Cover Image: Hurricane Summer

Hurricane Summer

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Member Reviews

This beautifully layered story is full of angst and turmoil as Tilla tried to survive mother nature and her biological father. The cover is stunning, as is Bromfield's writing. The dynamic with Tilla's father was incredibly realistic and accurate.

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I received an advanced copy of this ebook from the publisher for an honest review. This book is well written and the characters are described well. This book is set between Toronto, Canada and Kingston, Jamaica. I absolutely enjoyed the rastafarian language used in this book. This book is in stores for CA$25.99 (CAD). I enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend reading it to anyone and everyone.

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This book was extremely slow and depressing. It needs some comic relief to break up all the horrible things Tilla goes through or at least more of rise from the ashes at the end. I would not recommend.

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A beautiful coming-of-age story. A really great read - I’ll definitely be picking up a copy to have in my library

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This was not a book for me. I was not a fan of the characters or the plot. I think this just a case of my type of book.

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I really enjoyed this coming-of-age story. The story of a young girl coming into her own and also dealing with adult issues before she had to.

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3.5 stars

Hurricane Summer was an absolutely gutting coming-of-age story that I haven't been able to stop thinking about for a while now. I liked so much about this book, especially how the writing brought the setting to life and the way Tilla learned to stand up for and choose herself. I also loved how Asha Bromfield showed and explored the complexity of relationships between immigrants and their children through Tilla's relationship with her dad. I have to admit that I thought the death of one of the only kind characters felt unnecessary (as it happened so suddenly and so late in the book that I hardly processed it) and also wish this book had been a bit longer in order to flesh out Tilla's arc more, but this was still a memorable debut and it'll definitely stick with me for a long time.

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Wow!! Asha Bromfield writes such an amazing book in Hurricane Summer! I can hear the Patois and she gives every character and the island so much life. I could vividly see what she wrote and hear the words. Such a powerful story!

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This is BEAUTIFUL in the most heart-wrenching ways. Asha Bramfield has an incredible skill to transport you to Jamaica with her prose. The real star of this emotional hurricane is in the final chapters, titled Aftermath. This is where we see Tilla come to terms with all of her summer experiences and revelations. She grows up so much in those final chapters and it's a beautiful thing to read. There are quite a few trigger warnings leading up to those beautiful heartbreaking moments, however, one of which is graphic sexual assault. Tread lightly with this one, my friends.

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#Hurricane Summer by author # Asha Bromfield is listed as a #Teens & Ya novel. This always catches my attention. What a wonderful novel!! 💜🐾🐾
Description:
Dark secrets, all in the mist of an impending hurricane. Tila's father leaves the Island every six months for Jamaica. She has spent her entire life trying to make her father love her......

Thank you for the advance copy,
#Netgalley, # Asha Bromfield, and # St. Martin's Press

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Oof, I was not prepared for how emotional this book made me. The writing is poetic and beautiful but the subject matter is really tough. You need to be in a good place mentally before starting this one.

Tilla just wants her father's love, but she can't seem to make him stay. He keeps leaving their family in Canada and heading back to his original home of Jamaica. When her mother tells her that she and her sister are going to go spend the summer in Jamaica she's filled with so many mixed emotions.

Tilla is treated so badly by the people around her, over and over. She puts up with so much, and takes so much blame for things that are out of her control. It was really hard to read. There is a literal and figurative hurricane raining down on Tilla.

There is also a lot of classism, colonialism and racism in the book, and you see the impact it has had on the population of Jamaica. It's heartbreaking to see, not just where Tilla is concerned, but other people in the story.

Well worth the read, and I was surprised to find out this was a debut novel!

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I was somewhat warned about the content warnings and felt like this book would be a powerful, eye-opening, and impactful read. I have tried a couple of times to pick it up to read but find that the heavier material has been difficult to read since the pandemic. I have plans to do so one day as it sounds amazing.
Thank you to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for the advanced copy. All thoughts are my own.

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This is a heartbreaking story dealing with sadness, death, along with powerful and intense scenes. This is such a beautifully written story about a young teenage girl who is trying to find love from her father and family. Hurricane Summer is a story about embracing the person who we are, not who we are told to be. It's also a story about fathers, about family who let us down, and stories that just can't be. About being changed by destruction, altered by the forces of family, and walking out the other side. It's about the words we never should have to hear, the sights we never should have to see, the defenses we shouldn't have to prepare. What began as a story about the disillusionment and complex relationship between Tilla and her father, morphs into a story about family, privilege, and female sexuality.

