Review: Coming Up for Air by Miranda Kenneally

Collaborative feature with Alexa. We read ARCs together and post our reviews on the same date.

Coming Up for Air
by Miranda Kenneally
pub 7/4/17 by Sourcebooks Fire
YA - Contemporary
Received from pub via Netgalley

Plot • Maggie has always been focused on swimming–whether it's to earn a college scholarship or to qualify for the Olympics. It's the type of dedication not many people understand but luckily for her, her best friend Levi is swimmer too. They're each other's biggest cheerleader and their friendship has always been platonic. But when Maggie goes away for a college weekend visit, she realizes just how much of the normal high school experience she's missed out on due to the pressure of all her training and the swim team. She decides that she's going to have some fun her senior year, namely to make out with cute boys, and she feels Levi is the boy she should be kissing. (For the record, I completely agreed with this!) But what starts off as a "no strings attached" kind of deal immediately becomes complicated for all parties involved.

Characters • Maggie is the type of character I would love to become friends with. I admired her dedication to swimming and her straightforwardness to approach Levi with what she wanted. But I also related to her more vulnerable moments as she realized her feelings were changing and when she was psyched out by another person or an upcoming meet. She just felt so real. Likewise, Levi is officially one of my top three favorite Hundred Oaks guys. He's just as a dedicated to swimming and flawed but he's also a sweetheart who loves to read YA (dream guy right there) and cares deeply for his relationship with Maggie.

Writing • What's to say about Miranda Kenneally's writing that I haven't said before? It's compulsively readable. I immediately cared for the characters and the relationships. As always, her plots are sex positive and focus on these young women making choices about their bodies. I love that her characters are flawed but innately good people. Basically, if it's written by Kenneally I'm going to read it.

Overall feelings • Loved it! It honestly made me want to go back and re-read every book in Hundred Oaks

Favorite Olympic sport to watch • When I was younger, I was all about watching figure skating and gymnastics.