Eliza Marino's family, lifelong residents of New Jersey's Long Beach Island, lost nearly everything in a devastating hurricane.Five years later, she and her friends are on a mission to preserve their coastal marshland as a habitat for turtles and other wildlife. A lifeguard and talented surfer, Eliza, 17, remains traumatized by the storm that nearly killed her little brother. She and her friends resent the seasonal residents whose oceanfront mansions replaced the modest homes that were destroyed. Ensuring the marshland is preserved is challenging, however. Spontaneously venting their frustration, the teens vandalize a giant home under construction. For Eliza, teaching Milo Harris, a handsome, wealthy, vacationing New Yorker, to surf proves a happy distraction. However, each keeps secrets that threaten their fledgling romance. Despite one character's referencing Indigenous activists, the text does not consider the Indigenous people displaced by the islanders' ancestors. Eliza's dad works in construction, and the cafe her mom co-owns depends on tourists. Such conflicts, though depicted, aren't explored in depth and are primarily framed in an interpersonal context. The novel's strengths are Eliza's compelling voice-her hurricane flashbacks are mesmerizing-and the conveying of emotion; it only lightly explores the theme of youth climate change activism and issues connected to it. Most characters read as White; several secondary characters are Latinx, and one is nonbinary.Heartfelt but inconsistent. (author's note, resources) (Verse novel. 12-18)

Inspired by teen activists, as detailed in an author’s note, Hagan (Watch Us Rise) pens a hefty novel-in-verse centering a fictionalized account of the year-round locals of Long Beach Island, a real-life New Jersey beach community, recovering from hurricane devastation. Like many residents, white Eliza Marino, 17, and her family lost nearly everything in the hurricane five years ago. The Marinos have since rebuilt their home and the seafood shack they co-own with the family of Eliza’s best friend, Isa, who is Puerto Rican. Determined to save their barrier island from outside development, Eliza, Isa, and their two friends form the Climate Justice Seekers. But their mission is complicated by Eliza’s growing feelings for a wealthy summer visitor, New Yorker Milo Harris. Repetitive climate change rhetoric slows plot momentum and sometimes overwhelms Eliza’s otherwise moving internal battle between her passion for the ocean and her terror of its destructive capabilities, which manifests in frequent panic attacks as she relives her younger brother Jack’s near-drowning. Periodic harrowing hurricane flashbacks and evocative descriptions—“the shoreline and sunsets sinking into the bay and rising over the ocean”—buoy this love letter to LBI’s coastal landscape and tight-knit community. Ages 13–up. Agent: Rosemary Stimola, Stimola Literary Studio. (July)