“We Run the Tides” is a coming of age story that takes place in the foggy oceanside neighborhood of San Francisco called Sea Cliff. It takes place in the 1980’s and is about four pretentious adolescents who attend an all-girls middle school. As the title implies, they sort of “run the streets” as a pack.

The story focuses on the narrator Eulabee and her friend, Maria Fabiola (the leader of the pack). As her name implies, Maria Fabiola is seen as "Maria Fabulous." But in her desire to become extraordinary, Maria Fabiola loses her grip reality and starts to spin tales. In doing so, she gains power from her lies. And she becomes willing to do whatever it takes to become top-of-mind among her community. And of course "top-of-the-fold" in the newspapers.

In the beginning of the book, Eulabee explains her complicated relationship with Maria Fabiola. "Separately we are good girls. We behave. Together, some strange alchemy occurs and we are trouble." And, yes, they do get into trouble. But when Eulabee has a change of heart, she experiences ostracization. (In today’s terms, she becomes “cancelled.”) Suddenly her friendship with Maria Fabiola (et al) ruptures, and the story becomes about Eulabee.

For those who live in San Francisco, there’s an interesting familiarity to it. The city definitely becomes a character in the book. There’s also a nostalgia for those of us who were teen girls in the 80s with so many familiar references. I had flashbacks to my loud ticking Swatch watch. My obsession with all-things Laura Ashley. And my adoration for the Psychedelic Furs as well as John Hughes films.

Another thing that I very much loved about "We Run the Tides" is the dry humor. There are so many funny elements of the writing. It’s subtle but very well done. I found myself laughing out loud several times and there was a lot of head nodding moments. It's just so relatable.

The author Vendela Vida grew up herself in San Francisco in the 80’s. Although she says the book is not autobiographical. Instead, it seems more allegorical as it's about the drama of girlhood. And it's timely, politically, about what happens when people keep running with a lie. Poor Eulabee greatly suffers the consequences of lying an betrayal.

Special thanks to Ecco for the advanced reader copy, via NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review. I also listened to a sample of the audiobook, which is wonderfully narrated by one of my favorite voice actors: Marin Ireland. You might recognize her voice from other great reads, including “The Push,” “Nothing to See Here,” “Leave the World Behind” and “Goodnight, Beautiful.”

I received this novel as an ARC from NetGalley. This story of female friendship and secrets and lies was both detailed and smart. It explores the changing social pressures and family dynamics of wealthy teenage girls in San Francisco and portrays all the heartache and confusion that are part of coming of age.

Female friendship (and its abandonment because of the usual reasons, plus a kidnapping) decades ago in a San Francisco coastal neighborhood. Vendela Vida has a light touch with her stories and that isn't a bad thing, just a very specific style of writing, almost like it's partially unreal. I didn't connect with this one or these characters as much as I have in the past.

Disclaimer: I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I picked this book up for two reasons: (1) I have read Vendela Vida's books before, and I enjoy her writing, and (2) the subject is extremely nostalgic for me -- I used to live in the Outer Richmond, just adjacent (but a world away) from main character Eulabee's Sea Cliff neighborhood. I used to dream about living in that neighborhood, just like Eulabee's father, but unlike him, I never made it.

Even so, the San Francisco that Eulabee and her best friend Maria Fabiola breeze through is the one I remember. Vendela Vida was born and raised in San Francisco, so she gets every detail right. While reading this, I often would exclaim in delight at a detail, poking my husband awake to listen, half-asleep, while I read a quote that captured some tiny experience that I thought only I and my friends had noticed.

But the book is not really about San Francisco, it's about growing up. It's about that liminal time in your life when you're still settling into the person you'll be as an adult, and the decisions you make are not just about what you'll do in the moment, but what kind of person you choose to be.

Eulabee has spent most of her elementary and middle school years safe in the cocoon of a defined group of friends, existing within the glow of her wealthy and gorgeous best friend, Maria Fabiola. But in eighth grade, she is forced to choose between remaining part of the group or remaining true to herself.

