This is wonderful story, with powerful writing. It will appeal to a broad age range and would make a great family read-aloud.

In summing up the feel of this book, my mind mashed together Ramona Quimby and Huckleberry Finn. The element of always striving to be better versus the need to be true to oneself is integral to this story.

Character development and consistency was beyond excellent. An example of what I mean is found in chapter 8 as Indie gets her first glimpse of Punk rocker, Sloth. Indie has always been fish obssessed and it follows through in this description, "Sloth is standing there looking at both of us. She has so many face rings, she looks like a fish that never gets caught but just drags the hooks away into the deep blue sea."

This is how a real kid thinks. Whatever they are obssessed with spills over into every aspect of their lives. It's little details like this that catch a young reader.

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A good story that suffers from an ending that doesn't feel right. Perhaps in contrast to the friendship between Indie and Owen which develops so naturally. However, I did find Indie's apology to Owen is quite lovely. ( )