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The Weight of Water by Sarah Crossan
A familiar kind of story – 12-year-old Kasienka thrown into an unfamiliar world, Coventry from Gdansk, because her mother is determined to find her fled father. There’s friendship and false friends, first boyfriend, found father, but it’s complicated. And there’s swimming; Kasienka is friends with water, knows it and understands it.
But there’s an unfamiliar telling. Each chapter is a poem, succinct, easy to read and heartfelt. Like Elmore Leonard said of his writing, Sarah Crossan misses out the bits that readers skip. Reading it is like swimming, the words carry you. And Kasienka carries the weight of being for a full length with power and grace.
