Nor’ East Swell

by Aaron Topp

Witi was born a surfer. The ocean swells speaks to him. He doesn’t tell anyone he hears it because his mum would have him back to the psychiatrist. Witi wishes his dad was still around because he’d understand- he introduced Witi to surfing and music. But he mysteriously vanished 8 years ago. Now the voices are coming to him more often each day and he is sure it is his father speaking to him. And there is a cyclone closing in on the beach with unusual force and his whānau has come with tales of his heritage that he has never heard of.

319 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2022

About the author

Hawkes Bay based Aaron Topp is a former teacher and a writer. His first book Single Fin is a coming-of-age story about a boy obsessed with surfing. Based on a true story, Single Fin won an Honour Award in the Young Adult Fiction Category of the New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults 2007. His second book, Creating Waves, is a series of mini-biographies of famous creative New Zealanders who surf. 2015 saw the publication of Topp's Young Adult novel Hucking Cody. The novel tells the story of Cody, a young mountain biker whose unlucky run with girls, his family, and his job starts him on a journey of self-discovery.

Hucking Cody received a Storylines Notable Book Award in 2016 and was a finalist for the Young Adult Fiction Award in the 2016 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.

Reviews

[Bridget · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ok, and now I have to justify a one star review for a book I really wanted to like. One of my lovely colleagues loaned me the book and I really wanted it to be a winner.

The first page feels like the editor skipped it. It's clunky, disjointed and with the weirdest character setup I've read for ages. This did not bode well for me.

Conversations between the main characters are stilted and unnatural. The flow just isn't there. There was the opportunity to get the reader really involved in the relationship between the three teenagers, but I was constantly irritated. This poor book tried so hard to be appealing to a teen audience, and missed the mark. You don't write 'cool' conversation for teens, you keep it realistic and readable and keep the reader engaged with the action rather than trying your hand at teenspeak.

The story is complex, with elements of Māori mythology, whisperings in the waves, strange powers, mythical beings and convoluted family histories. There is a voice from the dead and all kinds of power over water, storms and as well there are bad guys of the corporate dastardly kind. All this is overlayed with a story of some kids who love to surf. Have complicated family issues and who struggle with school. Seriously, there is so much of everything in here it gets quite carried away with itself.

The second half of the book is infinitely superior to the first half. The story comes together and the characters work together, the climax is actually quite good, I nearly upped my star rating on the strength of it. But the rest was just too irritating.

I heard an interview with this author who said that he was engaging young male readers with, white spaces on the page and various other tricks to lure them in. I would say to him that having a more realistic opening, having a story that wasn't quite so messy, that wasn't trying to be too many things, would have been much better. I'd love this author and the editors, to head off and do some serious study of great YA fiction. Read some Mark Smith - a guy who writes great action, surfing, great conversation and complex storylines. Read Mary-Anne Scott's books, read some Neal Shusterman and read Scot Gardner. Get stuck in and read some quality books and then try and write another.

Also, why is the spine of this book so bleached? Why is the cover so murky? It could have been so very much better.

I almost wanted a prize for pushing through and finishing this, and I'm sorry this review is so harsh. But I want better books for our teenage boys, I want great NZ stories with all of the elements that this guy tried to insert into this book, but I want them well done.

[Wendy Howard]

Another fairly quick read (about 3.5 hours all up), as I immersed myself into eighteen-year-old high school boy Witi's world of surfing, his friend Alana, and Witi's missing father. It was a delight to read, and I found myself engaged and not wanting to put it down until I reached the end - though I had to at one point for reasons other than the book itself (life gets in the way of reading time, sometimes!), and picked it up again as soon as I could the next day and finished it.

[Keryn Powell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a style I found easy to read at first, but it suited the main character.
Interesting ideas but I found the abrupt leap to climate change/ energy baddies a little jarring.
Loved the main characters' interactions.