Review Detail

In Melanie Bishop's My So-Called Ruined Life, protagonist Tate McCoy struggles to find buoyancy, "that place right below the surface" where she can float enough to swim tirelessly. Her alcoholic mother has been murdered, her doting father is being charged for the crime, yet Tate doesn't allow herself to drown in self-pity. She has a list of plans, a saucy best friend, an adventurous aunt, and a dreamy boy giving her swimming lessons. In short, in an age when so many narratives revolve around damaged protagonists making horrible decisions, Tate McCoy is a welcome anomaly—a wise, resilient young woman whom readers will not only root for, but admire. Unlike Tate, whose buoyancy is so hard-won, readers will be immersed and swept up in the first few pages. So deeply engrossed are we in the tightly-plotted story, so happy to be carried through Tate's difficult yet inspiring journey, when we reach the end of Bishop's streamlined, graceful novel we hardly notice that we never wanted to come up for air. Lucky for us, My So-Called Ruined Life is only the first book in an on-going Tate McCoy series forthcoming from Torrey House Press, and writer and educator Melanie Bishop is at the top of her game.