Review by Elita Menezes
Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2023
320 pages, Hardcover, $23.99 CAD, 9781665915335
Young Adult, Ages 12+
Fiction, Contemporary
But the world turning over this street is new each day; life and people change. Only my camera can capture them as they are, or as I want them to be. When I’m shooting photos, people leave me alone. I like that. And they don’t know that sometimes I’m not trying to preserve a moment, but to twist the appearances of things. A digital stage where I choose the players, decide who sings and dances and loves. And who lives.
Life is not like that at all.
When things get tough, packing up and leaving the country at a moment’s notice is a choice that almost no one would seriously entertain. But for 18-year-old Flora Maxwell, it feels like the only choice there is.
A British Girl’s Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak by Laura Taylor Namey tackles grief, relationships, and family dynamics through the lens of a teenage girl who just lost her mother to dementia and is on a path to losing herself, too. The book is a spinoff of Namey’s A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow, set three years after its ending.
The main character, Flora, believes she ruined the day her mother died by not being there. Afraid of the aftermath when she tells her family the truth about her absence, she hops on a flight from Winchester to Miami and stays with her brother’s girlfriend’s family in hopes of putting herself back together before she has to face the mess she left behind and the future she has yet to decide. Flora is a strong-willed, flawed, and heartbreaking protagonist; her internal struggles coping with loss and pressure, seep into her desperate actions and build guilt for her to unpack as she grows. Her reflexive explosiveness coupled with her desire to change make her a unique, dynamic “hurricane” of a character.
In Miami, Flora explores her passion for photography and strikes a friendship with Baz Marín, the affluent son of a well-known photographer. He provides necessary level-headedness, reassuring Flora of herself and calling out her destructive behaviour. The third key character is her joyful best friend, Gordon Wallace, who Flora fought with after he confessed his feelings for her in England. He takes an architecture internship in Florida and the two have to renavigate their relationship with one another. The characters in this book are well-rounded and evoke sympathy with their actions, struggles, and personalities. I rooted for each of them, even when they were on opposite sides of a feud.
The story builds a complex narrative of playful hijinx mixed with heavier moments, including the damage Flora has done to her family, the new environment in Miami, her indecision about university, the grief she carries, and more. The sections about her family and the impact she had on them were the most compelling points of conflict, more than the new, lighter conflicts in Miami. However, the lighthearted and serious sections clash at times, making it feel like two different books at once. Additionally, the writing style is congested with detail. There are many well-done, evocative descriptions, but some lines border on overcomplicated and awkward and don’t add enough to the reading experience to be justifiable.
Even with its imperfections, A British Girl’s Guide to Hurricanes and Heartbreak contains satisfying emotional moments that pull at your heartstrings and appeal to anyone who has ever felt hopeless or unsure — or like a hurricane, destroying everything in sight in desperate search of peace.
Elita Menezes is an arts student at UBC. She plans to major in creative writing and loves experiencing stories in any way she can. Some of her favourite pastimes include laughing at bad movies with her friends and (thinking about) writing.
YOUNG ADULTING 