Representation: Side character with a physical disability
Trigger warnings: Bullying, ableism, ableist slur (r-word), imprisonment and incarceration of a father and child, death of an uncle, death of a grandmother from pneumonia, death of people in a car crash
Score: Seven points out of ten.
This review can also be found on The StoryGraph.

I picked this up from one of the two libraries I go to not long ago, and this wasn't even on the want-to-read list for a long time. I even had high expectations for this, not to mention I'm a sucker for poetry novels, and I enjoyed this though the writing style is ok. Where do I even begin? For starters, pressing the Enter key many times isn't exactly poetry. It starts with the main character, Jett Plane, or Jett for short, and he was sent off from the mainland to some new place, but I didn't know what the book was talking about, much less the location this was set in. Is this set in Canada? The United States of America? Australia? The United Kingdom? New Zealand? Anyway, he is now staying with his grandmother, and I liked this part where she told all these stories about Jett or her. That was a nice touch. I had a hunch that this was a non-linear book, which makes this all the more confusing, but primarily, it was just flashbacks when Jett talks about his friend, but not a friend called Junior, and I could tell he wasn't a real one since he's an ableist and a bully. Even Jett was flawed, but it was not his fault; it was a bad influence. The preteen Junior was also struggling with his life alongside Jett. I certainly would not want to live their lives. Did I mention that Jett's father was arrested and imprisoned for some reason because of that one scene with the car crash that he may have caused, and he was described as a murderer as well, which I could understand. Jett continues to bond with his grandmother, and the other characters in this book are pleasant. However, they aren't the most fleshed-out characters ever. In the end, Jett reflected on his life decisions, his childhood and what happened so far before returning to the mainland, ending this emotional and compelling book on a high note. Man. I hope Jett has a better life after this. ( )

children's middlegrade novel in verse. Boy regrets treating his autistic adult friend badly, spends time with his eccentric grandmother, learns to forgive people for their mistakes, including his father (in prison for DUI-manslaughter), and starts to make up for his own mistakes.

As a novel in verse, this one is a quick read, and the emotions that get stirred up are easily relatable. A lovely book, and one I would recommend to young readers, reluctant or not, when they are in the mood for something a bit more serious and realistic. ( )

After a rough year, Jett spends the summer with his grandmother at the beach sorting through his guilt over hurting a friend and the grief/anger he feels towards a certain family member.

Ebb and Flow is told in verse which makes for a quick read, yet it’s also an emotionally rich read. I so admire how the author, in so few words, manages to give not just Jett, but all of her characters dimension, for instance, even after you’ve witnessed something horrible, something possibly unforgivable, you have a deep understanding of the wounds behind it, you feel for that troubled kid even though you despise his actions, you hope there’s something better for him ahead.

As I mentioned the pages turn briskly with this one so it’s all the more impressive how measured the pacing is, it’s not like a snap of the fingers and all is well for Jett, it’s a really well done, believable arc, where little by little he makes progress towards the boy he would rather be by talking to his grandmother, by thinking over his actions, by facing the difficult thing that set him off in the first place, etc.

While there is plenty of heavy emotional content in this middle-grade novel, there are moments of light and warmth, too, especially in the relationship between Jett and his grandmother, the hot chocolate at night, the picnic lunches on the beach, it brought up such similar memories of my own grandmother that I don’t think about nearly often enough, so on top of delivering a quality story, I’m extra thankful to this book for taking me back. ( )

This is a moving and well-paced novel in verse about a tween who has been sent to live with his grandmother for a summer after some unspecified bad thing(s) has happened over the course of the previous year. I thought it was a delicate exploration of morality, forgiveness and growing up. It was pitched just right and didn't pull any punches while simultaneously avoiding a hyper-emotional deluge that would have overwrought the text. It's age-appropriate for its intended audience, but I highly recommend to adult readers who want something touching and straightforward that can be read in a sitting or two. ( )

This is a moving story told through poems centered around a boy sent to stay with his grandma on an island for the summer after a "rotten" year. With his quirky grandmother as his guide, he reflects on his rotten year, his own part in the bad things that have happened and learns an very important lesson. ( )