About This Book:
Return to Sunrise Lagoon in this warmhearted sequel, which finds anxious middle child Marina making waves on her journey to trusting herself.
If you want to get to know Marina Ali-O’Connor, you need to know three things:
One, despite her name, Marina is secretly afraid of the water.
Two, she wanted to be one of the Oldest Siblings, but is stuck smack dab in the middle.
Three, she’s pretty certain she’s the Extra Ali-O’Connor kid—the forgotten one.
When Boom, a budding filmmaker exactly Marina’s age, moves in across the lagoon, she decides that Marina’s quest to become someone’s favorite Ali-O’Connor would make a perfect documentary. But when each plan goes a little bit wrong, Marina begins to wonder if she’ll ever feel like she belongs, or if she’ll always be lost in the middle.
*Review Contributed By Karen Yingling, Staff Reviewer*
Marina thinks that boats are a bad idea!
I especially enjoyed that the children’s origins were all respected and considered. Marina is a bit troubled by the fact that Sam was adopted as an older child and is close to her own age; she was expecting her moms to adopt a baby. Because of the different levels of stress the children feel, talking to a counselor is always an option. In the previous book, Sam Makes a Splash, Sam was seeing a professional to work through her issues, and Marina is also given this opportunity.
This is more lighthearted than Melleby’s The Science of Being Angry, but shows similar sibling interactions. Smith’s Code Name Serendipity has a similar family structure, and Callaghan’s Saltwater Secrets has a similar setting. It’s interesting to see that there has been a bit of progress made with the acceptance of LGBTQIA+ families: the whole plot of Gennari’s 2012 My Mixed-Up Berry Blue Summer revolved around the fact that the family with two mothers is not accepted. Things aren’t perfect, but there has been incremental progress.
Because I was not familiar with the Jersey Shore, I admit to looking up some of the street views on Google Earth. Let me tell you: Marina has more to worry about than boats. Like the Florida Keys, the lagoons in New Jersey seem like a very bad place to live. One good storm, and the family would be up to its ears in water. However, having spent a great deal of her life living in a community that thinks it’s a good idea to build roads over water, you would have thought she would have realized that with proper training and safety measures, a boat would be a decently safe option. (Apologize to people who think that living close to water is a good idea. Clearly, I have a fear of this!)
