ALA Booklist (Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 CDT 2015)

Suspend disbelief and prepare to accept talking animals, dead and alive, as well as a protagonist who maintains relationships with her deceased family and friends. Australian debut-novelist Sweeney has created a unique and fascinating world in which 14-year-old Holly Thomas (aka Tom, short for Tomboy) loses her family in the devastating Jessops Creek Mother's Day flood, finds herself pregnant by an older friend of the family, and yet discovers strength and resilience amid her grief. Her living, human support system includes her nana and other elderly friends, classmate Jonah (with whom she lives platonically), the sheriff, and a teacher. Her fantastical, extended family includes her deceased grandfather, a dead fish, and, above all, the Minnow, her growing fetus. Sweeney renders this world with a delicate touch while Tom navigates a treacherous time in her young life. Readers who can accept the ambiguous chronology and Tom's glib ability to communicate beyond worlds will be rewarded: the universe into which Minnow is born and will undoubtedly thrive is engaging and extraordinary. A promising and welcome debut.

School Library Journal (Fri May 01 00:00:00 CDT 2015)

Gr 8 Up-Tom's family was killed in a flood. Only Tom and her Nana remain. In her grief, the teen has formed a profound bond with the waterit is a place of peace, but also a place of overwhelming grief and loss. Living with her father's friend Bill (who might have taken advantage of her), she is neither cared for or loved by him and is acutely alone. When she discovers that she is pregnant, she leaves Bill and moves in with a childhood friend, Jonah, who has also lost most of his family. As her life and pregnancy progress, Tom is guided out of her grief by the ghost of her dead grandfather, her Nana's vivacity, and Jonah's steadfastness. She slowly bonds with her unborn child whom she calls The Minnow and whose clear voice only Tom can hear. The people in the young woman's life never push her harshly to face her loses, but offer palliation. By the end of the novel, Tom has perhaps not found a gleaming happiness, but has made peace with her losses and grows to love her child and friends who have become her family. The writing is lyrical and fragmented with a dreamlike style that swirls together like oil on water. The watery imagery throughout perfectly expresses the grief and the guilt of a survivor without being colored black with depression but rather blue-green with sadness. VERDICT A haunting and beautiful novel for sophisticated readers. Patricia Feriano, Montgomery County Public Schools, MD