Book review: High By the Beach by Wren Amari

I got the chance to read this eARC and I am so grateful. I was notified about submitting an application to read this book and I am so happy about that because this book was so lovely, heartbreaking but beautiful.

High by the Beach is about Brielle, a young woman holding in her grief about a horrible loss and dealing with it in unhealthy ways while her parents ignore their loss and pretend that everything is fine. Brielle and her family decide to stay somewhere next to the coast for the summer while they try to move on. The first night there, Brielle sees someone swimming out in the water and decides to try staying underwater in an attempt to get over her fear of swimming. She's rescued by Carson Eli, who takes one look at Brielle and decides that she is a spoiled party girl and wants nothing to do with her. But as days go by, Brielle is brought into Carson's orbit by his friends and the more time they spend together, the more they both start to realize that they don't know everything about each other. And the more they learn, the more they want to know about each other.

This was romantic. There is no other way about it. This is one of those slow-burn romances where the leads have to learn everything about each other while falling in love and the development was just wonderful. Brielle is such a sweet and tragic young woman. I wanted to force her to eat and sleep and make sure she had a safe place to cry and mourn her horrible loss. I wanted to drag her parents over by their ears and force the whole family to talk because their methods of dealing with their loss were obviously not working but the point of the book is the journey, and they get to a happy, or at least a happier point, eventually. Carson was a bit quick to jump to conclusions but I was happy to see how fast he started to learn to communicate with Brielle. His devotion to his sister was so sweet to see and the quiet ways he took care of Brielle showed how he was able to listen and learn about what she needed as situations came up. 

The side characters are all very well developed. I want to know more about Aspen and Dylan and Reese so if it is possible for Wren Amari to give readers more about them, I will gladly read their books. It feels like the setup of what could become a series so I'm going to sit here with my fingers crossed and hope that something involving those characters eventually gets written. Also, I have to admit that there was a moment where I teared up reading this book which for me meant that I was emotionally invested in these characters. If a book has the power to bring out those kinds of emotions, it is definitely a good thing.

Rating on my scale? I'm doing 9.5 Stars only because there were a couple of things in the story that I'm not a fan of in romance novels like miscommunication, for example. And I'm not a fan of a certain romance beat that happens in the third act of these books but I can repsect the why behind this one. Still, this book is worth the read. Wren Amari has the talent to be truly brilliant and I can't wait to see what comes next!