by Coert Voorhees
Published: July 9, 2013
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Available: Amazon
Synopsis
Annie Fleet, master scuba diver and history buff, knows she can’t fight her nerd status as a freshman at her Los Angeles private school. And she doesn’t care—except for the fact that her crush, Josh, thinks she’s more adorable than desirable. Annie is determined to set him straight on their school trip to Mexico. But her teacher has other plans: he needs Annie to help him find Cortez’s lost-long treasure.
Suddenly, Annie finds herself scuba diving in pitch-black waters, jetting to Hawaii with Josh, and hunting for the priceless Golden Jaguar. But Annie and Josh aren’t the only ones lured by the possibility of finding the greatest treasure ever lost at sea. Someone else wants the gold—and needs Annie dead. In deeper danger than she ever imagined, can Annie get the boy and find the Jaguar, or is she in over her head?
Critically-acclaimed author Coert Voorhees delivers breathtaking romance and non-stop action in his newest novel, the spirited and captivating In Too Deep.
Review:
I absolutely loved the idea of this story. An adventure story with a girl who is not only the more knowledgeable, but also the one who saves the day grabbed my attention. The cover was great and I had some pretty high expectations. Voorhees did not disappoint. In Too Deep is a well developed, fast paced adventure with some great romance thrown in the mix.
Annie is a great protagonist. She is shy, geeky, and completely head over heels for a guy she doesn't think would ever be interested in her. And she stays this way. All the way to the end. There is no sudden change in her interest in treasure hunting. There is no end to her love of scuba diving. There is no disappearance of her shyness or geekiness. Not that she doesn't grow as a character, because she does. But there is no sudden 180 just because she develops some confidence.
Josh isn't the typical hot male protag that so many YA books are focusing on. Yes he's hot and funny, but he's also a real guy, and he reacts just like a real guy would. There's no cheesy, over the top romantic gestures or words coming from him. But it didn't matter. In the end I could forgive his name dropping, inflated ego, and his lack of amazing ability at everything he does, because I believed in him as a person.
So, why the 4 star rating if I loved the story and the characters? Well, it had to do with the believability of Annie being 15 years old. I didn't buy that aspect. Not only were we expected to believe that she was a master scuba diver, but also that she had been giving lessons at her mom's scuba shop for a long time, that she was left to train people in dangerous situations, and that her parents went along with ideas of her going for extended trips not only as part of a school group, but also on one with a guy and his famous mom? I had to ignore all of the references to her age and pretend she was 17 or 18 in order to buy into these aspects.
I noticed that Voorhees has another few YA books out and I'll definitely be checking those out.
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