Meri Miller's journey from bored and frustrated "Slowdatna" teenager to a young woman who knows what she wants is so realistically drawn and richly human that I forgot I was reading fiction. A beautiful, funny and uplifting book about a girl growing up and learning her self-worth. Loved it! ( )

I do not voluntarily read YA novels because I have almost forgotten my teenager’s psyche and therefore, often do not sympathize with teenage characters. However, Ocean in My Ear reminds me that adolescence is filled with distress and anxiety even though adults and mass media flatter this period as if it is the peak of life.

This is the story about an ordinary high school senior girl, Meri, living in a rural town in Alaska. It describes her life between June 12, 1990 and June 12, 1991; in this one year, she experienced various initiations that lead her to be matured: a complex romance between two boys, friendship, conflict with parents, lost virginity, a crisis of pregnancy, her brother’s serious accident, the death of her beloved grandmother, college admission, prom, and farewell to her hometown. Many YA novels’ characters behave in a manner that adults think it is ideal, probably because authors are adults. However, the author depicts the teenagers in an honest and candid manner; she boldly breaks compliance in the adult society. I admire that the author has teenager’s heart and the excellent skill to express it. Yes, adolescence is not always bright and joyful but dark and bitter.

Although the overall mood of Meri seems stressful, she sometimes inserts jokes such as “Mom always says I’ll be late to my own funeral, and I always say, who wouldn’t want to be late to their own funeral?” These jokes make the story hilarious.

The setting is also charming: rural Alaska and the 1990s. I romanticized Alaska because I only knew about it by mass media. However, I learned that a life there is boring and stinky during spring. In addition, it is a small world: everybody knows each other. It is the interesting fact that young people hang out at 7-Eleven which is same in Japan. There are several items that were popular in the early 1990s such as Pretty Woman and perfectly sprayed curly bangs. The main target audience is teenagers, but adults who lived their adolescence in this era also would enjoy the nostalgia.

Even though Meri was a girl who always craved company, she finally decides to leave her familiar hometown, which means saying goodbye to her family, best friend, and boyfriend, and steps to an unknown world alone. She dramatically grows up in a year. I believe that Meri should return to her hometown in triumph after she completes the first year at University of Idaho like a salmon that goes to an ocean, then back to its home river. ( )