Reclaiming The Sand by A. Meredith Walters

This was such an emotional, beautiful and unique story, but also at times such a difficult and heartbreaking read. It’s a story about Flynn, who has Asperger’s, and Ellie, who was his friend but who also joined the others bullying him at school. I loved the extra dimension with the neurodivergent representation, but most of all, I loved it for being such a gripping and realistic story about finding forgiveness and allowing yourself to be vulnerable and open to love.

Ellie McCallum and Flynn Hendrick had such a tragic history together. Flynn loved Ellie from the first time he saw her, but Ellie was the tough girl growing up passed from foster home to foster home who had learned the hard way never to trust anyone or feel any emotions. Not until Flynn managed to break through her hard shell and become her friend. In secret. In school, Ellie kept tormenting and mocking him just like the others, calling him “Freaky Flynn” due to his Asperger’s that made it difficult for him to understand social codes.

I have to admit that I struggled with the beginning of this book. A lot! I just couldn’t connect with Ellie and I absolutely loathed her friends. It just made me so angry the way Ellie kept allowing her friends to ruin her life and all the bad decisions she made. But once Flynn entered the story everything changed… he stole my heart completely!

Flynn is one of those characters I will never forget. A. Meredith Walters did an amazing job showing us the world through Flynn’s eyes with the alternate POVs. Flynn was just such a beautiful soul. So pure and innocent, so shy and awkward, so loving and compassionate, and so bluntly honest at all times. It was impossible not to love him and wanting to protect him from all evil. The alternate POVs also gave us readers the possibility to get the full picture and the painful and devastating backstory to what happened between them six years ago and why Ellie had become so embittered by life that she’d given into her anger and guilt to hurt him and herself.

I don’t think I can say that I ended up loving Ellie, but I definitely understood the reasons for her horrible, selfish and mean behavior, and her character development was amazing. She’d been through so much, and she hated herself more than anyone else ever could, that it was hard not to pity her. Eventually she also learnt from her mistakes and allowed herself to connect with Flynn again, letting him teach her how to love.

If I could have skipped the first part (or made Ellie behave differently sooner), this book would have been such an amazing five star read, but taking into consideration the whole book and the way Ellie kept coming back to her horrible friends I have to settle for four stars. But I really love this book and urge you all to please give it a try! It’s such an intense, heartbreaking, sweet, powerful, beautiful and unique story and I can’t wait to continue to read about Flynn and Ellie in the sequel Chasing the Tide!

Thank you so much Sophie (Sophie’s Reading Corner) for the recommendation that made me find this gem!

Rating:
4 stars

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Author info:
A. Meredith Walters