Customer Reviews

Life Without Summer: A Novel

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The formulaic and predictable story is narrated by two women's journals. Tessa, the grieving young mother, numbers the days "without Abby". Therapist Celia is more precise- day, date, time. At first, it seems like Tessa is the one with the issues. She has to hold together a marriage after the unexpected, tragic death of four-year old Abby. Griffin writes so that we first think Tessa will lose her husband, her family, her friends. But we slowly witness Celia's world crumble. She is losing everything- her teenaged son, her new husband, her hold on painful memories and emotions.

Tessa is obsessed to find her daughter's murderer. Celia is obsessed with fixing her current family.

I guess the point of the story is to show the dysfunctional life of a therapist. Celia tries to help others, yet she can barely keep her family together. Tessa doesn't get all that much out of therapy; she finds her inner strength slowly and surely as she works through her grief. Celia makes some dumb, dysfunctional decisions regarding her ex-husband, Harry. (Too bad, because she has a really nice new husband!) Ian is a brat, and Celia is too focused on being his therapist than being a mother. She lets Harry get away with too much in the parenting world. I was hoping Celia would smarten up, but no luck.

The ending is especially cheesy. I skimmed through it because it was painful to read the cheese word for word. I wish it ended a little more darker, a little more real, rather than two people walking hand and hand, "understanding each other".

Griffin tells an interesting story, complete with real good descriptions of New England seasons. I have high hopes for next book.

This isn't a bad book, but it's not a great one, either. The beginning and ending are engaging, but I found long sections in the middle pretty dull. It's very much "chicklit," with a strong focus on relationships and emotion. There's a mystery, but it's probably not enough to pull the average male reader through this story.

It's not a long book; I read it in an afternoon. The mystery was not a big part of the story, but it was interesting enough. The problem was with the rather tedious "family fiction" part of the story (which was the main focus). The characters and their relationships left me cold. I didn't find them particularly likable, and I didn't really care what happened to them. (What would happen to them was awfully predictable, anyway.)

If I'm going to read family fiction, I want it to really grab me, like, say, The Lovely Bones. This book didn't do it for me.

I had a hard time putting this one down. In fact, I pretty much did nothing but read it the entire weekend.

The author did so many things right, mainly by never shying away from the hard parts. With a book like this, it's tempting to want to take the "easy" path, falling into simplistic characterizations of saintly grieving mothers, emotionally absent husbands, and dogged detectives who don't rest until they crack the case. Lynne Griffin turns all this upside down, giving us a vivid, compelling, and lifelike portrayal of a loving marriage that is strong enough to withstand a terrible loss compounded by police bumbling and misconduct. Tessa's anger is skillfully drawn, never over the top, and Ethan's grief is rendered both sensitively and realistically. The scene where they sit together on Christmas day and watch the video of Abby's life was wrenching and yet uplifting - it brought tears to my eyes in the best possible way.

Likewise, the character of Celia is not what you'd expect. Far from being the wise therapist with all the answers, she is existing in her own cocoon of denial, which makes for yet another believable (but never predictable) storyline.

All in all, this is one of the better novels I have read in recent years. I'm looking forward to Lynne Griffin's next effort.

Griffin has an easily apprehended style. I was immediately engaged by Tessa, but as the book progressed I found it more difficult to stay focused. I found myself wondering "who is Summer?" and that was distracting until Griffin let us in on her identity. I also picked up early on who might be responsible for Abby's death. The parallels in the lives of Tessa and Celia are not clear until too near the end of the book. I don't know how Griffin might have done it differently. I do think that she has promise as a novelist and I await her next book.

I liked this book, but did not love it.

I felt that, as well-developed a character as Tessa was, there were other characters who just fell flat, and that was disappointing to me. I also sw the ending coming for a long, long time, but was at least interested enough to keep reading.

I think the thing that was most difficult for me to get past, though, was Alden. I found absolutely nothing redeemable about him, and I could not imagine how Celia would have ended up marrying him, and marrying him so quickly after meeting him. Having to suspend my disbelief about that in every scene that he was in was painful.

Lynne Griffin hooks her readers on page one of LIFE WITHOUT SUMMER, drawing them into the powerful point of view of Tessa Gray, just days after she has experienced every parent's worst nightmare: the death of her four-year-old daughter, Abby, in a hit-and-run accident outside the little girl's preschool. When we first meet Tessa, she's a wreck, turning away from her differently grieving husband, rejecting the well-meaning advances of family and friends.

At last, Tessa is convinced by her husband to start seeing a therapist, Celia Reed. Celia is the one who assigns Tessa to write the journal that forms part of the novel's narrative. Just as we feel we're getting to know Tessa, however, we also get to know Celia through the pages of her own journal.

Celia is a competent, caring therapist, but she's also a mother; occasionally, she has a difficult time maintaining professional distance from Tessa's situation. Celia has recently remarried after years of being married to an alcoholic. Her 15-year-old son, Ian, seems most affected by the change in his family circumstances, disappearing for hours to his room, failing to complete his homework, and skipping school. Ian and his stepfather are constantly at odds with one another, and Celia finds herself questioning how, or why, she came to this place in her life, even as she works to help Tessa come to terms with her own family crises.

Tessa is convinced that if only her daughter's case was handled by more competent police detectives, she would finally have the one answer she's been craving: the name of the person who killed her daughter. Even though Celia cautions that this kind of closure seldom results in real healing, Tessa is on a mission to find answers. Little does she know that the answers she seeks will reveal new, unexpected connections to her therapist, whose family history is at least as tumultuous as Tessa's own.

