The Sea Is Salt and So Am I by Cassandra Hartt (review)

In this story set in a small seaside Maine town, narration shifts focalization among Harlow, a girl who loves to tackle problems; Ellis, a boy who's her best friend, and who's running track on a prosthetic blade after losing his leg years ago; and Tommy, Ellis' twin, who recently attempted suicide. The town is in danger from coastal erosion, and Harlow is locked in a battle against protesters who argue that a plan to save the town will destroy an endangered bird species. As Ellis gets involved with a college guy who's in town for the protests and suffers an injury that threatens his athletic scholarship possibilities, Harlow, determined that Tommy needs a romance to anchor him to life, secretly embarks on a relationship with him. Hartt writes with taut, suspenseful elegance of the multi-layered unspoken knowledge in a small community that means secrets really aren't secret. The threatened fate of the town, foreshadowed by an already sunken house, looms moodily over the story, and the book is effective in moving between other characters' desperate uncertainty about Tommy's mental state and his own awareness, and in depicting Harlow's and Ellis' anxiety about the crumbling of their shared plans for the future. The plot is less effective than the style, though, with revelations about Harlow's past lacking the impact that the buildup suggests, and the shifting viewpoints add redundancy to an already slow-moving narrative. There's still atmosphere and intensity aplenty, so readers with a taste for high style and high emotion may appreciate this.