This book will have it's readers on such an emotional rollercoaster from beginning to end. I can't wait to see what other works this author has in store.

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This is a story about the dangers of becoming a women...This is a rough coming of age story to read. Some stuff seems very glossed over and we are wanting the main character to find a voice through the ways she has been treated. Get ready to cry. This book discusses poverty, abuse, etc.

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Wow. This was unlike any book I have read. And for it to be a debut is even more astonishing. We meet Tilla as she is heading to visit her father in Jamaica over the summer. The place of his birth, returning to her own origin story in a way. Discovering not only who she is but where she came from. Tilla's discovering the country of Jamaica is such a beautiful metaphor of her own life and her own strength that she is discovering while she is there.

"We are the children of Jamaica, and we are screaming out in agony, in pain, in love, and in joy."

The contrast of the beauty and the hardship, a metaphor for the joy and the pain that she experiences over the summer. Seriously, some of the prose were so beautiful I didn't want them to end.

While the story seemed to go from one hardship to another, it also didn't feel depressing because of the beautiful between the pages. As it is in real life, there are always moments of joy amid the pain, light amid the darkness.

The only portion that felt like a little let down was the hurricane. The scenes during the hurricane were done beautifully. Like a picturesque movie of the harshness and devastation while also the beauty that could only be found by someone who has walked and run through a hurricane.
But the scenes were just so few. The book is NAMED Hurricane Summer (a metaphor for Tilla herself, yes, but also the hurricane). And the build up to the hurricane took the majority of the book. So the promise to the reader would be that the hurricane itself was a part of the climax....and yet there were a few brief scenes in the hurricane. While the aftermath was absolutely heart wrenchingly satisfying for the reader, I wanted to see a little more pages on the 24 hours of the hurricane itself.

A minor nitpick in the midst of a masterful debut, and a true tribute to the island country of Jamaica.

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I am sorry for the inconvenience but I don’t have the time to read this anymore and have lost interest in the concept. I believe that it would benefit your book more if I did not skim your book and write a rushed review. Again, I am sorry for the inconvenience.

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I love the fact that this novel was an own voices story and you can tell that the author put so much work into it and I know that this will be the perfect book for someone else. However, it just was not the book for me. I didn't really mesh well with the writing or the story and I'm actually kind of disappointed with that because I wanted so bad to love it

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One thing I know for sure is that I didn’t like the way the Jamaican Patois was used. The main character also got on my last nerve lol but I actually like when an author can get a rise of me. There was always some drama in this book to keep me turning the pages. The book featured themes of abandonment, Colorism, sexism and even slut shaming. I think this books would be good for teens.

✨What I Thought✨

Because I am a Island born woman that has spent several years in America. I had different feelings when reading this book. I was super annoyed with Tallia & the way she acted when she first went to Jamaica cia made me feel like she was spoiled and she didn’t respect the culture or her elders. But I also noted that fact that people on the Island despised her because she was from Canada. Some people in the Island sometimes hate on people who have moved away or children who weren’t born them and claim that they act this way because everything is all good in “foreign”. Sometimes it isn’t. I hated the way Tallia was betrayed by her own cousin and aunt and even her damn daddy.

The saddest part of the book for me was what Tallia learned about her dad. She went to the island to connect to with her dad but got way more drama than she bargained for.

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This book was so good, and I'm mad that I waited so long to read it. This story was absolutely beautiful and I loved the descriptions of Jamaica that the author weaved in. 4/5 stars.

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Hurricane Summer - Asha Bromfield

This was such a beautiful coming of age story set in Jamaica. This story contains a lot of trigger warnings including sexual assault, verbal abuse, and domestic abuse.

This story follows Tilla and her sister Mia as they go to Jamaica to visit their dad for the summer. Tilla has a complicated relationship with her dad and is looking forward to spending some time with him, but he leaves them in the country with family and says he needs to be away for work.

This is a really difficult book to read as Tilla is treated poorly from her family and is being shamed for her sexuality. She feels like she doesn’t belong at all even though she is Jamaican. She also gets to discover the beauty of Jamaica and the author shares this so well with the readers.

Something very interesting about this book is a lot of the dialogue is written in Patois, the Jamaican dialect! There’s a word bank included, but I felt the best way for me to experience this was to listen to the audiobook while reading, which helped me understand the Patois a lot better. The author is also the narrator of the audiobook and she did a great job!

I definitely thought this was such a beautiful story about Tilla discovering herself and her home country.

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