A review by andkellyreads
Float Plan by Trish Doller

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.25

I think I’m going to quit my job and just travel. 

I’m kidding, obviously, but wouldn’t that be magnificent? 

Granted, our heroine begins her journey under far more devastating circumstances, but my dormant sense of wanderlust was kicked into overdrive while reading this book. I will say that I was incredibly annoyed that the blurb didn’t mention at ALL that the heroine lost her fiancé to suicide and just instead said “she lost him” because that was kind of an abrupt slap in the face for me when I started (as someone who has lost someone to suicide) so I’m telling you all here now. 

The heroine sets off on her journey because her fiancé killed himself and that lingers throughout the book. 

The situation was handled well by Doller, and her discussions surrounding grief and how quickly people can move on from something this absolutely devastating and traumatic were spot on. 

<i>The stages of grief are not linear. They are random and unpredictable, folding back on themselves until you begin mourning all over again.</i>

Anna, our heroine, deals with moving on from her fiancé’s death in an incredibly natural and realistic way, and I identified with it. Grief is not linear, there is no timeline, and there is no magic formula for when you’ll feel okay again. In fact, you might never feel totally okay again at all, but that itself is okay, and seeing Anna go through this and process this information and realize that she can live, and that she can be happy and sad at the same time, and that she can have new experiences and do new things even without Ben by her side, was moving and authentic. We grieved and suffered right alongside Anna, but we also learned how to make room for the future and just be free with her as well.  

<i>But I’m starting to understand how sadness and happiness can live side by side within a heart. And how that heart can keep on beating.</i>

Float Plan was not what I expected, but I really enjoyed it. After a terrible solo sail to Bimini from Ft Lauderdale, Anna realizes she can’t make her voyage alone and seeks help. There, on Bimini, she meets Keane Sullivan, an Irish sailing vagabond with a prosthetic leg that he never lets get in his way. Kean was remarkable and wonderful and just so damn nice, and I loved every minute he was aboard that boat with Anna. Their love was such a good slow burn that grew stronger with every flip of the page, and it was lovely reading how Anna and Keane realized that they were exactly where they were supposed to be and with exactly who they needed: each other. 

The one thing that did kind of slip me up along the way however, was all of the sailing terminology. This book was incredibly well researched and thorough, but for someone who has never been sailing before, I felt tripped up a lot when they were describing what they were doing. I felt a bit like Erin from the Office when Andy is teaching her about sailboats, and to be honest, I’m still kind of lost? I respect the hell out of the knowledge Doller dropped about sailing and the islands that Anna and Keane visited, but it was still a bit too expert level for me in some cases.   

All in all, this book will tug at your heartstrings, it will make you angry, and it will make you incredibly sad, but it will also have you laughing and smiling and generally itching to grab your passport and just GO. I am incredibly grateful to have been able to go on this journey of self-discovery with Anna, and I hope you are, too.

<i>I reckon if you stay in one place too long, you might start taking it for granted,” Keane says. “But if you keep moving, everything holds its wonder. At least that’s been my experience.”</i>
  
{Many thanks to Netgalley and St Martin’s Griffin for the ARC} 
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