A review by monalyisha
The Great Offshore Grounds by Vanessa Veselka

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense slow-paced

3.5

Siblings struggle to find their place in the world and discover their true origin stories. They are raised unconventionally, which could be expansive for them, but it leaves them feeling unmoored. This is a road trip, an adventure story, a ghost story, and a coming-of-age story (for characters who are 30+). It's full of grief, rage, trauma, and ultimately love. It's also…A LOT. The key word here IS “struggle.” It's not easy — inside the story or out. There's so much content crammed into the book's pages. I've seen it called a “character-based” story, which it is — to some extent. But there's also a lot of forced distance created as you experience the characters feeling too close to one another and not close enough (to *anyone*). Most of the shining moments for me occurred within Kirsten's story and I wish we'd gotten to hear more from her.

The Great Offshore Grounds is one of those books that I wish I'd read in a college course, alongside a professor to guide me through deep dives and toward relevant research. I think the text would be enhanced by learning more about environmental activism, tall ships, the free love movement, and more. I simply didn't have the drive (or the time, quite honestly) to do the research on my own. There's some great writing here. I wish it'd been presented a bit differently, perhaps as interconnected short stories or a slimmer novel.
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