Over My Head [Paperback]

Marie Lamba (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 27, 2011

Sang Jumnal jumps into the summer before her senior year with big plans. But she didn't plan on facing her fear of swimming by taking a series of humiliating kiddy lessons. Or falling hard for college-aged lifeguard Cameron Cerulli, who is either the guy of her dreams or a player out to stomp on her heart. Or fighting with her dad, who bans her from seeing Cameron. Or discovering a huge secret her parents have been keeping about disappearing money.

Suddenly Sang's summer is overflowing with excitement and drama. And she's teetering on the dangerous brink of true love. Will she sink or swim? OVER MY HEAD is a hilarious and moving summertime novel filled with sticky situations and a twist that will melt your heart. 

Praise for OVER MY HEAD:

"Marie Lamba brings a fresh, new, and very authentic voice to this fabulous young adult novel. Coming of age has never been done so well!"
- L. A. Banks, New York Times best-selling author of THE VAMPIRE HUNTRESS LEGENDS series

"Marie Lamba strikes gold with OVER MY HEAD - a funny, touching, and at times heart-breaking young adult novel about the search for love. Gorgeous prose, deep insights and a wonderfully rewarding read. Highly recommended!"

- New York Times bestseller Jonathan Maberry.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Rarely have I encountered an author skilled enough to really get inside and sixteen-year-old mind and pull the reader along with them... full of fun characters and twists." - Clean Romance Reviews

"Over My Head is a strong contemporary offering, with an interesting, multi-layered plot and a likeable cast of characters. Marie Lamba deals with cultural conflicts with warmth and sympathy, while accurately representing young love, with all its accompanying mistakes and embarrassments. A solid read."-- Agrippina Legit

"There's a lot to enjoy about Over My Head. I truly appreciate how Sang's heritage is Indian...it's just wonderful to read about a totally normal girl. Because normal, average girls are worth knowing and worth reading about." --Tiger Holland, All-Consuming Books

From the Author

I wrote OVER MY HEAD as the follow-up to my first novel WHAT I MEANT... since many people wanted to know what happened to Sang after that book finished. OVER MY HEAD stands on its own, so there's no need to read the first book to enjoy this summery novel. I hope you like my newest book!  Best, Marie

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 298 pages
• Publisher: Lamba Associates, Inc. (June 27, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0615500676
• ISBN-13: 978-0615500676
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,366,098 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Marie Lamba (www.marielamba.com) is author of the humorous young adult novel What I Meant... (Random House), which Publisher's Weekly dubbed "an impressive debut." She's also author of the summery YA novel Over My Head about a girl who has either met the love of her life or a player out to break her heart. Marie's newest novel is a paranormal YA titled Drawn, which is about a teen artist who falls for a hot medieval ghost with a sketchy past. Her short story "What I Did..." is in the Philadelphia Liars Club anthology Liar Liar (Mendacity Press).

In addition to her fiction, Marie has published numerous articles in national magazines, and her essay "The View from the Outside" is in the anthology Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering (Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing). She lives in Pennsylvania, is a proud member of the Liars Club, and is an Associate Literary Agent for the Jennifer DeChiara Literary Agency in NYC.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book on the complexity of young summer love and family March 25, 2012

By Donna Galanti

Format:Paperback

I don't normally read YA but completely enjoyed this book - a good read full of teen angst, drama, complex family dynamics, love, and loss. I was thrown back to my teen years and deeply felt Sang's pain, joy, hopeful wishes and embarrassments as my own!

We catch up with teenage girl Sang heading into a swirling upside down summer of the unknown. Sang's summer holds a confusing weave of crushes, new friends, arch enemies, family problems, and humiliations. Sang's pivotal summer just may be the place where she finds her sea legs and swims, instead of sinking. A place where she may finally find herself. And YA Author Lamba gives us a delightful, bittersweet tale to follow - with a heroine we ache and cheer for.

Lamba certainly piles on the heavy, complex family dynamics in Sang's life, making it even more difficult for her to wade through on top of her regular teen issues. Lamba also knows how to vividly draw her readers into a painful teen world where the smallest mortifications can snowball into larger problems. And a world where embarrassment lurks in every encounter, waiting to happen.

Lamba gives us the black and white world of a teen. We witness how a teen's peers can have the power to shoot down a young girl with a few words. It's all or nothing. A world where every day is a roller coaster ride of highs and lows. Yet, Lamba leads Sang down the path to finding her own balance in this rigid world. A world where sparks between a boy can signal true love or not and we, the reader, seethe with death wishes for Sang's arch enemy!

You champion for Sang, as she often searches for the very thing that is in front of her all the time. As Sang learns the true meaning of family and friendship, she also discovers that while you don't always get what you want you may get what you need from the very forces you think are transpiring against you - the ones who love you.

Get ready to be teary-eyed at the end of this sweet coming-of-age book by a wonderful YA author. If I had a teen daughter I would want her to read this.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An (unlikely) enjoyable read! November 10, 2011

By Jim Kristofic

Format:Paperback

I don't usually read books like this. It's takes place in the summer (not my favorite season), it's about a girl looking for love and a boyfriend (I didn't date until college because I hated high school 'drama') while she's learning to swim at the local pool (I hate pools).

But a friend suggested it to me. I gave it my usual test: "I'll read twenty percent of the book. If it's not doing anything for me, I'm gone."

I read to the end. And quickly.

Here is a book that makes you feel the summer vibe no matter what time of year you open the book. It's all there: the sun, the sweat, the smell of cut grass and warm night air. It's about a teenage girl looking for love (sometimes in the wrong places) and trying to understand the world. It makes you laugh. You feel some genuine emotions. It's a book about a teenage girl who learns what it means to really say "I love you."

I hadn't read a book like this in a long time.

Lamba's clean and funny prose kept me interested in a subject that I would usually pass on (teenage girl looking for love and meaning? Not my typical bag). Her craft for tension and dialogue is embedded in her words. They sometimes feel like they're humming off the page. I actually looked forward to my evening visit with Sang and her exotic, inter-ethnic family as they struggle to put down their roots in quaint Doylestown, Pennsylvania. You hope for them. You root for Sang. You hope she and her family find their way in the fast-paced American landscape, but you also hope they stay true to their Indian traditions so that their deeper understandings of family and love can emerge like a swimmer from the deep end of the pool.

And there's a catfight scene that is just bracingly accurate and laugh-out-loud hilarious. You can't beat that combination.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Dive in! June 30, 2011

By Rusty Allen

Format:Paperback

OVER MY HEAD offers a jaunty teen journey, with young adult characters who are diverse, colorful, and well realized. Lamba's heroines are always bright, upstanding young ladies, fighting against feeling like the outsider and hoping for real love. Her YA audience will relate to the protagonist's realistic suburban/small-town life and many of her quandaries, including plenty of romantic intrigue. Will it be the college stud for Sang or her old softy of a high-school buddy? Who's real, who's not? Lamba's clean, tight prose is a breeze to read. This one again illustrates the challenges of living in a multicultural family. And though her heroines may sometimes lose faith amidst all the challenges, they always regain it. Read, and see this author finish with a nice twist of ambiguity!