#wavewalker

[orcacharm]

L88 Wavewalker: 1993-

Son of L2 Grace

Brother of L39 Orcan, L67 Splash, and L78 Gaia

Uncle of L98 Luna and L101 Aurora

Possible nephew of L6 Podner

Father of K44 Ripple and L119 Joy

Grandfather of L126 Ken

(Dave Ellifrit - Sept. 4, 2025)

[dandelioncasey]

My mother usually gives me an Amazon voucher for Easter (obligatory fuck Amazon note here, but the money's already been spent before she gives it to me, so what can I do) and I made the most out of it with a new book haul!

Help me pick what I should read next:

A Lady for a Duke

Apparently Sir Cameron Needs to Die

Careless People

Hunger Pangs

She Made Herself a Monster

The Last Girl Scout

The Martian

Ties That Bind

Wavewalker

Voting ended onApr 16

Pics below the cut if you don't know the books I'm talking about! Also I deliberately did not put PHM on here because it would obviously win by a landslide, but it absolutely is on my TBR for the near future!

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

Have you read Wavewalker: Breaking Free by Suzanne Heywood (2023)?

yes

no

I didn't finish it

I've never heard of it

Voting ended onJun 10, 2025

[semper-legens]

61. Wavewalker, by Suzanne Heywood

Owned?: No, library Page count: 397 My summary: When she was seven years old, Suzanne Cook's father promised her family the adventure of a lifetime. They would be sailing around the world, following in the footsteps of Captain Cook, seeing the sights and taking in all that the Earth has to offer. Ten years later, Sue finally managed to escape, having survived shipwrecks, low supplies, customs agents, visa nightmares, boredom, isolation, and years of hard work. Now, she's telling the story of a life lived on the waves, and why she chose to leave it all behind. My rating: 4/5 My commentary:

I don't usually dabble in memoir, unless it's of someone I knew about prior to picking the book up - nonetheless, this story interested me from when I saw the book hanging around at work. Heywood's had a hell of a life. Ten years at sea, never having anywhere but her ship to call home, entirely at the whims of her father, who seemed to have been taking this trip for the sake of his own ego. You know the type; the patriarch who uproots his entire family to go and fulfil his dream, with no thought as to the wellbeing of anyone else. Sue and her brother struggled to get an education at sea, with Sue having to work extremely hard to pass any kind of exams in the chaos of a life at sea, while Jon seemed to just sort of give up or otherwise not be interested in schoolwork. Sue wanted to go back to England, or failing that just go to school and be able to get friends and have a normal life, but her father's ambitions lead her to being torn from every place she could have settled. And when she is in one place for a while, it's not good - later on, when she was about sixteen, her parents pretty much just dumped her and Jon on an island, alone, with limited money and a very limited visa, expecting her to look after Jon.

It sounds like a brutal life, and Sue's story really evokes the fear and hopelessness that she must have been feeling at that time. You really feel her pain as she goes from a young child not quite understanding the implications of what her father has gotten her into, to a teenager who just wants to get out. It's obvious that Heywood still bears a lot of resentment to her parents - to her father for uprooting her, taking money from her, making her work for him, and never listening to her; and to her mother for neglecting her, being openly hostile to her, and dismissing her thoughts and feelings. That comes across, but to be fair, you can't really spin 'they left a sixteen year old girl to look after her brother with no money or resources alone' into something that makes either of them sound like the parent of the year. The only thing I took real issue with, as I often do with this style of memoir, is the amount of direct speech. It always takes me out of this kind of narrative - there's no way you can remember that much conversation from years ago, it's got to be paraphrased or otherwise made up from what you do remember. That's not, like, a dealbreaker for me or anything, but it does annoy me when I see it pop up. Probably why I don't read this style of memoir often, really.

Next, the river has roots.

[proceduralbob]

The water swirled through the cabin. I couldn't get up - my legs didn't want to move, and all I wanted to do was sleep. Maybe I could rest here, I thought, the water a blanket around me. If I closed my eyes, everything might be different when I woke up.

Wavewalker: Breaking Free, Suzanne Heywood

[darknessfactor]

I MADE IT

JUST BARELY, BUT I MADE IT

[ferronickel]

A short comic for my school’s comic magazine.

Concept and writing by the wonderful @gen-is-gone

Digital watercolors.

[orcacharm]

L88 Wavewalker by Lee Leddy