We Run The Tides
By Vendela Vida
251 pages
This coming of age story takes us back to the early 1980’s in San Francisco. Eulabee is in eight grade and wanders the streets of Sea Cliff with her best friend Maria Fabiola.When a lie ruptures thefriendship between Eulabee and Maria we see how quickly an adolescent girl’s world can change.
What did it make me think about?
This novel captures a particular time in life.”We are thirteen, almost fourteen, and these streets of Sea Cliff are ours. We walk these streets to our school perched high over the Pacific and we run these streets to the beaches, which are cold, windswept, full of fisherman and freaks. We know these wide streets and how they slope, how they curve toward the shore and we know their houses.”
Should I read it?
There was something about this slim novel that really caught me. This book definitely had some sections that were stronger than others but it just captured a city at a particular time. The neighborhood of Sea Cliff is almost a character in itself. Ms. Vida writes about adolescence in a way that takes you back. I really enjoyed this book.
Quote-
”I run to the water’s edge and the cold ocean licks my toes. Without touching my face I can feel it’s wet with fog and tears and sweat. I stand there, on the cusp of the ocean and listen to its loud inhale. And then it recedes and takes everything from childhood with it- the porcelain dolls, the tap-dancing shoes, the concert ticket stubs, the tiny trophies, and the long, long swing.”
