3.75! Admittedly, this could be stressful, but I liked Nat’s character development and the perspective given on synchronized swimming! (Although, I could do with a couple more descriptions.) Middle grades centering around a kid’s snowballing lies are kind of a trope in their own way, but I will say that Nat’s anxiety and anger issues were something I hadn’t really heard of being handled in many other books? I liked the maturity of how she was able to resolve things with her mom, too. (There was an interesting discussion about the difference between a bad parent-kid relationship, and one that just had some conflict/misunderstanding. Arguably, that message could also apply to Nat and Joanne’s friendship.)

I also liked the friendships Nat was able to form on her team! They were very sweet, and some of the locker room conversations/jokes gave me flashbacks to middle school gym class.

My main issues that kept this at a 3.75 and not a 4 stars, though, was that sometimes I disliked the writing style, Nat’s lies were unbelievable enough that I’m surprised her parents didn’t have a conversation earlier(although they definitely had their suspicions), and Nat’s mom was a mildly annoying character. (I get that’s part of her arc, but some of her criticisms were comical.)

Anyhow, I adore books about swimming(gonna make a Goodreads tag, actually). My experience in the sport is very limited, but something about reading protagonists lose themselves in the water is always very soothing to me! (And something about the body positivity message clicked with me?? Don’t ask me which element it was, I still don’t know, I have basically nothing in common with the protagonist. Maybe I just needed to read this in my current state.)