Girl At Sea

Girl At Sea, by Maureen Johnson, begins with the main character Clio Ford obsessing over a very attractive boy in an art store where she is to work. This would sound pretty normal, except Clio is obsessing for a reason- she's never been kissed. She hopes that Ollie, the super-tall guy with the country accent, will become her boyfriend by the end of the summer, thus saving her from a lifetime of never-been-kissed...ness. Clio is excited. Things are falling into place for her summer - until she returns home to find out that her mother is going to Kansas for ten weeks to do some special art restoration project with her boyfriend, and that she has arranged for Clio to spend the summer with her father. In Italy. Clio is extremely unhappy with this because it means leaving Ollie behind, though there's really nothing to leave behind, and doing god-knows-what with her crazy dad for an entire summer.

When Clio arrives in Rome, she begins to sense that something is very out of the ordinary. Her father has his own "crowd" and nobody really has a clue what's going on. Her father explains that they - Julia, his girlfriend, Elsa, Julia's daughter, Martin, an old friend, and Aidan, Julia's assistant - are to make a magnificent yacht their home for the summer. Clio has been assigned the job of cook, something she doesn't mind, but what is going on? Her father, Julia, and Martin seem to be working on some sort of project, but they're being secretive about it. The arrogant, irritating Aidan is wary to disclose any info, and Elsa is just plain clueless.

But Clio is determined to survive the summer without losing her mind, and the only way to do that is to discover the truth behind the voyage - why there are arguing voices coming from the workroom, why her dad is being so weird, and most of all, why are Aidan's green eyes so piercing?

With laughs, hurt-feelings, and a bit of danger, Maureen Johnson weaves an inviting tale of a girl who will go to lengths to unearth the truth - oh, and to attempt to make peace with her dad along the way.