Publishers Weekly
★ 05/02/2022
Both comic and heartrending, Patrick’s superb debut sets a bildungsroman and murder mystery in the wetlands of coastal Georgia. Brash and lonely Kay Whitaker, 12, is frustrated by her unemployed father, Clay; her emotionally absent mother, Sue-Bess; and her remote older sister, Sarah-Anne, whose favorite activity Kay describes as “standin’ in the yard like a twig in mud.” While exploring the wetlands beyond their isolated home, Kay meets Andy Webber, a handsome boy her age who lives with his crabber father, Nile. Clay orders her to avoid the Webbers but won’t explain why. Later, Kay discovers Nile was suspected in the drowning death of his wife a decade earlier. As Kay defies her father by jockeying for Andy’s attention, unidentified authorities her parents refer to only as “people from the state” routinely visit the Whitaker home. (Her parents also hide Sarah-Anne during the visits.) Then Sarah-Anne disappears, and secrets begin to surface. The crackling energy of Kay’s narration—a winning mixture of insight and naiveté, humor and pathos, vulnerability and strength—provides a welcome counterbalance to the oppressive setting and the pain the characters try to suppress. It’s a masterly achievement. Agent: Alyssa Jennette, Stonesong. (July)
From the Publisher
"Superb debut...the crackling energy of Kay’s narration—a winning mixture of insight and naiveté, humor and pathos, vulnerability and strength—provides a welcome counterbalance to the oppressive setting and the pain the characters try to suppress. It’s a masterly achievement." — Publishers Weekly STARRED review
"Many readers are looking for the next Where the Crawdads Sing, and will find The Floating Girls…is a close cousin...it has its own unique charms, featuring a winning young protagonist that will remind readers of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird." — Augusta Chronicle
"Readers will be unable to peel their eyes and hearts away from Lo Patrick’s The Floating Girls as secrets are revealed in the span of a Georgia summer." — Deep South Magazine
"Don’t sleep on Lo Patrick’s powerful coming-of-age and family drama set in the humid backwaters of Georgia...The Floating Girls has been compared to To Kill a Mockingbird, thanks to its child narrator, exploration of heartbreaking family secrets, and highlighting of social issues." — Reader's Digest editor's pick
"[A] compelling mystery...Kay is the smartest, funniest, most curious young narrator I have come across in some time. Her voice stuck with me long after I finished reading." — Tiffany Quay Tyson, award-winning author of The Past is Never
"Fans of Where the Crawdads Sing will love this immersive mystery set against the salty air of Georgia's marshes. In Patrick's atmospheric prose, the water and its characters come to life" — Lindsey Rogers Cook, author of Learning to Speak Southern
"To read The Floating Girls is to feel a small-town slowness seep into your bones. The book's narrator, Kay Whitaker, is a stubborn young girl you’ll never forget. A cracking story that unfolds in gorgeous prose in the stultifying heat of the American South." — Hayley Scrivenor, author of Dirt Creek
"The Floating Girls is a powerhouse of a Southern novel...this lush and mesmerizing debut has a beating heart of its own. Lo Patrick is a standout new Southern voice." — Andrea Bobotis, author of The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt
Library Journal
06/01/2022
DEBUT Part murder mystery, part coming-of-age drama of a very vulnerable girl, the debut novel by ex-lawyer Patrick is both bitingly funny and painfully depressing. Twelve-year-old Kay Whitaker, from the marshlands of Bledsoe, GA, has a lot to say. It could be that she's compensating for the silence of the women in her family: her aloof mother, a peculiar sister, and another sister who died at birth and was buried in the yard. Often at odds with her father and two brothers, Kay is in many ways raising herself through defiance and self-reliance as she lives in extreme poverty and abject loneliness. Then Kay meets Andy Webber and his father, just back from California where they moved after the death of Andy's mother. Kay's father doesn't want her befriending the Webbers but won't say why. As she spends more time with Andy, Kay wonders how much isn't being said between the families. When her sister disappears, Kay is determined to uncover both families' secrets. VERDICT This is classic Southern girlhood fiction with a twist. Readers who enjoyed Ashleigh Bell Pederson's recent debut, The Crocodile Bride, will fall in love with Kay.—Shannon Marie Robinson
