Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

  • Boy Underwater

  • By: Adam Baron
  • Narrated by: Rafe Spall
  • Length: 4 hrs and 40 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (179 ratings)
Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Boy Underwater cover art

Boy Underwater

By: Adam Baron
Narrated by: Rafe Spall
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £7.99

Buy Now for £7.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

You Won’t Believe This cover art
This Wonderful Thing cover art
Some Sunny Day cover art
The 1,000-Year-Old Boy cover art
The Goldfish Boy cover art
The Day We Met the Queen and The Great (Food) Bank Heist cover art
Blood Family cover art
What Not to Do If You Turn Invisible cover art
Wishbones cover art
The Brilliant World of Tom Gates cover art
The World’s Worst Monsters cover art
The Boy Who Got Accidentally Famous cover art
The Ministry of Unladylike Activity cover art
Ross Welford Audio Collection cover art
While My Eyes Were Closed cover art
Artichoke Hearts cover art

Summary

Selected as Waterstones Book of the Month.

Shortlisted for The Carnegie Award.

Boy Underwater is a heartbreaking story about family, friends and secrets. And it’s very, very funny.

Cymbeline (yes, really!) has never been swimming - not ever, not once - so he’s a bit nervous at the prospect of his first school swimming lesson ever. But how hard could it be? He’s Googled front crawl, and he’s found his dad’s old pair of trunks. He’s totally ready for this.

But he’s not ready for an accident at the pool to reveal a family mystery that turns his life completely upside down. Only Cym and his friends can solve it because, as usual, the grown-ups aren’t telling them anything.

For the answers you really need, sometimes you have to go deep....

©2018 Adam Baron (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic reviews

"An absolute corker of a tale, whose delicate themes – mental health, missing loved ones – are handled with fluid grace." (Observer)

"This poignant novel is about love and loss, but, told from the viewpoint of a child too young to grasp all that grown-ups do, it is also funny. With evocative monochrome illustrations, it bears you up as soon as you plunge in." (Sunday Times Children’s Book of the Week)

"Involving and wryly funny, full of tenderness, eccentricity and intriguing meditations on the function of art, this story of grief, depression and the different facets of identity is well-served by Benji Davies’s thoughtful illustrations." (Guardian)

What listeners say about Boy Underwater

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    129
  • 4 Stars
    38
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    8
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    117
  • 4 Stars
    20
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    4
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    117
  • 4 Stars
    19
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    3

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

excellent

this audiobook is very witty, the performance is excellent and the story is touching. Would not recommend to below 11 year olds as it has mentions of puberty, penises and vaginas

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A really moving, thoughtful story

Aimed at more mature upper key stage 2 readers, it deals cleverly with difficult issues such mental health and (spoiler alert) death. I really enjoyed this well-woven tale.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Boy under water

Most depressing story we as a family have ever listened to! It was promised to be full of humour in the blurb but instead it was full of doom and gloom. The title Boy under water made us think it would be a bit mysterious and imaginative but it has a very dark, miserable connection to the story. The thing is it starts off quite nice so you get drawn in however it goes down hill, especially from a child’s point of view, but you need to keep trudging through it cos you are desperate to find out if it has a happy ending to make up for the total waste of time that you will never get back! It has a rubbish ending by the way so we do not recommend it! Sorry!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Water

Ok let's get started so boy 👦 underwater🌅 is a good 👍 book well it starts of bad then good then bad then good... I hope you listen 🎶\read this book.thanks for reading 📚 this review. Bye 🌊





















Ps get this book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great book

This book was great,

it keeps me thinking and guessing,

I definitely recommend this book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

AMAZING LOVE 💓 IT SO Much IT WAS GREAT BEST BOOK Ever 🥰😍

You can ad more stuff sim does over all it is AMAZING 😉🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩👍👌✌🏼so so good yay

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Amazing

This book was so moving at was a heart pounding book I would definitely recommend this book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Loved it

Long and entertaining

I loved it nothing bad about it

I recommend this book to everyone

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The title has a very deep meaning

I loved the storyline, very deep, the title fits really well, read till the end

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The twists and adventure to it. It was breathtaking .

I loves the story but I wish I knew why the mum was in the hospital .

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!