Author: Sophie Hardcastle
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Year of Release: 2020
Genre: Modern & Contemporary Fiction
Release Date 3rd March 2020
Rating 🌟🌟🌟
Authors note triggers for sexual assault, emotional, physical, abuseÂ
Synopsis
Twenty-one-year-old Olivia hears the world in colour, but her life is mottled grey. Estranged from her parents, and living with her grandfather who is drowning in sadness, Oli faces the reality of life beyond university alone.
When she wakes on a boat with no recollection of how she got there, she accepts the help of two strangers who change the course of her future forever. With Mac and Maggie, Oli learns to navigate a life upon open ocean, and the world flowers into colours she’s never seen before.
Four years later, Oli, fluent in the language of the sea, is the only woman among men on a yacht delivery from Noumea to Auckland. In the darkness below deck, she learns that at sea, no one can hear you scream.
Moving to London, Oli’s life at sea is buried. When she meets Hugo, the wind changes, and her memories are dust blown into shapes. Reminding her of everything.
Below Deck is about the moments that haunt us, the moments that fan out like ripples through the deep. So that everything else, becomes everything after.
Review
Olivia, Oli is estranged from her parents, in a relationship with someone who views her as an add-on, living with her grandfather who is sinking in into an ever-growing sadness. Oli begins to seek a change in her life, but unable to see a way out of her current situation. Oli begins to go through her life adrift.
Oli begins to consider life beyond the four walls of her university after she’s gained her degree in Economics; unable to find anything she’s truly passionate about. Oli’s not really interested in her degree or the desirable internship it offers as everyone else in her inner circle thinks she should be.
One morning Oli wakes to find herself on a boat realising the vessel is where she must have passed out the night before, she realises she’s not alone. Onboard the boat with her is Mac the owner of the boat the pair strike up a friendship and a bond that lasts a lifetime, along with his partner Maggie. Taking her under their wing Mac teaches Oli the language of the sea, whilst Maggie helps her see the beauty in everything. Especially art and the way that both Maggie and Oli experience synaesthesia, which allows you to hear and feel things in colour.
Below Deck has the ability to access just about every emotion I think we can access anger, rage, happiness, self-doubt, depression, anxiety, acceptance; especially for women. I believe plenty of books claim to offer this yet very few delivers, whilst at the same time still allowing you to care about the story along the way and not just how it will end.
Olivia makes for a wonderful heroin in the later sections of this book, she’s a three-dimensional character who a reader never has to wonder what it is that’s going through her mind or wonder what she’s feeling I appreciate characters I can see myself alongside or could hold a conversation with.
I’ll admit even though I was beginning to like these characters I didn’t love them, the story needed a little something more for this reader; it wasn’t until we reach the point of the book where four years have passed since meeting Mac and Maggie and Oli has taken a job aboard a yacht traveling the 1,806 Kilometres from Noumea to Auckland did Below Deck take on a more defined shape for this reader.
Oli is the only women on the journey starts off fine Oli even make friends with some of the crew aboard things quickly turn sour on board and Oli finds herself the subject of taunts, exclusion, isolation and other dark events I won’t cover here which changes Oli and how she views the world and other people around her forever. These events making Below Deck heartbreaking and hard to read at times.
I really enjoyed getting to know Oli, Mac, and Maggie, and being out on the ocean was blissful, attention to details is something when I look back over my reading challenge at the end of this year that is what I’ll remember most about the book. The other standout here for me was seeing how twenty-one-year-old Oli tries to come to terms with and still struggles with the traumatic events that took place on the yacht all those years before. I really appreciated how those events however painful and unwanted weren’t glossed over or just moved passed with ease, the reader is made to remember what happened and try to move past it, this is not an easy task.
Sophie Hardcastle has written a novel that covers life’s lighter moments in strong friendships whilst braving darker storms that are comforting even after the final chapter has come and gone. This book can be put down for some time and picked up and followed on with ease where you left off. I also could hear the sound of the ocean as it lapped against the yacht, I can also see Oli’s world before me as she went about her day.
I’ll admit I was not keen on this ending as I have a strong dislike of an ending, I’m supposed to make up my own mind about.
I’ve never been one to not overthink everything. I recommend this book to a mature audience.