I received an ARC through my job as a librarian

Okay, so I'm floored. This is a slow paced contemporary where nothing much happens plot wise. That sentence sounds like my own personal hell if I'm being honest. But the author came with some solid ass writing, strong characters, a bit of family mystery and lots of family drama. The star, strength and focus of this book is the characters. In addition, there is some wonderful queer rep. Our main character (Violet) identifies as bisexual. One of the other female characters identifies as straight originally but enters into a F/F romance and struggles to identify what she is. Violet also has panic attacks while her brother (Samm) recently attempted suicide and is at a treatment facility. It is never verbalized what her brother has been diagnosed with but is specified that he struggles with food control.

The family drama tends to continuously rear its head. Deaths, views, home life and conflicts left open and unattended to have caused a lot of problems with Liv and Violet especially. While I've never experienced most of their issues, it seemed real. It wasn't over dramatized nor was it ridiculously wishy washy about problems.

I loved the romance in this and especially reading a book where someone doesn't know what they identify as. I feel like people assuming they are straight until they meet someone who makes them realize they may not be is something that is a pretty common thing. Not everyone realized they are gay or bi or whatever until they're confused and kissing someone they never thought they would.

The issues I had were just how little of the shipwreck plot is actually acted on! I would've loved an epilogue where Liv finds the wreck or something but it was just abandoned. That sort of fit with the book but it also just felt like a weirdly abandoned ending for the device that takes Liv and Violet through this WHOLE book. Also, the end about Violet's genealogy was kinda stupid. Those kids do all that research and yet none of them did a basic search on Ancestry? Really?

I can definitely see people picking this up and then DNFing it because "nothing happens" so please just realize this book is about the characters and their struggles. Not about finding a sunken shipwreck.

Rep: the main character is bisexual and one of her friends originally identifies as straight but enters into a F/F romance