Thank you #netgalley for this arc of #hurricane summer.

This story is so intensely incredible it is hard to believe it is a debut. Asha Bromfield creates magic with her pen. This book destroyed me but also made me smile, and made me love.Thank you #netgalley for the arc of #HurricaneSummer.

Hurricane Season is a phenomenal rollercoaster of emotion, love, and pain. She writes in such a lyrical and beautiful way.

I cannot wait to see all the ways that Asha Bromfield destroys and intrigues me in the future. I am a fan forever.

Hurricane Summer
By: Asha Bromfield

Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟/5

Quote: “I heard once that a girl’s heart is an ocean of secrets. But as I feel my heart rage against my chest, I think it is an ocean of storms.”


Thank you, Raincoast Books, and NetGalley for the eArc in exchange for an honest review. Being a own voices book, I was really intrigued by it. I was so surprised by the writing of this book. Asha Bromfield writes so beautifully; it transports you to Jamaica. Hurricane Summer is a coming-of-age story of Tilla and her sister Mia. They are excited because they are going to spend the summer in Jamaica with their father. 
Tilla arrives on the island in pursuit of earning her father’s love, which she desperately needs. She goes through so much in this book. I cried a couple of times reading it. This book dips its toes in a little bit of Jamaican culture, and I was all here for it.

I highly recommend the audio for this book! It’s narrated by the author!

On to the review:

Hurricane Summer was such a cute read. I really enjoyed the overall premise and characters in this story.

I enjoyed the writing style, however I felt confused at times because of the accent. Some of the writing is told differently and if it wasn’t for the help at the beginning then I would’ve been so confused.

This was an overall great story and I really enjoyed how it turned out!

Asha Bromfield’s 𝗛𝘂𝗿𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗲 𝗦𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗿 storms through your summer reading list with gusto, confidence, and heart. This coming-of-age novel is surely one to arouse the emotions inside of you and make you feel compelled to fall in love with these characters. Tilla is in the heart of paradise—the island of Jamaica—visiting her father for the summer, but she encounters a whirlwind of storms that no teenager should have to face. Bromfield discusses issues like colorism, sexism, slut shaming, abandonment and neglect, and sexuality that make this a very important read.

If “It Be Your Own People” was a book, then 𝗛𝘂𝗿𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗲 𝗦𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗿 is definitely a dead ringer because who needs enemies when your own family is ready to destroy you. In the span of a few weeks, Tilla grapples with a dysfunctional family and a brawling hurricane that pushes her to withering heights of despair. Tilla realizes too late: “I am on an island, in the middle of nowhere, and I am so far from home. No one is coming to save me.” I wanted to reach in this book, shake Tilla fiercely, and say, “Put on your big girl panties and READ THIS ROOM FOR FILTH!” Young girls must find the power and beauty of their voice before others destroy them.

One of the saddest parts of this book aside from the abandonment issues Tilla and Mia face from their father is the sickening discrimination towards Andre. The racism and colorism about dark skin on the island is a pitfall of pain for Andre. We learn throughout the novel that “the dark reality of paradise is that there is little value for dark skin.” Ironically, Andre is the only beacon of light and hope for Tilla as she circumvents the literal and physical hurricanes that affect her during the summer. Andre reminds Tilla and us: “Trust dat God love us and that what we go through is meant fi serve us…and if it cyan serve us, it can at least change us. Make us betta people. Stronger people.”

Love the dynamics between the family members. It’s rich in gaging and gets right to the heart of things. The author brings the story for font into the light of real life. I almost feel as if in right there as it is happening in front of me. Powerful meaning in the whole storyline. I highly recommend this book.

I have to say that I can't finish this book.
I read 20% or 25% but I can't connect with the story or the characters.

Wow - this book was HEAVY! Despite reading the synopsis of the story I didn't think it would take me on a rollercoaster ride of emotions.

Our main character, Tilla is dying to obtain the approval of her Jamaican father whose leaves their family in Canada for 6 months at a time. Tilla hopes that spending the summer with her father in Jamaica will solve all of their problems. Little does she know that a storm is brewing both literally and figuratively and this storm will change her life forever. Hurricane Summer is a story of belonging - almost every character that we are introduced to is yearning for a chance to belong...to mean something.

Tilla has to deal with so much in this short span of time and I truly felt sorry for her. The colorism, classism, toxic family dynamic, religion, and even love truly impacted the growth of Tilla and really helped her to define who she was as a young person.

Bromfield did an amazing job at describing Jamaica! The vivid imagery and details in her writing immediately transformed me into the story and made me feel as if I was right there with the characters.

