When Suzanne’s parents tell her that their family is going to live on a boat and sail around the world, they sell it to her and everyone as the adventure of a lifetime. But the reality of it is much more grim, with constant instability and little care for the children’s education or futures.
Talk about making your midlife crisis your children’s problem! Having seen an uptick of chatter online about parents gaming the homeschooling system to let their kids run wild, it was interesting to see what that lifestyle might be like from the perspective of a woman who had grown up through and past it.
Heywood does a good job of keeping the story clipping on at a steady pace – ten years is a long time, but I felt that she’d given us a glimpse at all the ups and downs that she experienced. As she grows from a young child to her late teens, we see her increasing awareness of her parents’ shortcomings and her longing for stability develop almost in real time. As someone whose parents always placed great value in education, it was really shocking to see how uncaring Heywood’s parents seemed about her prospects, often dismissing it as unnecessary because she was female.
I did wish we learned more about what on earth Heywood’s parents were thinking. The author does try to dissect it at the end of the book, but complete answers remain frustratingly out of reach. I was also very curious about how the unstructured upbringing on the boat affected Heywood’s brother Jon. She discusses how he ran wild and was allowed more leeway by their parents due to his gender, but it would have been interesting to see compare and contrast their feelings about life on the Wavewalker.