Synopsis: Avery Bloom, who's bookish, intense, and afraid of many things, particularly deep water, lives in New York City. Bett Devlin, who's fearless, outgoing, and loves all animals as well as the ocean, lives in California. What they have in common is that they are both twelve years old, and are both being raised by single, gay dads.
When their dads fall in love, Bett and Avery are sent, against their will, to the same sleepaway camp. Their dads hope that they will find common ground and become friends--and possibly, one day, even sisters.
But things soon go off the rails for the girls (and for their dads too), and they find themselves on a summer adventure that neither of them could have predicted. Now that they can't imagine life without each other, will the two girls (who sometimes call themselves Night Owl and Dogfish) figure out a way to be a family?
Review: I'm not going to be able to properly review this book without spoiling some aspects of the story. Jesus, this book was frustrating. First off, let me just explain my experience a bit. I'm a lot like Avery in the way I have a hard time with people and making friends. I was fortunate enough to grow up in the internet generation so, through my childhood, I had experience with chat rooms and forums. To this day, one of my closest friends, is someone I have only ever communicated with from afar. I'm also part of an online community that feels like a family. So, the concept of this book sounded really cute and interesting.
I liked how different Bett and Avery were. These characters were clearly made to challenge each other, which is fine. I did find their initial interaction to be convoluted. Bett claimed she found Avery's information through Avery's school website. I don't buy that. Information like that is supposed to be protected behind login information so you have to be a part of the school system to access it. It would have made more sense for Bett to make a lucky guess and get the email right, or to find a personal email Avery used for Facebook or something. But, again, the way my schools handle things could be vastly different from others.
Bett also felt like an example of forced diversity. One of the first things she feels like she needs to point out is that her surrogate mother is African-American, so she is also African-American. It was like the authors were trying to say, "Hey, here's our confirmed black character" but there wasn't anything else to it. Again, I have friends from all over the world so it seemed odd to me that this kid would make a comment like that.
The summer camp thing was odd too. Again, I've been a participant of summer camps, and I've helped run ones through my church. Somehow, Bett is able to find Avery's mom, contact her, and Avery is able to leave with this woman even though she isn't an emergency contact? Again, there are systems in place so things like this don't happen. Avery's mom could have hurt her in the past, but it's fine. She's a famous something, so she gets a pass. No? If a camp like this exists, please don't send your kids there. What in the world?
Later in the book, the girls go to a different summer camp. Okay. Cool. One of the other girls at this camp says awful, homophobic things and they don't really get challenged. And, by the end of the book, the girls are somehow all friends?
I do wish the entire book wasn't just in email because it doesn't allow the authors to unpack things properly like the homophobic comments, what camp life is like, how Avery and Bett really interact with they are next to each other. There are just a lot of ways this story telling format can fail, and this one definitely failed.
I didn't hate everything about this book. First off, the format made it extremely easy to read. A kid will eat this story up. I also liked how this book spanned at least a year of time. Not that we know that because timestamps don't exist in these emails. The book just starts when the girls are going to a summer camp, and there's a point in time where they have to find a second summer camp to go through. Either this is a very long summer, or the book spans at least a year. Anyways, another thing I liked was how there were conflicts between Bett and Avery similar to the conflict between their dads.
To Night Owl from Dogfish is a book that had an interesting premise, but not very well thought out.
2 howls
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