You always loved an ocean view.

Lakefront is good, too, and if there’s a boat slip, yay. Even a pond or a pool out back would make you a happy homeowner. Scientists say that humans are drawn to large bodies of blue liquid but in “Underwater” by Ryan Dezember, the tsunami isn’t supposed to be inside the house.

Recently married and flush with well-paying jobs, Ryan Dezember and his wife decided in 2005 to seize the American Dream. She was a kindergarten teacher; he was a reporter for an Alabama newspaper and because of his work, Dezember was aware of what was happening on Alabama’s coast then.

The beaches were once-pristine white sand, dotted with fishing shacks, modest homes, and a few marinas and bars. It was idyllic and quiet, until big money came in and the frenzy began. Land prices shot upward as developers presented plans for high-end beach-front condos that were speedily approved; buyers purchased the homes on speculation, often with little-to-no intention of living in those buildings. Prices rose, apartments were flipped, flipped, and flipped again and it was unsustainable, but banks kept lending, developers kept building, and folks kept buying.

Dezember saw the warnings. It was what he’d spent his career reporting on. And yet, he and his wife started looking for a home, hoping they weren’t already priced out of the area. When they found a two-bedroom house with a yard and a garage in an aging neighborhood, they made an offer and moved in.

And the bubble burst.

“After two years,” he says, “in the summer of 2007, my college sweetheart and I split up and agreed to sell the house as part of our divorce. Unfortunately, the market had unraveled before our marriage.”

Home, as they say, is where you hang your hat. It’s where people know you, and love you anyhow. It’s where the heart is, but “Underwater” shows that it can also be where the headaches lie.

The first (minor) headache is here: there’s a lot more on the housing bubble in author Ryan Dezember’s story than there is of the personal, despite the subtitle’s promise. This focus is quite region-centric, with weather disasters, crime, and an oil spill playing big parts in the tale. Yes, that gives readers a different POV of the housing bubble of 2007-2008 but it’s a Catch-22: you’ll be astounded and it’ll make your jaw drop, but this inclusion diminishes the wider relevancy.

And yet, you’ll gain so much by reading this book, through an intensive schooling on real estate speculation, how the crisis happened, and the nation-wide effects that came from the bubble. There’s where Dezember’s story absolutely fits, although you may wish there was more of it to counterbalance the depth of the technicalities.

For the curious reader or anyone about to marathon-sign for a mortgage, this book is good but the banker-Realtor-developer reader might like it more. Still, if you need its lessons, read but don’t rush. Take time to understand, or “Underwater” will leave you in a puddle.

“Underwater: How Our American Dream of Homeownership Became a Nightmare” by Ryan Dezember, 277 pages, c. 2020, Thomas Dunne Books $28.99.

• Terri Schlichenmeyer of The Bookworm Sez is a self-syndicated book review columnist. Schlichenmeyer’s reviews include adult and children books of every genre. You may contact her at bookwormsez@yahoo.com