In a family where artistic abilities are coveted above everything else, being placed on the varsity swim team as a freshman or earning an internship to work with sea otters isn't seen as a great accomplishment. Spending the summer in art camp is more important than being offered the chance to study dolphins in Belize. Her four siblings have been in the artistic spotlight since preschool. At 17, Andy can't act, draw, paint or sing. She didn't inherit her mother's graceful gift of dance or her father's talent to play any instrument he picks up. While her parents attempt to pull Andy's "hidden talent" out through dance, music and art lessons, her stepparents have their own ways of reminding her about her failures - both as an artist and as a daughter- and that she isn't even ordinary in a family full of extraordinary.
Everything changes when she decides to runaway and spend her spring break doing what she's been dreaming of doing for years. With the click of a mouse, she changes her itinerary from an ordinary week long visitation with her mom, step-dad and step-sister to an extraordinary nine days in Hawaii, working at an aquarium with a couple of monk seals and their intern - Kai. She spends the week meeting new people, getting the chance to experience things she's never thought possible before and learning more about herself than she could in any art class.
How much can Andy's life change in nine days? Doing what she wants? Making her own decisions without parental approval? Dealing with the consequences of those decisions?
What happens when the nine days are up?
She currently lives in California with her best friend and husband Scott and their menagerie. Most of her adult life has been spent caring for and teaching children as a preschool teacher and is currently working as a High School RSP Tutor.
What is life like for a teenager running? Running from what? Life, home, school... Everything!
Meet Andy, 17 year old whose life is anything but typical, or is it. Andy and her siblings come from a broken family, herparents divorced nd remarried. Talking about the ugly step parent syndrome! Andy truly thinks that she has them! She tells her mom and dad what their spouses have been doing to her and well they don't believe her.
She devises a plan to get away for Nine Days. She tells no one not even Jase, her best friend who together at school are known as Pete and Repeat. Off she goes. What does she expect to find in these Nine Days, where does she go? Paradise! Yes that is where she goes. She has to answer to no one, falls in more ways than one and comes back a changed person.
You can run, but you can’t hide. Much to her surprise her “boy crush” and his family show up where she is. Called out, now everyone knows, what is she going to do? She’s falling in love. The monk seals and the dolphins are her escape, her passion. So is someone else?
Now it’s time to go home, leave what she feels like she belongs and is “home” to her. Are there more problems on the horizon? At least she is safe, finally gets what she wants.
This is a book I won in a contest. Thank you H.R. Willaston and CONGRATULATIONS on an amazing book. A book that is true to life, reality.
Cheers,
STEPH
Book rating: 4 stars
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/360689
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