DREAM BY PROXY

A small-town teenager flees a life of hardships and discovers herself at sea in Lowe’s novel, one in a series.

Eighteen-year-old Emma Connor would love to escape Taylorville, Indiana, where she’s seen friends suffer abuse and lost people close to her. Like many locals, Emma is poor and can’t afford to go to college. But she finds an unusual way to get out of her hometown: She adopts the identity of her late friend, whose scholarship to Florida State University affords Emma a shot at studying marine biology. That’s not a field she’s interested in, but a semester on a schooner will give her a chance to prove herself. It’ll certainly put her swimming skills to the test, as the students will be diving into cold ocean waters (Emma is fraudulently attending the school on an athletic swimming scholarship). Even her classmates are a challenge—they’re wealthy, churlish, and clearly have had more advantages than she has. But when a freak occurrence arises, everyone on the schooner will see exactly who can handle themselves in the face of adversity. Lowe’s second installment in her By Proxy series is noticeably lighter in tone than the preceding novel, which focused on sexual abuse. Once Emma makes it aboard the ship, her biggest fear is having her true identity exposed, and her occasional slip-ups feel more playful than genuinely alarming. And while her fellow students can be cruel, Emma’s amiability and welcome bluntness guarantee she won’t be friendless for long. This sequel allows her to evolve; she may be living someone else’s marine biologist dream, but the strength she taps into is her own. The author eloquently sets the scene, a “blue underwater vastness” of fizzy air bubbles and sea life including turtles, dolphins, and bluefin tuna. The frantic final act gives rise to a sublime ending, setting up the concluding volume in Lowe’s trilogy.

A young woman’s introspection begets a profound and enthralling adventure.