Synopsis: Thirteen-year-old Maddie just wants her classmate, Lucas, to leave her alone. He keeps asking her out—as if she hasn’t already said no a thousand times! Focusing on her competitive swim team, the Electric Eels, Maddie tries to ignore him, hoping he’ll go away.
But then, when someone starts sabotaging Maddie’s family-owned pool—glass on the deck, ketchup in the pool, followed by a “code brown”—Maddie worries it’s her “admirer” trying to get even. After Maddie’s parents rule the problems at the pool just harmless pranks, Maddie and her best friend Ez decide to investigate on their own. Could it be Lucas? And how can Maddie get him to leave her alone once and for all? The future of the Electric Eels and Maddie’s family legacy are on the line.
Release Date: 13th September 2022
Genres: Teen, Young Adult, Sports, Swimming, Mystery, Friendship, LGBT, Romance, Crime, Sexual Harassment, Family.
Pages: 272
Thank you so much to Jolly Fish Press and Netgalley for the earc to read and review.
Review: Maddie is a competitive swimmer on her families team The Eeels. A boy named a Lucas won’t get the message she isn’t interested in him, he gave her a snow globe and smashed it in his anger and still won’t leave her alone. Now her parents pool is being vandalised and Maddie is certain that it’s him doing it. With her anxiety to deal with she only shares everything with her best friend Ez, together hoping to get evidence to solve who is doing it.
I really loved the swim team scenes, the kids were all such perfect friends and had such a wonderful relationship with each other. They’d all known each other for so long that everything they did was done with their tight close connection. I also loved Nico and Maddie, they were seriously the cutest pairing.
I loved how inclusive this book was and how it was all written naturally, with two lesbian relationships, mental health/ anxiety issues and alopecia. It was so great that this book had a good focus on these topics but that they were all just a part of who they were and that there was more to them than just these things. Natural inclusivity is a wonderful thing.
I got so uncomfortable reading anything with Lucas my gosh he gave such awful stalker, obsessed creeper vibes the whole time and I felt so bad for Maddie that she was dealing with this all on her own. He was seriously awful and terrifying, wouldn’t ever leave her alone and just wouldn’t listen.
I loved the mystery of the whole who is actually destroying and sabotaging the property and the pool and the team. I unfortunately figured out the culprit pretty early on but I’m sure to others reading it would be a total shocker. It was still so fun getting all the answers and following along with the mystery of it all.
This book was a really great book to read, it had great friendship, cute romances, a fun mystery, a team that loved what they were doing and a cause they all wanted to fight for and a really perfect ending to the whole thing.
apapergirlapapertown 