Steeped in Science, Submersed in Story

I received a copy of this from a goodreads giveaway.

The first part of this book, a little over half of it, reads like a slice-of-life adventure. Nothing big, just three young people on a channel island with no cares and (almost) no responsibilities. There's youth and sunshine and beaches and laughter and drinking and ocean and bicycling and more sunshine and youth. There's not too much to it -- no conflict, and the characters don't have pasts or futures. They are just there, suspended in an idyllic summer on Sark. Not exactly meaty reading, but very enjoyable.

Then there's the second part of the book, which just really didn't work for me. The author tried to give these past-less characters something of a future, for a few years anyway, to explore their stories in scraps of stories and flashes of light. I just couldn't get it to hang together for me.

In the end, the main character Jude looking back on the summer that occupies so much of the book does pull something almost meaningful out of it. The meaning of intimacy, the beginning of sexuality for the three of them. What those discoveries can lead to. I felt like the book was trying hard to be something that it wasn't. It didn't quite get there. But the writing style was good. I would look into another novel by the author. This one just didn't quite win it all for me.