Eulabee is a difficult character, as most teenagers are. She's beginning to look at the world in an adult way, but she doesn't yet know how to navigate difficult situations. She's not the perfect, wisecracking teen you'll find in a lot of YA literature. Eulabee is incredibly perceptive and brutally honest, but she's not socially adept. She genuinely cares about others, but she's not kind most of the time. I found myself saying "no, girl! don't do that!" so many times it may as well have been a horror movie.

But ultimately, Eulabee navigates the turbulent waters of her teen years -- not as smoothly as she runs the tides with Maria Fabiola -- but she finds her way to adulthood and a version of herself that is honest, one that she feels comfortable with. Years later, she encounters Maria Fabiola again and realizes that she may have run smoothly through her teen years, but she may never truly have grown up.

Conclusion: If you are interested in a coming of age story that's not necessarily "fun," sometimes difficult, but ultimately rewarding, I recommend this. If you're looking for more lightweight teen drama, you probably won't enjoy this.

CONTENT WARNING: This book contains references to sexual assault.

~*Thank you to NetGalley for the early access to this book!*~
To be completely honest.. I’m still not sure what this book was about. The writing was sharp and clever, but the storyline(s?) just fell completely, and utterly flat. The beginning of the book starts out very promising with what seems like a strong plot and then slowly disintegrates into a fraying piece of thread with about five different, random strings.
I felt like the disappearance of Maria Fabiola was completely anticlimactic and an afterthought, when it was supposed to be the main focus of the story. The main character was interesting enough, and I liked the information about her Swedish culture but I was confused about her actual age. There was a somewhat explicit nature with the boys, which I understand is typical with coming-of-age stories, but it seemed a bit advanced for the age group (13/14 year olds).
The ending only further proved my point of the whole book not really having a point. It was very rushed and slightly bizarre. This was one of those rare books that features good writing- very good writing at times- but has a complete lack of actual story. 2.5 ★.

3.5/5.
Thanks to Netgalley and Ecco or an advanced copy in exchange for a fair and honest review.

We Run the Tides offers the perspective of a girl during an influential coming-of-age moment. The main character has depth, the descriptions are enough but not too much, and the plot churns quickly.

We Run the Tides doesn't chew on any one aspect for so long that boredom ensues, but instead presents a blunt portayal that lets the rumination happen on the reader's terms. I appreciated the writing style. I don't like a lot of filler or drawing out of every single plot detail. We Run the Tides told a story without assuming it needed to pound every point into my skull.

One minor complaint is that Eulabee doesn't sound like a 13 year old. She's too mature. I know there are 13 year olds mature beyond their years, but they're rare, and in this case she always sounds like she's in college or beyond, not 14 and sometimes tumbling end over end with emotion she doesn't always know how to handle. Something bad happens to her, but she doesn't seem to realize it's bad (which may indicate her immaturity). It's as though it didn't bother her in the slightest. It never comes up again. Even with my disbelief in how Eulabee is presented, I like her character. She's got a good head on her shoulders, and she's got a good perspective on most things.

As to the story structure, there's a crucial change in the Eulabee's perspective of Maria Fabiola early on. For the rest of the plot to mean more, I think that the change shouldn't have been so complete just yet. It would have made more tension throughout the story and been more of a coming of age story if Eulabee had to wrestle a bit with doubt, but she doesn't.

I give this book a soft recommendation to adult readers in search of a story to take them back to one of the harder lessons a lot of us learned as children.

This book feels... performative. Like that person who tells an autobiographical story at a party that’s absolutely not true and does so only to seem cool and get a certain reaction, but is then super defensive about any questioning. This book seems to not only be that dynamic, but also to set up that dynamic for the author when she talks about the book. She seemed to litter the story with vaguely offensive things *just* so she could later be appalled at the narrow-mindedness of the questioner while claiming “historical accuracy.” Once you notice that power play, which is fairly immediately, the book is simply tiresome.

I was completely blown away by WE RUN THE TIDES; devoured it in 24 hours and wishing there was more. I fell in love with Vendela Vida a few years ago with her completely unique novel THE DIVER'S CLOTHES LIE EMPTY. That book stayed with me big time, so when I saw she had another one coming out, I was so excited to see what else she had to offer. This book was not even close to disappointing - Vida's humor shines through as you hungrily flip the pages to see what crazy things are going to happen next. She is a singular voice, and this book a must-read if you like offbeat coming of ages novels set in the 1980s.

