Title: Reclaiming the Sand Series: Reclaiming the Sand #1
Author: A. Meredith Walters
Published: March 17, 2014
Genre(s): Romance: Contemporary
Page Count: 295
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:Ellie McCallum was a bully. No connection to anyone or anything. A sad and lonely existence for a young woman who had come to expect nothing more for herself. Her only happiness coming from making others miserable.
Particularly Freaky Flynn.
Flynn Hendrick lived a life completely disconnected even as he struggled to become something more than that boy with Asperger's. He was taunted and teased, bearing the brunt of systematic and calculated cruelty, ultimately culminating in a catastrophic turn of events that brought Ellie and Flynn’s worlds crashing down.
But then Flynn and Ellie grew up.
And moved on.
Until years later when their paths unexpectedly cross again and the bully and the freak are face to face once more.
It’s been a few years since “new adult” fiction made its entrance onto the scene, and I’ve had a few successes, but mostly it’s been disillusioning. Reclaiming the Sand, however, was a mostly positive experience for me. Like a lot of self-published novels, it had some problems with writing quality, but overall I didn’t have any major objections to the story.
A lot of how you take this story will depend on what you think of A. Meredith Walters’ protagonist, Ellie. She is a self-centered bully who doesn’t handle people well, who often has a bad attitude, and is fairly judgmental. It is sort of hard to deal with her narration, and I imagine some readers wouldn’t be able to stand her. It’s especially difficult when Ellie’s love interest is the victim of her bullying. I didn’t really have a problem with Ellie’s character, but I did question the forgiveness offered to her, since it seemed too perfect.
Ellie’s love interest, as mentioned before, was a frequent victim of bullying. Flynn has Asperger’s Syndrome, and as a result, he has trouble with social interaction and emotions. I thought Reclaiming the Sand did a fine job of portraying Asperger’s and how that looks like on a person. The only complaint I had is that Flynn, aside from his social issues, had no faults. He was perfect, essentially. He was kind and giving and honest and tender and helpful. Aside from his outbursts when he became overwhelmed, Flynn never really showed any negative qualities. I really didn’t like that, because I think it idealizes what Asperger’s really looks like. It’s not like you’re some perfect person who maybe just doesn’t understand how to functionally interact. Flynn, for me, was Christ-like in an extreme that made him inaccessible.
Also, as mentioned, Walters’ writing was a bit spotty in places. There was some tense confusion early on, and some mix-ups, like “passed” instead of “past”. While not a glaring issue, that did affect my reading experience, since I was always pulled away from the story whenever I caught an error.
Aside from the above issues, Reclaiming the Sand is a pretty straightforward romance novel. Ellie is a jerk, but she gets a chance to redeem herself when one of her victims shows up and pushes her to move past high school pettiness. Sparks fly, some drama happens, but there’s a Happily Ever After wrapped up in there somewhere. Satisfying, for the most part, aside from some lingering questions as to whether or not Flynn’s total forgiveness was believable in context.
I liked Reclaiming the Sand. It was an interesting romance that took a risk in portraying a character with Asperger’s, and I think it paid off. Yes, there were some areas that could have seen some improvement, but overall, I don’t consider this novel to have been a waste of my time.
