Into the Tide

I’ll admit, I was skeptical when *Into the Tide* started with familiar tropes—a summer romance, a protagonist rebelling against small-town expectations, a love interest who’s *way* too good to be true. But by the halfway mark, Pavlov had me hooked not just by her sharp character work, but by the way she dismantles those tropes with surgical precision. Lila isn’t a rebellious heroine for the sake of drama; she’s a girl who’s painfully aware of the cracks in her own life, and her choices feel earned, even when they’re messy. The narration elevates everything: Crais’s voice sells the weight of the town’s history and the burden of expectations, while Cartwright’s performance as Lila is a revelation—she nails the vulnerability, the defiance, and the sheer exhaustion of being young and unsure in a place that expects you to have it all figured out. My only complaint? The middle drags slightly, and I wish the side characters (like Lila’s brother and his easygoing best friend) had more depth to balance the emotional climax. But those are minor quibbles in an audiobook that otherwise feels like a wave crashing over you—immersive, unpredictable, and impossible to ignore. If you love stories where the setting becomes a character, and where emotional honesty trumps neat resolutions, this is your next obsession.