This is not a book it is a work of art.' -Kerry Kletter, author of The First Time She Drowned 'Impossibly beautiful, life-affirming, profound. A mesmerizing and timely debut.” - Bustle “A YA The Bell Jar with a ghostly twist, honest, nuanced portrayal of grief and life with mental illness. Alive with sensation and rich in thought and feeling, How it Feels to Float intensively explores what it’s like to be here now.” -Margo Lanagan, author of Tender Morsels

“This book will explode you into atoms, put you back together, and return the new shape of you to earth. “Lyrical and profoundly affecting, providing a nuanced account of the hereditary effects of trauma. She explores the hard and beautiful places loss can take us, and honors those who hold us tightly when the current wants to tug us out to sea. Or maybe-maybe maybe maybe-there's a third way Biz just can't see yet.ĭebut author Helena Fox tells a story about love and grief, about inter-generational mental illness, and how living with it is both a bridge to someone loved and lost and, also, a chasm. It might be easier, better, sweeter to float all the way away? Or maybe stay a little longer, find her father, bring him back to her. Dad disappears and, with him, all comfort. And Biz knows how to float, right there on the surface-normal okay regular fine.īut after what happens on the beach-first in the ocean, and then in the sand-the tethers that hold Biz steady come undone. And she doesn't tell anyone about her dad. Not about her dark, runaway thoughts, not about kissing Grace or noticing Jasper, the new boy. And she has her dad, who tells her about the little kid she was, and who shouldn't be here but is. She has her people, her posse, her mom and the twins. Kathleen Glasgow, author of Girl in Piecesīiz knows how to float.

How it feels to float helena fox