Olive's Ocean is a strange, haunting book. It revolves around Martha, who barely knew Olive, who was killed in a car accident while riding her bicycle. Olive was a plain girl with no friends, and Martha is baffled when Olive's mother appears on her doorstep with a note from Olive. Olive cites Martha as the nicest girl she knows. Martha is continually haunted by Olive's death, and discovers from her writings that Olive wanted to be a writer, the same thing that Martha has been secretly wishing to do with her life. Martha's family goes in vacation to Godbee, where her grandparents live. Here Martha has her first brush with romance and kisses a local boy, but is betrayed when she discovers that a kiss was the result of a bet. Martha is confused, but then the perpetrator's brother gives her hope for his gender before she leaves Godbee. On the way home, Martha is still thinking of Olive, and decides to continue Olive's dream of becoming a writer. She finally confesses her desire to her father, who is also writing a novel and whom Martha doesn't want to think she is copying. To her relief, her father is supportive. I really enjoyed this book, and thought that it was a very interesting book on the topic of children dealing with death. It was a harder level than say, A Taste of Blackberries, which whose theme was also children dealing with a death of a friend. This book was alot lengthier, and I thought, dealt more with Martha figuring out herself and how she was perceived, rather than grief over a close friend, which Martha was not.
I'd never read a book that dealt with a child working through the death of someone not close to them. Olive was just a girl in Martha's class; they weren't friends, or even true acquaintances. However, Martha learned about herself by pondering the strange links that she and Olive shared. It was a really interesting read from which I learned alot.
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