Thank you to Asha Bromfield, Netgalley, and the publisher for the e-arc.

Tilla and her sister Mia are sent to stay with her father's family in Jamaica over the summer. It is close to hurricane season and storms are brewing both literally and figuratively. By the end of the book the island won't be the only thing devasted as secrets are revealed and jealousy is whipped about.

Tilla's father has been largely absent from their lives. His family are basically strangers and Tilla quickly becomes their target. Although there were many times where I wanted to jump through the book and beat somebody down, Bromfield uses these examples to teach that "hurt people hurt people". Tilla is shown the root causes of their cruelty. The contrast between the lives of the people in the deep country of the island and her privileged life in Canada. Entrenched ideologies about female sexuality. Colorism. Missed opportunities. But none of these excuse the abuse that she has to endure. All the while her father sides with the family and expects her to just get past it. She is slut shamed and told she is fast for hanging out with boys. At the same time she is criticized for not knowing how things work on the island or reacting in situations as an adult would. Her anger and frustration are understandable.

Perhaps the most important lesson of Hurricane Summer is that destruction is never the end.

<blockquote><b><i>"After a storm you have the power to rebuild yourself. Sometimes the best place to be is in that place where you've been knocked down and broken and you have no idea who you are. Because that's when you get to create yourself."</i></b></blockquote>
<i> - Interview with Tiffany D. Jackson</i>

Hurricane Summer had me hooked from the first page. It broke my heart in so many pieces and I still can’t stop thinking about it days after finishing it. There were times where I just needed to put the book down for a minute and take a breather. I felt for Tilla throughout this entire story. I seriously couldn’t believe how horrible she was treated by these people that were supposed to be her family.

Asha’s writing is beautiful and I loved it so much. She knows exactly how to write a story that will crush you, make you feel uncomfortable, but keep you wanting to read. I really loved how she wrote Patois, Jamaican Language, out. It was hard to read a first, but I ended up getting the swing of things and enjoyed hearing it in my head. I really want to listen to the audiobook because I bet it sounds beautiful.

I fell hard and fast for this book. The fact that Asha has taken her life and wrote it in this story is amazing and makes me love it even more.

Hurricane Summer by Asha Bromfield is an own voices YA story that is both heartbreaking and empowering.

Readers are introduced to Tilla, who is sent to spend six months with her father and family in Jamaica. It happens to be hurricane season, and there are both literal and metaphorical storms brewing.

This was a gripping story. The trauma and brutality is on the surface of this story. It punches the reader in the face. It's something even I as an adult reader wasn't always ready for. The storytelling is powerful. It's just one I wish I had read in community.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me. All thoughts are my own.

This book was intense. I didn’t expect it to be as heavy as it was. It was a good sort of intense, but the subject matter was definitely something I would have liked to be warned about. There were many events throughout that could be potentially harmful and triggering to readers if the TW/CW isn’t prefaced.

This book is going to be important and life changing for so many people though. I’m excited.

TW/CW: physical abuse, parental neglect, colorism, racism, sexism, emotional neglect, gaslighting, sexual shaming (based on gender bias), body shaming, rape (on page), verbal abuse, parental abuse, cancer, death, alcohol consumption, drug use

This was a great read. I could see young adults engaging with this text with an eagerness as the characters are very relatable. Tilla’s story will draw young readers in and they experience Jamaica through her eyes.

This book blew me away. While I anticipated this release, my expectations were still relatively low and I was a bit skeptical, but I am happy to say I was proven wrong. I listened to the audiobook and Asha's performance is goosebump-inducing. The emotion is so raw it feels like nonfiction. The story is much heavier than I anticipated, and sometimes it made me uncomfortable but I learned to sit in that feeling and examine why I felt that way. Tilla's strained relationship with her father hit so close to home. I have imagined confrontations like the one she has so many times. Her coming to accept her sexuality in the face of so much sexism and misogyny was heartbreaking, especially after the betrayal of the one person she was brave enough to trust with all of it. The emotion behind every word is what makes this book a standout.

Hurricane Summer is stunning. This is one of those books were I kept telling myself one more chapter, and then, just one more chapter. I have not been so deeply moved by a book in a long time. There’s so much heart in this story, so much pain, and so much growth. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt more proud of a character than I did with Tilla. Is it weird to want to hug your book after you’ve finished reading (asking for a friend)? I highly recommend this book (and bring the tissues)!

I love the own voices story and the heart and passion the author put into this story.
However, that's the only thing positive I can say about this book.
This is such a heavy story and it really put me in a bad mood.
I appreciate the e-arc, but this just wasn't for me.

