what I got was a weakly-written dramafest where the surfing element was boring, one narrator was sexist and annoying, one narrator was a slut-shaming mess, and where the “romance” seemed more like a bickering match between a couple 2 seconds away from breaking up with no hope of making things work. Yeah. Obviously, this book didn’t work for me at all.
Grace, one of the characters, wants to be a pro-surfer, but is weighed down by the expectations of her controlling and dysfunctional parents—her dad hits her, and her mom is in denial. She spends the whole summer sneaking out to sit on her surfboard and try, yet again to convince herself that she’s a good surfer, and fighting with her best friend, Ford, even though it was pretty obvious that the two of them didn’t get along too well. And she also calls another girl a “ho-bag” for showing interest in a single, romantically available boy (even though Grace herself flirts all the time). Real winner here.
Ford, on the other hand, is half-Mexican. And in case you forget, he announces it at least twice a chapter. It’s like, okay, Ms. Scheibe, I get that you’re cool and culturally diverse, but try to be more subtle. Ford also appoints himself to be Grace’s watchdog, making sure she doesn’t date anyone inappropriate. Because obviously he thinks she’s too stupid too think for herself. Another winner!
Now, before I veer into the prepared ranting section of this review, I must commend the author for a good portrayal of a screwed up family and physical abuse. That aspect of the book was quite well-done, if a little over-the-top as far as showiness goes. I actually almost considered bumping this up to 2 stars for that aspect. But then I remembered how absolutely furious Riptide as a whole made me, and I didn’t.
So I think my main problem with this book was the two narrating characters, Grace and Ford—namely their blatant hypocrisy. Grace flirts with Ford and with other surfers she comes across, but the second some “leggy blonde” dares to give Ford her number, she’s deemed a “ho-bag” and treated like worse than trash. And this is about 2 chapters after Grace was bemoaning the way guys could sleep around and be “heroes” while girls could do the same and be considered “sluts.” Hypocrisy much?
And then there’s Ford, who has decided to spend the whole summer making sure that Grace stays away from boys, especially bad ones. Excuse me, dude, but are you Grace’s parent or her caretaker in some way? No. You’re supposed to be her best friend. Best friends don’t act like policemen and completely disrespect a woman’s right to make her own choices, and—if it comes to that—to make her own mistakes. Oh, and then this is rich: at one point Ford says to Grace, “You know, Grace, I don’t need your approval or permission to date anyone.” WHAT?! You sexist hypocrite!!! STOP.
Oh, and then going back to the whole Ford is half-Mexican and it’s his defining characteristic (which is rather racist when one thinks about it). Seriously, the only two things I know for sure about Ford are that he’s Hispanic and that he tends to have sweat stains in his armpits. Lindsey Scheibe seemed to remind readers that she’d written a “diverse” book at every given opportunity. As a minority member, I felt she was trying too hard. Maybe other readers won’t feel the same, but I did. It’s one thing to have POC characters, and it’s another thing to grandstand and wave your arms like “hey, look at my characters, they’re diverse! And because their skin isn’t white, I don’t have to give them any depth or personality, hah!” It was, honestly, annoying. And infuriating.
Also, Riptide wasn’t written very well. Scheibe’s prose was weak and dull, not at all captivating, and slightly juvenile in spots. And, while I recognize this is an ARC I’m reviewing and not a final copy—holy typos, Batman. I dearly hope they get a copy-editor on this book before it goes to print.
Sadly, even though I love family drama and this type of novel in general, Riptide had too many other glaring faults for me to even attempt to enjoy it. This entire novel felt to me like one big piece of hypocrisy, and I really couldn’t stand the mixed messages Scheibe was sending to her readers.
