Tessa Bailey - Sink or Swim

Andrew Prince wakes up before everyone else. He schedules the bar shifts, demands perfection from Long Beach’s lifeguards—most of all himself—and makes sure the family debts are paid. His unfaltering work ethic might leave him exhausted, but it comes with one advantage. It distracts him from the love he’s been harboring since childhood for the girl next door—who he cannot have.
Jiya Dalal has dreams. To fly a plane, see the world below…and prove irresistible to her best friend, Andrew. But she needs to be a good daughter first, which is becoming an increasingly difficult task, since her parents expect a good marriage and the man she loves with all her heart refuses to pursue the blistering connection between them. Just when she’s beginning to believe Andrew truly doesn’t want her, a moonlight tryst on the beach exposes his true feelings. But an echo from the past kept them apart before…and it’s only growing louder with every stolen kiss… 

Comment: I really liked the previous book in this trilogy, which I read last month, and although I don't feel I need to read book #1, the way the protagonists of this 3rd one interacted made me curious to see how their own story would develop and it was easy to add this story to my reading list, since it wasn't even a very big book.

In this book we finally see what happens to Jiya and Andrew, best friends since forever and who have shared a supposed unrequited attraction and passion for the other, unknowingly aware they both wanted the same thing.

In the other book we could see the shared looks and learn a little about their friendship history and know Andrew, brother of that other book's protagonist, really was in love with Jiya.

Now that his two brothers are settled in life with loving partners, Andrew feels he might need to go away because he can't stand the idea of seeing Jiya being with someone else. The problem is that there's someone who has been following him and who finally makes a move. 

Will Andrew be able to solve all his problems? Will he be able to let go of Jiya?

Isn't it interesting how in books - or movies - when a character isn't well in life somehow or for whatever reason, they feel they need to go away or move out or live somewhere else? How easy can this realistically be? Not at all, I'd say, but we still accept people might want to run from emotional entanglements by moving physically away. If it were that easy...

Another thing I sometimes think about while reading is how authors go a certain path with their stories and tit can be totally different from the reader's expectations. In some cases, that can be good, in others it feels like wasted efforts. 

Mixing these two things I mentioned together results in some musings I thought about and on why I felt about this book the way I did. 

The use of some clichés and plot devices works because they offer a specific path for things to develop but when books are part of series where we get to know the characters, often by their smaller secondary interventions/scenes, isn't it any wonder some books seem to go a very useless or wasted type of path? I felt this because Andrew and Jiiya were so cute together int he other book, seemed to have that all worship from afar going on but they did seem to be intelligent. In this book, their behavior bordered on pointless at times and melodramatic at others.

Some readers have criticized the fact both Andrew and Jiya, but him especially, acted too much like a martyr, suffering as a sort of punishment for whatever reasons instead of being mature enough to talk to each other and define their relationship. I can agree up to some point since reading about people who keep thinking about their own worth as non existent can be a little tiring and depressing but, at the same time, don't we all do that sometime,s don't we all have doubts about what to do? Sure, real life is very different from a book where we want characters to act in a believable but still brave manner... 

I would say that for me the issue wasn't exactly the way Andrew behaved or his inner justifications but the way he kept explaining to himself why he should do this or that.

In relation to Jiya I can understand but when it came to his other problem I thought why not just talk to his brothers (they all have a good relationship) and go from there? Indeed, he does this but only at a moment closer to the end of the novel.

The romantic relationship was very sugary, even with the "we shouldn't" and "I'm not good enough for you" moments here and there which could have brought it to a more balanced level.

It's obvious they are in love, but I can sympathize more with Jiya's reluctance (her personality also reflects a little of her culture, she's usually more reserved) than Andrew's, especially in these contemporary times where the actions of our parents don't need to mean we would be the same. Besides, why would only Andrew feel this negatively about himself if it was a genetics matter, why not his brothers too?

All things considered, this book seemed to be a little heavier in some aspects and even with Marcus making an appearance, I didn't have as much fun wanting to read what was happening as I did with the previous book. It wasn't very bad but it wasn't very good either.

It was good to have some closure on these characters but in the end, that was the only thing I might remember of this book. I can always re-read my favorite parts of book #2.

Grade: 6/10