(84) The Ocean Inside by Janna McMahan

Well, my Property & Casualty exam is scheduled for June 1st. With any kind of luck, I will pass and be licensed to sell Property & Casualty insurance in Wyoming. Just in time for the Summer Reading to swing into full force. I am excited to get licensed, but I am so sick of that stupid book I am ready to throw it at a wall.

Yesterday after studying for six hours I said screw it, I am going to read a real book. I picked The Ocean Inside off of my Library Book pile and whipped through it really fast. It was a GREAT book, but to warn you it has a child with Cancer. My wonderful Aunt lost her battle with Cancer on May 3rd. It was hard to read about the destroying disease affecting such a young child, but it was tastefully written.

The Ocean Inside is about the Sullivan family on Pawlsey Island in South Carolina. Their world falls apart when nine year old Ainslee is diagnosed with cancer and Emmett discovers their new insurance company is denying the claims, calling it a preexisting condition. Their world becomes juggling bills, staving off the collectors and trying to keep their daughter alive. Each of them handle this trying time in different ways. Emmett drinks, Lauren lives in denial, and teenager, Sloan hooks up with a "rich kid" playing a dangerous game. Will the family be able to hold it together and survive what Cancer is putting them all through?

In The Ocean Inside, Janna McMahan introduces to a real family with real struggles facing a real disease. Their reaction is human and the writing makes you feel as if this were a family you know from your own hometown. The familiarity of the Sullivan's is what makes this book so real and touches your heart. The Ocean Inside was my first introduction to the works of Janna McMahan, but it won't be my last. I am off to search B&N for more of her books!