A lot of bizarre things happen to eighth grader Eulabee, growing up in San Francisco and going to an all-girls school. She runs with the popular kids, and her best friend is the (amazingly named) Maria Fabiola, who hits puberty first and hypnotizes pretty much everyone around her. Maria Fabiola's decisions come to haunt Eulabee in lots of different ways, and what happens to them that year reverberates in over-the-top ways, and through adulthood. This is a book to experience; to savour Vida's amazing and hilarious black humor and writing, and to go on a journey through the life of a precocious eighth grader who you will fall in love with. Cannot recommend enough.

ARC was provided by Ecco Books via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A coming of age novel set in 1980’s San Francisco. Students at an all-girls private school, this is the story of young friends who are desperate to belong but equally desperate to stand out and be noticed. Vida depicts teenage angst perfectly. Lots of drama, lies, friendships broken, and the crazy continues all the way until the end of the book. A great read!

This is a unique story set in the 80’s in San Francisco. It’s quirky and different but in a good way. At first I wasn’t sure, we go from just one year in the 80’s to 2019 which leaves out the rest of her “coming of age”. The more I think about it, the more it grows on me. Thank you so much NetGalley and the publisher for an E-ARC.

I love when a book is so realistic it brings emotion you can't explain and makes you feel uncomfortable. Vendela Vida's new book We Run The Tides does exactly that. Normally, when I write a review I can do so after I have finished the book. For this book in particular I had to let it soak.

For a quick synopsis, this coming of age story is centered around teenage Eulabee and her enigmatic best friend Maria Fabiola. Set in Sea Cliff, a 1980's pre-tech wealthy neighborhood of San Francisco. Eulabee and Maria Fabiola pride themselves on knowing everyone and everything that goes on in the neighborhood. The turning point is when Eulabee and Maria Fabiola disagree on an event that occurs which eventually leads to a bunch of events to spiral out.

This book is a beautifully haunting tale of teenage female friendship and is one of the most unsettling books I've ever read in the best possible way. Vendela Vida writes the character so vividly, you feel an emotional connection to them. Eulabee, is a quirky and smart while Maria Fabiola is that enigmatic friend we've all had that just causes trouble. You learn to love and hate both characters, and feel for their struggles and pain. I love the fact that Maria Fabiola is never referred to as just Maria. It gives me such a sense of nostalgia and reminds of my teenage years where we all know that 1 person you call by their first and last name.

So, all in all, after letting it settle in, I really enjoyed this book. I recommend reading it, although I can say it may not be for everyone but if are a fan of dark and realistic coming of age stories or books like Where the Crawdad's Sing or the Virgin Suicides, this book is for you.

Thank you to Netgallery & Harpercollins for the eARc for a honest review.

This story of privileged teens, Eulabee and her best friend Maria growing up in cliffside mansions overlooking both Golden Gate Bridge, quickly draws you in and holds you tight as the character reveals and plot twists start to gallop along mimicking the powerful and dangerous tides of the beach below. You get irresistibly drawn into the behind-the-scenes unveiling of the lives and secrets of families living on San Francisco’s most privileged street and the evolving angst in friendships between four close teens attending an upscale all-girl’s private school. What rachets up the tension most centers on the early blossoming of Eulabee’s friend Maria into womanhood, along with sexual innuendos and exaggerations that eventually get local detectives involved. Eulabee holds out telling for the truth, risking social ostracization and alienation from her friends, and ultimately struggling to reconcile the blurring of fantasy into mental illness. In the midst of all the drama, from saving classmates caught in a rip tide, appearing in a TV show segment, Swedish-displaced moms bonding over cooking and unhappy au pairs, to kidnapping plots, are some simply belly laugh out loud moments of comedy that ripple out and uplift in this brilliant gem of a novel.

A quick and engrossing read! It felt very true to a 13 year old girl's experience and internal dialogue.

It's a little bit of mystery but mostly coming of age and the friend dynamics of middle schoolers.

