My Heart Underwater - by Laurel Flores Fantauzzo (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Fans of Adib Khorram and Randy Ribay will love this coming-of-age debut about a Filipina American teen drowning under pressure and learning to trust her heart.

Corazon Tagubio is an outcast at the Catholic school she attends on scholarship. Her crush on her teacher, Ms. Holden, doesn't help. At home, Cory worries that less-than-perfect grades aren't good enough for her parents, who already work overtime to support her distant half-brother in the Philippines.

After an accident leaves her dad comatose, Cory feels like Ms. Holden is the only person who really understands her. But when a crush turns into something more and the secret gets out, Cory is sent to her relatives in Manila. She's not prepared to face strangers in an unfamiliar place, but she discovers how the country that shaped her past might also redefine her future.

This novel takes readers on a journey across the world as Cory comes to understand her family, her relationships, and ultimately, herself.

"My Heart Underwater is a lovely, magnificent wonder of a novel that will leave you with the rarest of tender heartaches: life-affirming, life-inspiring, life-loving; a heartache of joy and becoming. You won't walk freely, or willingly, from these pages." --New York Times bestselling author Marjorie Liu

* A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2020 * A 2022 ALA Rainbow Booklist Selection *

What happens when the only person who understands you is the one you can't be with?

• A Secret First Love: Cory is falling for her history teacher, Ms. Holden, the one person who sees her for who she is. But in the halls of her Catholic high school, this forbidden crush could cost her everything.
• Fish Out of Water: Exiled to the Philippines after her secret is exposed, Cory must navigate the bustling streets of Manila and a family of strangers, including a half-brother she's only ever seen on a screen.
• Deep Family Secrets: In a country she barely knows, Cory unearths the painful history that separated her mother from her family and begins to understand the sacrifices her parents made.
• A Journey of Identity: Torn between her American upbringing and her Filipino roots, Cory must find her own voice and learn to trust her own heart, even when it's breaking.

Review Quotes

"This soulful #OwnVoices story explores how love for family and tradition can conflict with personal dignity." - Booklist

"Smoothly woven and intriguing glimpses of Filipino culture, language, and economy pop up throughout this #ownvoices novel." - Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

"This emotionally powerful YA debut sensitively portrays the tension between Cory's American upbringing and attempts to stay true to her cultural roots." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Not to be missed." - School Library Journal

"Fantauzzo's emotional story extends beyond Cory's search for identity and belonging, adding insights about both historical and metaphorical colonization, while readers are immersed in the uncertainty that surrounds new and ongoing family crises, resentment, and forgiveness." - Horn Book Magazine

My Heart Underwater is a lovely, magnificent wonder of a novel that will leave you with the rarest of tender heartaches: life-affirming, life-inspiring, life-loving; a heartache of joy and becoming. You won't walk freely, or willingly, from these pages. - New York Times bestselling author Marjorie Liu

A wise, complex exploration of a young person on the cusp of adulthood as she navigates the in-between: being Filipinx in America and American in the Philippines. Readers who yearn for stories closer to the nuances, contradictions, and messiness of real life will love Cory and root for her.

Beautifully unsettling and deeply satisfying, My Heart Underwater should be read by all--and it's a gift to any community, not just the YA community, that such a heartfelt, literary novel is now in our hands. - Gina Apostol, author of Gun Dealers' Daughter, PEN/Open Book Award winner

"A (home)coming out story that rides a deep undercurrent of love." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)