Jason Prosper has left his prep school with one year left and is going to finish out his high school career at Bellingham Prep in Massachusetts, the school of last resort for many damaged teens. Jason is mourning the loss of his best friend and sailing partner Cal. Once on campus, Jason meets Race, against whom he and Cal once sailed, and nearly causes Race to drown their first time out on the water. Laying low and hoping to get out of Bellingham alive and with a diploma, Jason strikes up a tentative and unusual relationship with Aidan, a girl who is very damaged, leaving her last school, if rumors are to be believed, for attacking the female art teacher with whom she was having a relationship when the woman broke it off. Together, the two navigate their senior year until a tragedy occurs that makes Jason take a look at everything he thought he knew, things he doesn’t want to see and things he must face if he ever hopes to heal and move on with his life.
An insightful first novel taking a look into life at a privileged prep school, A Starboard Sea should easily stand the test of time and take its place with similar novels, such as A Separate Peace. There are many metaphors, and clichés, about the sea and wind that come quickly to mind, but Amber Dermont has managed to avoid them, instead creating a story whose gentle pull and angst and trouble underneath mimic the ebb and flow of the tide and the dangerous currents just below the surface. With a great deal of insight she explores the relationships of the students to each other, to their teachers at school and to their families. As the water takes life, so does it infuse Jason with life and the will to continue, even in the face of absence and great loss.
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