Eulabee is a refreshing, thoughtful, honest, and very funny protagonist.

Kind of an unlikely cross between Elena Ferrante and The Virgin Suicides. I really liked it...perfectly captured the feeling of being a teenager.

We meet Eulabee as a 13 year old living in San Francisco in the 1980’s. At the start of this story, she has a tight knit group of friends, especially her best friend Maria Fabiola. An than an incident occurs that causes a major rift with Eulabee and her friends.

After that incident, Maria goes missing, which sets up this literary mystery. At times this book felt very YA, but in the end the author wrote a very poignant story that captures that time and place perfectly.

Vida wrote this as if she was in the mind of this young adolescent. Her thoughts and feelings felt as if you were right there along with Eulabee. This is literary to its core, even though there is a mystery, this is all about character development. Somehow Vida, was able to make a literary fiction novel, fast paced that I did not want to end.

This is a great book for discussion and book clubs. There is a lot to unpack here, but totally worth it in the end.

Thank you NetGalley and Ecco Books for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

It’s the mid-1980s and Eulabee and her friends are at the age between childhood and adulthood. Not yet in high school, but ready to spread their wings and enjoy some more freedom in their upper-middle-class neighborhood of Sea Side overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s the time where girls turn on each other and long-term friendships fall apart for seemingly the smallest of reasons. A time where one misstep can get you labeled a freak or a slut. A time where one girl’s disappearance leaves questions for all.

I don’t fancy myself some sort of wordsmith (maybe a gifsmith on occasion hardy-har-har) and generally have a hard time coming up with anything aside from “it was guuud” when summarizing a book. The one thing I do attempt every now and again is to find an apples to apples type of comparison. The book that kept popping into my head the whole time I was reading We Run the Tides was The Virgin Suicides. But I’m not quite sure why. The obvious reason would be the female coming of age aspect, but I think this time it was more about the feeling I had while reading. Being enraptured by the storytelling. Knowing I was experience a fresh voice who has a real future ahead of her. Breaking the norm of me trying to remember if I had read this or not within six months because I won’t be forgetting this one anytime soon. As always, who knows if this will resonate the same for any of you? I hope it does, but since this is my review space for my feelings I can’t make any guarantees. I can only tell you the truth about my reaction and my reaction was . . . .

DIS WAS GUUD. DIS WAS REEL GUUD.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, NetGalley!

“We are thirteen, almost fourteen, and these streets of Sea Cliffs are ours.”

from this very first sentence of WE RUN THE TIDES, I was completely absorbed into this story of female friendship. Eulabee and Maria Fabiola are best friends, until they decide they aren’t, as young girls are wont to do. the story is dark but so very funny, a combination that was delightful. I laughed out loud, marked many great lines and passages, and fell in love with Eulabee, one of the best characters I’ve read in a while. this is a book that will stick with me. 5/5⭐️—I loved it!

A beautiful and suspenseful tale of friendship and coming of age that I think most readers will find something to connect to. Highly recommend!

Chronicling one year in the lives of four teenage girls in pre-tech boom San Francisco, Vendela Vida’s WE RUN THE TIDES is an instantly gripping, hauntingly beautiful tribute to the interior lives of young women and how the world begins to change them.

Teenagers Eulabee and Maria Fabiola reside in a world of dichotomies. The eldest students at their upscale girls’ school, they are not yet grown women. Still young enough to pull off mischievous pranks, their bodies are beginning to swell and curve in ways that make them noticeable to the men around them. Together with their friends, Julia and Faith, they feel as if the streets of their neighborhood, Sea Cliff, are theirs and theirs alone. Only they know the intimate slopes of the streets and the curves of the beaches, which aging rock star lives in which mansion, and which home boasts the most suitable boys. But for all they know --- or at least believe they know --- the world around them remains full of unseen and insidious dangers, malicious and inappropriate acts that they have never noticed before.

