Justina Chen Headley,
Girl Overboard
Little Brown, 2008

young adult novel

Even Syrah Cheng’s peers at her exclusive Viewridge Prep think she has it all and more, for Syrah is the daughter of  billionaire business mogul, Ethan Cheng. Syrah herself had learnt to deal with the constant recognition and pressure: she can escape into the mountains and be anonymous, free... and well on the way to achieving her dreams of becoming a professional skateboarder – until she has an accident which she is fortunate to survive and involves painful knee reconstruction: and that is where the book kicks in.  So we know there is not going to be a happy-ever-after ending here, or at least not in the way Syrah has envisaged it.

Syrah is the book’s narrator and we soon learn that what she has in terms of material possessions cannot make up for the complexities of her personal life.  For love and affection she depends on her nanny Bao-mu, since her parents are seldom at home.  She longs to be accepted by her much older step-brother and sister.  She loses her best-friend to his girl-friend.  And she has had an unhappy brush with love.  Syrah pours out her aspirations into her manga alter ego, Shiraz: but it is her manga drawings for young patients at a children’s hospital party that are the catalyst for all that follows, including her determination to help her class-mate find a bone-marrow match for her 3-year-old sister, who has leukaemia.  The knock-on effect of all this keeps the pages turning...

Justina Chen Headley’s has put together an up-beat, finely-tuned story with deft, well-rounded characterisation. Syrah herself is feisty, witty, self-deprecating and determined, and she is certainly not going to be a victim and let people walk all over her, even if her self-confidence does sometimes need a talking to.  Despite dealing with many emotions and relationships, Headly manages to steer away from a “me, me, me!” self-absorption, which is remarkable considering the book is narrated in the first person. By the end, not only will readers feel they have made a friend, but that they too can aspire to do something to make a difference in their community and beyond: and have fun while they’re doing it.