What is magical about Jenna is her strength, her willingness to reach out and love in spite of a life that’s been pretty devoid of love. Jenna is alone, in her life, in her home, and at school. Jenna’s mother is an alcoholic and her father is abusive, her brother is away and she is newly released from a psych ward (we’re not sure why until the end). Anderson is there for Jenna when she needs him. He seems to understand her, and while her parents are distant and struggling with their own problems - both individually and in their marriage - Mr. Anderson, a chemistry teacher with a lot of magnetism. Jenna begins at a new private school and is drawn to Mr. Some of the abuse is hinted at, some is simply neglect, and some takes place in the pages of the story. Jenna’s life has been filled with abuse of many kinds. Drowning Instinct builds and builds until the reader is unable to put the book down because Jenna is a wonderful, smart teenager who has been through an unimaginable childhood, and we just have to know what is going to happen now while she’s in the middle of a crisis. Because of that, it takes the reader a while to feel involved, to like Jenna, to relate to her.īut like a fire burning in a fireplace, it gets hottest once the fire has been blazing for a while, when the wood is full of bright red embers that hold and radiate the heat. Her story is told slowly, and the story begins at the end. It’s one of those books that leave the reader thinking - about the characters and about what really happened.

“Drowning Instinct” is one of those books where things are not as they appear - even after you’ve finished the book.

Bick is one of those stories that when you finish the last page, you close the book and think about it for a bit, and then you open the book and read the first pages again so you really understand what is happening at the beginning.

Drowning instinct