Title: Inland Author: Kat Rosenfield
Published: June 12, 2014
Genre(s): Magical Realism
Page Count: 388
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:Callie Morgan has long lived choked by the failure of her own lungs, the result of an elusive pulmonary illness that has plagued her since childhood. A childhood marked early by the drowning death of her mother—a death to which Callie was the sole witness. Her father has moved them inland, away from the memories of the California coast her mother loved so much and toward promises of recovery—and the escape of denial—in arid, landlocked air.
But after years of running away, the promise of a life-changing job for her father brings Callie and him back to the coast, to Florida, where Callie’s symptoms miraculously disappear. For once, life seems delightfully normal. But the ocean’s edge offers more than healing air … it holds a magnetic pull, drawing Callie closer and closer to the chilly, watery embrace that claimed her mother. Returned to the ocean, Callie comes of age and comes into a family destiny that holds generations of secrets and very few happy endings.
If I was impressed with Kat Rosenfield’s debut, that’s nothing compared to how I feel about Inland. This book is gorgeous and haunting and elegant: a wonderful, spellbinding story about a young woman who fights against her destiny only to learn it’s what she wanted all along. There is not a single thing out of place in this book. Nothing.
I suppose, if you wanted to, this could be classified as a mermaid book. But it’s not really that. It’s simply about women who take the sea as a lover, who love the sea more than they could ever love another human being. This is what Callie Morgan finds out, when her father’s job takes them back to the coast after a decade away. Proximity to the sea makes her healthier and happier, and learning to swim fills a place she didn’t know what was empty. But in the end, Callie has to make her choice: to deny part of who she is in order to fit in and have a normal life, or to give up everything she knows and loves to satisfy some inexplicable hunger inside. Inland portrays this journey with mesmerizing skill and intricacy—if we’re going to call this a mermaid book, we have to qualify it with “unlike any other mermaid book”.
Rosenfield’s prose is one of the best parts of this book. Her way with words is so undeniably atmospheric and engaging. The imagery and emotion in her descriptions is phenomenal. There are a lot of great things to be said about Inland, and the author’s undeniable talent should be right at the top of that list.
The other important thing to note about the book is how creative it is. In the beginning I expected this would be another frumpy girl discovers magical powers and a dark destiny but also meets a guy and then some stuff happens before romantically ever after. That’s what I thought Inland would be; I was okay with it because Rosenfield’s prose is so perfect. But, um, no. This is not at all like the typical YA paranormal novel that came of age after Twilight. This is something darker, subtler, more beautiful, and infinitely more rewarding. The final 20 pages are some of the best storytelling I’ve been privileged to read. The emotional turmoil Callie feels is so vivid, and the call of the sea and the dense, salty atmosphere are so unique and finely drawn, it was amazing. Inland is, simply, haunting.
I’ve read a lot of YA in my time, and I love that even as I start to feel like I’ve seen everything authors can come up with, something happens to surprise and thrill and enchant me all over again. Inland was a gorgeous, unforgettable novel, and it’s really cemented Kat Rosenfield’s status in my mind. Callie’s love affair with the sea is one not to be missed.
