I got this book solely because I like the publisher. I am not a big fan of sports, sports books, or 14 year old jocks. Never been my thing, even when I was a 14 year old on a sports team. The book was far better than I expected. There was a lot of focus on swimming (handy glossary at the back to help with the terms, but if you have ever taken a swim lesson then you have most if not all of the lingo down). The real focus was not on swimming, but on one boy learning that intent and consequences aren't always the same.

Andy was a great swimmer, mediocre at math, and pretty much a 14 year old boy when it came to girls and interacting with his peers. He was cocky, pulled pranks, and didn't know how to apologize. Through the course of the book Andy learns a lesson that many adults are still fighting about "intent does not matter when you hurt someone". Andy didn't mean to hurt someone. He hurt her in a way that he didn't even understand. He had to learn that others have different rules and different feelings. He learned this through hurting two girls in his life. This is a huge issue when it comes to race and racism. People say that they didn't mean anything racist, but that doesn't stop it from being racist. Andy, with the help of one girl he hurt, learns that lesson. He learns about himself and he learns about others. That is HUGE. I am so impressed that a YA book covered it and covered it so brilliantly. 

The formatting was a bit off in the first section of the book, but that was not an issue again. That is also amazing. A great deal of the books I have read lately on an ereader have been formatted terribly and at times are unintelligible because of it.