The year is 1984, and the girls have settled into a comfortable routine, walking in the same pattern to school every day, orbiting the same boys, and teasing the same teachers at their ritzy school. But Maria Fabiola --- always the most beautiful of the girls --- is starting to change: her hair has developed natural waves, her breasts have emerged from her scrawny chest, and her pull on the people around her has strengthened. With her newfound power comes a sort of insanity, a desire to step outside the lines and mold the reality around her. But her new look has drawbacks, too, such as unwanted attention from men (including the father of one of her friends) and strict new dress codes aimed at hiding her changing body.

When the girls are walking to school one day, a man in a car asks them for the time, noting that he thought it was much later. When they get to school, Maria Fabiola’s telling of the encounter has grown wings; in her version, the stranger was touching himself and threatened to find them later. However, Eulabee denies that account, turning Maria Fabiola into a social outcast in their friend group and the school at large. Her distance from them is amplified when she is kidnapped. Or is she?

Eulabee knows that Maria Fabiola has a tendency to stretch the truth, but Sea Cliff becomes obsessed with the story of a brilliant girl and budding ballerina (both half-truths) being abducted. As Eulabee comes to learn, her former friend is not just beautiful, she is also an incredibly wealthy heiress, which forces her to wonder what other details she has missed about her friends, their families and all of Sea Cliff when she was too young to question everything. Leaving Eulabee alone with her thoughts, Vida welcomes readers into the glorious, dangerous world of the mind of a teenage girl, full of sharp angles, thorny passageways and plenty of angst.

As the mystery of Maria Fabiola’s disappearance plays out in the background, Eulabee --- already the most self-aware and honest of her friends --- starts to see her wealthy, privileged upbringing as anything but normal and begins to take notice of the way that she and her friends are seen by the world. Her innocence wears away through encounters with boys and brushes with death, mirroring the radical transformation of the city she inhabits. Laying bare the inner turmoil and growing pains of Eulabee’s teenage years, Vida simultaneously draws an immersive, inimitable portrait of foggy, eccentric San Francisco. As the changes in one are mirrored in another, the mystery of Maria Fabiola fades away and is replaced by an even greater story of confusion, longing and fear.

WE RUN THE TIDES is a spellbinding and achingly poignant novel, particularly for its short length. Vida’s prose is stark but exquisite, dark but surprisingly funny. She draws sharp realizations through Eulabee that feel at once decidedly youthful and naive and wise beyond their years. Eulabee is a fantastic protagonist, and Vida positions her perfectly at the cusp of youth and adulthood, masterfully unpacking every loss of innocence, every hunt for freedom and every battle for authenticity. Much like the ocean it describes, the book is full of sweeping undercurrents, striking highs and lows, and an overwhelming sense of power that makes this short novel feel impossibly full of heart and wisdom.

Perfect for readers of MEMORIAL, THE DIVINES and any wickedly dark coming-of-age stories, WE RUN THE TIDES is a novel that will stick with you for years to come.

This coming of age story, set in Sea Cliff, a wealthy and beachy San Francisco neighborhood in the 80s, will stay with me for a long time. The main character, Eulabee and her three friends are 8th graders at an all-girl private school and together they navigate the neighborhood, their friendship and their burgeoning interest in boys. Until one day, when something happens on their way to school and Eulabee refuses to go with her friends version of the facts (which isn't the truth but a story fabricated by Maria-Fabiola, the most precocious of the quartet and Eulabee's best friend up to that point). The effect is that Eulabee is ostracized by her friends and has to deal with everything by herself (with a little help by a Swedish au pair young adult who is temporarily leaving at her house). What the author really achieves in this novel is the depiction of that very fleeting moment when girls are on the verge of becoming women but there is still a lot that they don't know about how the world and relationships work and their fantasies become almost as real as their real life. Eulabee has a distinctive voice and you will just fall in love with her as a character. She is smart, but cannot avoid getting herself in troubles. Her best friend, Maria Fabiola, remains a bit of a mystery until the end (I personally didn't find the comparisons with Elena Ferrante's characters very on point). I grew up in the 80s in a similar close-knit neighborhood (albeit in Italy) and the nostalgia that emanates from the pages is real. You almost want to be back at that age, even knowing what that implies. I also appreciated that the adults in this novel are mostly positive figures, especially Eulabee's parents, who are loving and trustworthy.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ecco publishing for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.