LIFE WITHOUT SUMMER is Lynne Griffin's first novel, and one of its greatest strengths is its author's understanding of and commitment to family life. Griffin is a well-regarded expert on family issues, and she brings this thoughtfulness to bear on her book as well. In heart-wrenching journal entries from both women's points of view, she probes into the thoughts --- sometimes ugly, sometimes redemptive --- that compel both Celia and Tessa.

Perhaps because she has had so much real-life exposure to families in crisis, Griffin largely avoids the kinds of clichés that often mar books about loss: Tessa and her husband actually grow stronger as a couple over time, Celia finds ways to forgive her alcoholic ex. At times, Griffin's prose can be a bit awkward, and although most of her characters are compelling and three-dimensional, Celia's second husband becomes a bit of a caricature of the pompous academic. Nevertheless, if Griffin is able to delve into family issues and women's lives with such fearless insight, readers will be demanding more from this new perspective in fiction.

--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl

Life Without Summer is the story of two women trying to put the pieces of their shattered lives back together. Tessa's four year old daughter has been killed in a hit-and-run accident and she comes to Celia, a therapist, to help deal with her pain after her death. Celia is a newly remarried wife trying to find a way to peacefully exist in her home with her teenage son and her new husband whom her son resents. This story is told from both women's point of view and is seamlessly sewn together into a novel.

Although this novel is a bit slow to start, I quickly got into it and read it within a few days. My only gripe of the beautifully written story is that I was able to guess the whodunit very early in the novel, however it didn't take much away from the storyline. I also feel that the stages of grief were written well, often I feel like the author either sews up feelings or has them go wayyy to the other side.

I do think this novel may be hard for parents to read however, with graphic details about a child's death - so take this as a warning if you are tender hearted :)

Primary cast of characters: Tessa [grieving mother]; Ethan [grieving father]; Celia [therapist]; Alden [Celia's priggish second husband]; Harry [Celia's alcoholic ex-husband]; Ian [Celia & Harry's teenage son]; and Caufield [policeman preparing for retirement].

I did not like this book. It is laden with grief. There is Tessa and Ethan who are grieving the loss of their daughter. It appears as if Tessa is the one who openly bears this loss while Ethan quietly grieves. [This couple is most sympathetic.] Abby, their 4-year-old is the victim of a `hit and run' driving accident. The reader is lead to believe that this was a DUI accident. Tessa seeks therapy. It is through Tessa's journaling that her story unveils. We also met Celia, a therapist, and her story unveils through her notes. At first, this seems to be a clever writing device. However, as time passed and pages flew by, this reader became increasingly frustrated.

The characterizations are not bad. Tessa seems the strongest of all characters. She is fierce, gritty and angry. She wants to know who killed her child. Her background as a journalist serves her well once she takes matters under control.

Celia appears empathetic. She seems so patient. To this reader, Celia looked like a walking band-aid in need of changing. Celia appears very much in need of therapy - even as much as Tessa. Oh, by the way, Celia cannot tolerate `swearing.' The word `ass' offends her,

This reader guessed who the culprit was almost from the beginning.

I think that this book might be appropriate reading for high school seniors. It has a strong moral theme. However, to a seasoned reader, there really is nothing exceptionally new. The characters are one-dimensional. There is little or no sense of place. This book relies on its characters, and to be compelling the reader must care about their future. Overall, this book appeared contrived and, at times, manipulative.

I wanted to love this book. The book's description sounded intriguing, and in a sense, it is... one woman reeling from what every parent fears the most (loss of a child) and the grief counselor who helps her to navigate through the darkness, with the promise of each helping the other. From the first chapters, though, I found the format awkward. The entire novel is told in first person via journal entries of both women, Tessa (grieving mother) and Celia (grief counselor). It just didn't work well.

That said, the plusses of the book are Ms. Griffin's characterization of Tessa throughout her journal. We clearly experience this character's emotions, family and life, her struggles with a profound loss, and her determination to find answers. Although Tessa is descriped by Celia as slight, almost fragile, there is unmistakable strength displayed through Tessa's journal pages. Another plus is the very believable differences in how Tessa and her husband move through the grieving process. As a reader, I felt sympathy for both of them. Again, the premise of the book is intriguing.

Celia, as a character, was another story. I never felt I knew or understood her. Maybe that was the author's point, but it makes if very hard to wade through pages of Celia's journal entries when you really can't connect with the character, who seemed flat. Celia's second husband, Alden, felt like an afterthought throughout the book. He truly doesn't play any significant role. Celia's son, Ian, is a classic, troubled teen, and isn't as well developed a character as he could have been.

About a third of the way through the book, I realized how it would likely end. Which it did. I suppose I felt there were two seperate stories here, better told as two novels whereby characters can develop and come to life for the reader. My hunch is the author intended it to be two seperate stories running parallel, and some readers might feel it works. Perhaps if it wasn't written in two first person formats? I don't know of many people who write dialog in their journals.

I'm giving this three stars, as I was drawn in by Tessa--her struggle and determination. Reworked, I think it could be a brilliant book.

I liked this book a lot. It's an interesting and somewhat thought-provoking story line. This is the author's first novel and she does have talent. I like books that tell somewhat the same tale from multiple viewpoints. This one alternates between Tessa, the grieving mother and Celia, her therapist with issues of her own. Their stories are woven more tightly than it first seems. While I enjoyed this book, I gave it only 4 stars instead of 5 because it lacks that certain something that makes a book great. Vivid use of language, character depth, an engaging story...it had these, but perhaps not enough or not in the correct balance...or maybe it all came together in a way that was not complex enough. Definitely a good first book for the author and definitely worth the reading, but not destined for my list of all-time favorites.