Tsunami

Élodie is 15 years old and, as sometimes happens to young people her age, her parents get on her nerves royally. Her mother is an Acadian from Nova Scotia, queen of good humor and Christmas carols. His father, for his part, is an anglophone from Manitoba, a champion of short sentences and a lover of newsprint. At the heart of these two cultures, Élodie is a bilingual teenager living in Moncton, New Brunswick.

That evening at dinner, her parents have news to tell her: Élodie’s mother has a serious illness. This will be his last Christmas. Élodie feels both angry and guilty: she had wanted her mother to disappear, but she never wanted her to die!

In the newspaper, there is talk of a tsunami which engulfed several islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Rescuers found only one survivor; she is the last to know the language of her people and to practice the rituals of her culture. Élodie clings to this tragedy which allows her to name this feeling of loss and this avalanche of questions which preoccupy her.

Despite the drama, Élodie encounters moments of hope and humor thanks to her great-aunt Ida, an eccentric who speaks in riddles, and also thanks to Adrien, a young man determined to become her friend. Élodie finds the courage to share her pain with her best friends and to make peace with her parents, while the powerful wave arrives faster than expected to transform everything.