Don't Call Me a Hurricane

July 11, 2022
Inspired by teen activists, as detailed in an author’s note, Hagan (Watch Us Rise) pens a hefty novel-in-verse centering a fictionalized account of the year-round locals of Long Beach Island, a real-life New Jersey beach community, recovering from hurricane devastation. Like many residents, white Eliza Marino, 17, and her family lost nearly everything in the hurricane five years ago. The Marinos have since rebuilt their home and the seafood shack they co-own with the family of Eliza’s best friend, Isa, who is Puerto Rican. Determined to save their barrier island from outside development, Eliza, Isa, and their two friends form the Climate Justice Seekers. But their mission is complicated by Eliza’s growing feelings for a wealthy summer visitor, New Yorker Milo Harris. Repetitive climate change rhetoric slows plot momentum and sometimes overwhelms Eliza’s otherwise moving internal battle between her passion for the ocean and her terror of its destructive capabilities, which manifests in frequent panic attacks as she relives her younger brother Jack’s near-drowning. Periodic harrowing hurricane flashbacks and evocative descriptions—“the shoreline and sunsets sinking into the bay and rising over the ocean”—buoy this love letter to LBI’s coastal landscape and tight-knit community. Ages 13–up. Agent: Rosemary Stimola, Stimola Literary Studio.

March 24, 2023

Gr 8 Up-Not all writers should be their own narrators. Hagan reprises her author/reader efforts after Reckless, Glorious, Girl with disappointing results. Already bloated with repetitive pontifications about environmental activism and climate change justice (which apparently includes drunken vandalism to a tony mansion under construction), Hagan's verse novel hardly benefits from her own too-often overly aggressive delivery. Eliza, 17, still suffers from PTSD after almost losing her younger brother during a hurricane that devastated her Long Beach Island community five years ago. While her family and closest friends' families call Long Beach Island home all year, vacationing outsiders continue to arrive each summer, their encroaching developments threatening the barrier island's marshland. Among the summer crowds this year is privileged wannabe surfer Milo from NYC. Their attraction is immediate and undeniable, but their contrasting backgrounds might ultimately render them incompatible. VERDICT A more seasoned narrator might have helped to clarify this well-intentioned muddle.-Terry Hong

Copyright 2023 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.