63. The Line Tender by Kate Allen

listened to on Audible, borrowed from the libraryread BEAUTIFULLY by Jenna Larnia
Unabridged audio (7:20)
2019 Dutton
384 pgs.
Middle grade CRF
Finished 7/16/19
Goodreads rating:  4.29 - 541 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Not-quite-contemporary Rockport, Massachusetts

First line/s:  "The morning the great white came to Rockport, my best friend and I were sticking our fingers into the coin returns of every pay phone in town."

My comments:  This is my 2019 version of Bridge to Terabithia...at least that's how I feel during and after reading this.  I love the setting: Rockport, Massachusetts, which becomes almost like a character in the book.  I love the multi-generational  cast of characters, and the forays to Boston, the coast of Maine, and Cape Cod.  I don't know how Lucy handled everything that was thrown at her this summer before 8th grade, but she is one strong female character and I adore her.

Goodreads synopsis: The Line Tender is the story of Lucy, the daughter of a marine biologist and a rescue diver, and the summer that changes her life. If she ever wants to lift the cloud of grief over her family and community, she must complete the research her late mother began. She must follow the sharks.
           Wherever the sharks led, Lucy Everhart’s marine-biologist mother was sure to follow. In fact, she was on a boat far off the coast of Massachusetts, preparing to swim with a Great White, when she died suddenly. Lucy was eight. Since then Lucy and her father have done OK—thanks in large part to her best friend, Fred, and a few close friends and neighbors. But June of her twelfth summer brings more than the end of school and a heat wave to sleepy Rockport. On one steamy day, the tide brings a Great White—and then another tragedy, cutting short a friendship everyone insists was “meaningful” but no one can tell Lucy what it all meant. To survive the fresh wave of grief, Lucy must grab the line that connects her depressed father, a stubborn fisherman, and a curious old widower to her mother’s unfinished research. If Lucy can find a way to help this unlikely quartet follow the sharks her mother loved, she’ll finally be able to look beyond what she’s lost and toward what’s left to be discovered.