Hurricane Summer by Asha Bromfield
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“Sometimes little girls must become their own heroes.”
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I am conflicted on this book. I was mad about several things but I liked the way it ended things. Let me ramble about it a bit:
-I know that daddy issues are a thing. They are just sometimes hard for me to understand. So this book made me do some thinking about daddy issues and how it could affect your relationships later in life.
-Why is it so easy to make such DUMB decisions as a teen? Because teens FEEL SO MUCH and THINK SO LITTLE about long term consequences. 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️
-I LOVED Tilla’s thought process towards the end of the book (after she did all the stupid stuff and literally EVERYONE was mean to her 🤬🤬🤬), that was the part of the book I got the above quote from. There was also a saying from her mom in this book that I found interesting. Everyone has two birthdays, the first is the day you were born and the second is the day you leave home and give birth to yourself. That saying kind of stuck with me.
-Her friendship with her cousin Andre was awesome, and I loved how much he helped her that summer.
.
All in all I didn’t dislike the book, but I was really cranky for about 3/4 of it. I gave it 3.5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 I just didn’t like it enough to give it 4. I think it is a very well written book and would make an EXCELLENT book club book, because there is so much to talk about and break down. I just do my ratings based on how much I enjoyed the book. Thank you Netgalley for this digital copy to read.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a free e-arc copy in exchange for an honest review.

I understand that this book is an own voices book, set in Jamaica, and that the author did their best trying to convey their love for Jamaica but I DNF'd at 47%.

Hurricane Summer seemed like a promising story with the blurb and I was very excited to read it. I was engaged in the story of Tilla and Mia from the start. They have a strained relationship with their Jamaican father and he invites them to Jamaica to spend the summer with him. This story is based on the country with poverty and racism. It was full of verbal, physical, emotional, and mental abuse. I tried to continue the story but as her "love interest" started to heat up, I could not find myself interested in reading anything more. I did not feel as though the story was actually going any where. Not much had happened since the beginning except for finding out a little more about other characters. Tilla and Mia were never introduced to the "wonderful" sides of Jamaica that the author continued to talk about. They were taken to a river that Tilla described as beautiful but other than that, there time so far was in the poverty stricken country side of Jamaica. I could never figure out what the main problem was in the story and where the plot was leading us. I feel like there were so many different ways it could take us but I got to a point where I could not longer bring myself to finish it.

I am happy that I was given a chance to read this book, but unfortunately, it was a no for me.

Overall, I felt kinda meh about this book. Not necessarily bad, but not particularly memorable either. Giving it 2.5/5 Stars.

In Hurricane Summer, Tilla and her younger sister travel to Jamaica to visit their father shortly before a hurricane hits the island. Tilla's father has chosen the island over his family in Canada, and Tilla is conflicted between her feelings of betrayal and her desperation to win back his love. In Jamaica, Tilla experiences the culture shock of rural poverty, religious tradition, and colorism, and tries to reconcile her sexuality with the expectations of others.

This cover is beautiful, and the premise of this novel was appealing to me. I thought this book shared important things about family and acceptance.

I listened to the audiobook, read by the author, and DNF'd this one at 60%. In most situations, I would chose not to rate this as a result, and my rating here is only indicative of the first 60% of this book. I read content warnings, and knew that there was sexual assault in this book, and anticipating that made other parts of this more fraught. I read other reviews and synopses before deciding not to continue with this one, as it was just too heavy.

I also struggled with Tilla's emotional maturity in comparison to her sexual maturity, and wished she was able to make her voice heard when treated so poorly by family members.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

"What we go through ... it meant fi serve us ... and if it cyan serve us, it can at least change us. Mek us betta people. Stronger people. You cyan 'fraid of a likkle rain and breeze."

I chose Hurricane Summer by Asha Bromfield because of its beautiful cover, and I’m so happy it was much more than that. I love that it was an own voices novel. The imagery was beautiful, and the characters were deep, if not always likable.
The novel has some graphic and disturbing scenes and tackles many heavy subjects, but it all flowed well with the the plot and character growth.
I enjoyed reading about Tilla and her journey to find herself through the many storms that raged during her summer in Jamaica.

"I have learned that when a hurricane passes through, it knows no favor. It takes no precedence. When the time is right and it is ready, it will destroy you. It will destroy everything. Even the good things. Even the things you love."

For those not familiar with the Patois language, like I was not, it may be difficult to read at first. I got the audio book, and read asking as I listened.
It was so helpful to do so, and I loved the narrator!