 The book finishes with Pikelet claiming that surfing was the only activity he could do without any reason and that the sport was still dear to his heart even after all those years.Reviewer Cathleen Schine describes Winton as "a writer who values themes, a practitioner of what might be called the school of Macho Romanticism, or perhaps better, Heroic Sensitivity".She writes that Winton's characters "tend to flirt with death, long for death, while at the same time bravely suffering physical hardship in order to escape death".