Review Blog Tour: Finish Lines by Sarah Broyles, with art by Hanna Schroy
We are thrilled to be part of the blog tour for Finish Lines, a graphic novel by Sarah Broyles with art by Hanna Schroy, out tomorrow. Sarah is a Texas-based author and the Texas Water Safari, the 260-mile canoe race at the center of this book, is a real race, which will become very apparent as you read. Read on for our full review!
Finish Lines: A Graphic Novel
by Sarah Broyles, Hanna Schroyon June 16th, 2026
Bookshop
Goodreads
Miranda needs something to write about in her college application essays. But what? Miranda has a plan: ace her junior year, get into an Ivy League school, and skip anything that doesn’t look good on a college application. But the pressure is getting to her, and now her parents have cut her off from every club, competition, and committee she’s a part of.
Desperate to get back on track, Miranda sets her sights on the Texas Water Safari—a 260-mile canoe race her mom was set to do with her granddad. With her mom sidelined by an injury, Miranda joins her grandfather. It’s grueling, messy, and scorching hot.
Can a perfectionist survive the wild long enough to find out who she is outside of a college checklist?
Review
Finish Lines made me absolutely certain I will never do a long distance canoe race (and you probably know I can pretty easily be talked into endurance sports 😆), which means it did its job. The Texas Water Safari is 260 miles of grueling, scorching, genuinely miserable conditions and Sarah does not romanticize any of it. Miranda signs up expecting to find herself and instead finds blisters, heat, and a grandfather who has a lot more to teach her than she anticipated.
The book is really about perfectionism as a coping mechanism, which is where it gets interesting. Miranda’s parents are both in recovery and the way that shapes her family dynamic is handled with care. Her mother in particular is a fully realized character whose own relationship with achievement and control runs parallel to Miranda’s. When Miranda takes two of her mother’s prescription pills to manage her own pressure, the consequences are there and the book does not flinch from them.
The recovery themes are layered and will land differently depending on your own experiences or those of people you love. Sarah is not presenting easy answers and the book is better for it. What it does clearly and well is make the case that the finish line is not the point, that the pressure to optimize every moment of your adolescence for a college application is its own kind of trap, and that sometimes the most important thing you can do is get in a canoe and struggle through something that has nothing to do with your GPA.
The art by Hanna Schroy brings the river to life (heh) in a way that makes the discomfort feel earned.
Follow the Tour
June 15th
Bookcrushin – Review <– You Are Here
Lin’s Perspective – Review
June 16th
unconventionalquirkybibliophile – Promotional Post
Paiges of Novels – 15 Reactions While Reading Finish Lines
June 17th
Twirling Book Princess – Top 5 Reasons to Read Finish Lines
Mx. Phoebe’s Viewpoint – Review, Favorite Quotes
June 18th
Confessions of a YA Reader – Promotional Post
The Book Dutchesses – Promotional Post
June 19th
The violet west – Review
Books1987 – Promotional Post
June 20th
Ilovebooksandstuffblog – Promotional Post
June 21st
Boys’ Mom Reads! – Promotional Post
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