Gold Fish by Nat Luurtsema Blog Tour and Fan Casting

Blog Tour: Goldfish | Guest Post by author Nat Luurtsema!

Lou Brown is one of the fastest swimmers in the county. She’s not boasting, she really is. So things are looking pretty rosy the day of the Olympic time-trials. With her best mate Hannah by her side, Lou lines up by the edge of the pool, snaps her goggles on and bends into her dive…

Everything rests on this race. It’s Lou’s thing.

… or it was. She comes dead last and to top it all off Hannah sails through leaving a totally broken Lou behind.

Starting again is never easy, particularly when you’re the odd-one out in a family of insanely beautiful people and a school full of social groups way too intimidating to join. Where do you go from here? Finding a new thing turns out to be the biggest challenge Lou’s ever faced and opens up a whole new world of underwater somersaults, crazy talent shows, bitchy girls and a great big load of awkward boy chat.

Lou Brown guides us through the utter humiliation of failure with honesty, sass and a keen sense of the ridiculous. This girl will not be beaten.

Source: ARC from the publisher, MacMillan (thanks!)

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Pardon the pun, but Lou is a fish out of water. Her whole life has been swimming for a very long time, but when she loses a very important race, she’s left behind by that world, and more importantly, she feels abandoned by her best friend. Now Lou is left, as a lone fish, struggling to navigate world on her own.

As she’s always had only her best friend Hannah, she is left behind as Hannah continues on her quest to continue training. Lou is struggling. And that is a hard thing to do as a teenager who feels adrift (okay, I’ll try to stop with the puns).

Along comes a group of boys who need Lou’s help to coach them in synchronized swimming for a talent show (how funny is that?) and this is where Lou finds meaning again.

Overall, I adored this book. Lou was a little hard to take at first because of her singular focus on what she’d lost, but I loved her tenacity. And her brooding is to be expected and her awkwardness around other people her age just made me love her more.

This is definitely a great book for younger teens and it was a fast read for me, personally, because I loved Lou’s personality and her family and the boys she reluctantly helps. I love that she finds her groove again after she thought her life was over (of course it’s not, you’re 15!!). Gold star for Nat Luurtsema!

4/5

Casting Lou was difficult. She’s tall (5’10”), athletic, and part Indonesian. I’ve picked Pevita Pearce, who is part Indonesian & part English, just like our Lou! She’s short, but has an effortless beauty that I think fits Lou. Isn’t she gorgeous! That’s my Lou, even if she is a little short.

The only other person I felt confident to cast is Gabe, Lou’s love interest and one of the guys she coaches. Tom Holland is the new Spider Man (and he totally stole the show in Captain America: Civil War). I think he’s pretty freaking adorable.