Phantom Limbs

by Garner Paula

How do you move on from an irreplaceable loss? In a poignant debut, a sixteen-year-old boy must learn to swim against an undercurrent of grief—or be swept away by it.

Otis and Meg were inseparable until her family abruptly moved away after the terrible accident that left Otis’s little brother dead and both of their families changed forever. Since then, it’s been three years of radio silence, during which time Otis has become the unlikely protégé of eighteen-year-old Dara—part drill sergeant, part friend—who’s hell-bent on transforming Otis into the Olympic swimmer she can no longer be. But when Otis learns that Meg is coming back to town, he must face some difficult truths about the girl he’s never forgotten and the brother he’s never stopped grieving. As it becomes achingly clear that he and Meg are not the same people they were, Otis must decide what to hold on to and what to leave behind. Quietly affecting, this compulsively readable debut novel captures all the confusion, heartbreak, and fragile hope of three teens struggling to accept profound absences in their lives.

• ISBN10: 0763682055
• ISBN13: 9780763682057
• Publish Date: 27 September 2016
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Candlewick Press,U.S.
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 368
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780763682057

Reviews

[Kelly]

4.5 Stars.
Phantom Limbs is a gentle yet wonderfully written exploration of grief and the imprint left behind by those who touch our lives. Poignant and quietly hopeful, Otis is a character that represents a life once bound by sadness, depicted compassionately and delicately. Simply beautiful.

Otis is a young man wise beyond his years, sensitive and contemplative and I admired his quiet resilience from the very first page. We're first introduced to Otis the athlete, the black line beneath the water his steadfast companion as a surly Dara hurls thinly veiled motivational abuse in her position as coach slash maybe friend slash emotional support. Dara is an significant support in Otis' life, using not only swimming as an anchor but her formula of brutal honesty was often strangely delightful and quite charming. She's a tyrant, he has a cavalier attitude but under their blasé facade these two love, care and nurture one another so tenderly.

Although following Otis, Phantom Limbs is very much Dara's journey, a character I loved fiercely and found her narrative more compelling. Still a young woman, Dara conceals her anguish beneath the surface of a hardened facade, the loss of her mother, her wealthy single father, a Russian businessman who provides Dara with little more than financial support. Although seemingly at ease after the loss of her limb in a devastating accident, Dara experiences phantom limb pains, a condition often experienced by amputees and in Dara's circumstance, subdued by deceiving her cognition into believing her arm is still physically present through the use of a mirror. It was fascinating and a condition I hadn't heard of prior to reading Phantom Limbs. Dara is a private person and internalises her anxiety, both with her condition and sexuality. She's angry, scared and imperfectly flawed to perfection.

After three years of silence, Meg is coming back to town and it's abundantly clear that Otis is still in love with his former friend and childhood sweetheart. Meg left town while Otis was still grieving for his brother Mason. Before Meg's arrival, Otis begins to distance himself from Dara unconsciously which left me feeling irate. In conjunction with professional therapy, Dara was a comfort for Otis during his darkest moments and offered him purpose and an outlet to channel his grief. That bastard. It felt as though he only cared for his own needs.

I found Meg to be quite charming. She's matured and grown as a young woman since leaving town, returning with a reserved perspective. She isn't the strong, free spirited girl she once was and I felt Otis was pushing the boundaries of their tentative friendship even knowing that Meg was in a relationship.

Meg, Otis and Dara are three contrasting and multifaceted individuals that authenticates how complex, delicate and imperfect we are. Our adolescent years are often when we discover our sense of self, self worth and our own ideals and beliefs that debut author Paula Garner portrayed beautifully and faithfully. Loved it immensely.

http://www.divabooknerd.com/2016/12/phantom-limbs.html

[Bianca]

I didn’t know how I’d ever extricate her from myself. It would take somewhere between a long time and never. And really, if her dad was going to live here and she was going to visit, it leaned more toward never. She might always be my phantom limb. She might always hurt.

— Broke my heart and put it together again. About loss, grief, and moving on + a very beautiful M/F friendship at the center. What a book!

[shannonmiz]

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight

4.5*

I kind of adored this book. See, Otis is a swimmer. So it won me over from the start with Otis and Dara and their swimming shenanigans. To sum it up for you:

"Like an Olympic swimmer, Otis Mueller didn't take days off. Unlike an Olympic swimmer, Otis Mueller would never make it to the Olympics."

Gah, where to even begin? This book was so good and I kind of want to mostly flail. So how about I do just that?

• I am going to start again with the swimming, but I loved it. And it was really, really well done. Like some of the things Otis thought about swimming are things I have absolutely thought about swimming. Like:
  

  "Swimming kept me from drowning."

  
  (Meant in the not-literal sense, but the emotional one);
  

  "'You smell like chlorine. How is that possible?' I shrugged. 'It's in my pores."

  
  Dara wanted Otis to be an Olympian because she no longer could be. Otis just wanted to do the best he could do. It was such an amazing dynamic between these two. Which brings me to my next point...


• The friendships. Goodness, I loved how loyal Otis was to Dara. Sometimes to a fault, even, but he was. He was her safe place, and I loved him so much for it. Dara had to deal with so much pain (physically and mentally) and her having Otis was so important. Yeah, he was sometimes too enabling, but the whole point was that they had to work this dynamic out! It felt so realistic, like an actual friendship where shit gets so messy, but you deal with it.


• The family was so, so important. Since Otis's little brother died, he and his family have basically been in hell, as you can imagine. And yeah, sometimes Otis would get annoyed because he is a teenager and a human, but he was so incredibly loving to his family and always thought about their needs- even when he kind of didn't want to. And they loved him (and his brother) so fiercely.


• The feels were powerful. I am crying just writing this review, and I finished this book like, a month ago. It was beautiful, and so incredibly difficult to read. As a mom, I had to stop reading a few times during some of of Otis's scenes with his own mom. It was absolutely gut wrenching, but in a beautifully done way. And it was really honest, the way the families dealt with their grief, and how everyone processes these things in their own ways, and that it is okay.


• I did ship the romance even if I didn't always agree with it. Otis has it bad for Meg. She's been gone since Mason's death, and now she's popped back into his life. He was so hurt by her sudden absence, but he still loves her anyway- maybe too much. Like, that is one thing I had a little trouble with (well fine, that and Otis being way too obsessed with his penis, but I guess that is probably pretty honest too, so I can't really hold that against the book). He is willing to fight for Meg no matter how much she puts him through, and he has already been through a lot. But Meg is a sweet girl too, and has a lot of her own demons to overcome. And it's clear that they have love for each other, despite the years that have passed.


• Otis's character growth, along with all the characters' growth, is really awesome to watch. It isn't immediate, nor is it complete, but it was really authentic. I won't spoil anything, but each of these characters learned something about themselves, often from the people around them and how they all related to each other.

Bottom Line: Beautifully written with characters I cared about deeply, this was such a fabulous debut! I laughed, I cried, I swooned, and I got a hefty dose of swimming, so an absolute win for me.

*Copy provided by publisher for review
**Quotes taken from uncorrected proof, subject to change