Customer Reviews

In Summer

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Leo Peery has just graduated from High School and we follow him through the last summer of his childhood (or is it the first summer of his adulthood?) Handsome, smart and amiable Leo helps his cousin on the family farm, works as a lifeguard, discovers startling information about his mother, gets together with an old girlfriend and with some other girls as well, is nice to small children, goes fishing, restores a car, enjoys life, worries, has a few nasty accidents, makes some mistakes, survives, learns and grows. That's really all there is to it, and what a lovely journey it is. If the story is not as compelling as Jackson's remarkable first novel, Life At These Speeds, it is still a lovely read, full of the joy and beauty of life's simple pleasures. And if the dialogue sometimes seems too clever to be entirely believable, it is so fun to read that all is forgiven. This is Jackson's 2nd novel (he has also written two cookbooks) and I can hardly wait to see what comes next.

I picked this book up just before going on vacation. Having lived through another long winter, the idea of reading a book in which summer plays a key role, was appealing to me. Boy, was I wrong.

"In Summer" tells the story of Leo Peery, who has just graduated from high school and awaits going to college at the end of summer. Leo works as a life guard, and hangs out with friends and relatives, gets involved with girlfriend(s), etc. It's not the story line that is the problem, it's the writing that does not connect with me. It seems very detached. For example, at some point fairly early in the book, Leo finds out that his mom is dealing with a potentially terminal medical problem. One would expect that Leo is devistated, but somehow it doesn't come across the pages.

In summary, despite the author's lenghty and numerous descriptions of the feel of summer as experienced by his 18 year old fictional character, I just didn't feel it and when I finished the book, I thought to myself, 'what did I read this for again?'. Not recommended.

At 44, it's not always easy to remember the feelings I had as an 18-year-old, spending summers on the farm in Oklahoma. But Jeremy Jackson's novel, In Summer, transported me back to the days of my youth. The book details the three-month period of time between high school graduation and college, a time of innocence, confusion and trepidation for most of us--the 'last summer of childhood'. Jackson's prose, though simplistic at times, flows like a meandering country road, evoking a sense of unhurriedness, of long summer days and endless nights. Through it all--the bad summer jobs, the girlfriends, the worry over his mother's failing health--the main character, Leo Peery, undergoes a metamorphosis, a 'coming-of-age', if you will. Don't expect an action-packed page turner here. Instead, sit back and enjoy the easy pace of a time gone by, when your whole life--no matter how scary the prospect--was in front of you. Salmon Run

In the first few chapters of IN SUMMER, so many characters are introduced. Each character is very generic, though and, subsequently, because there are so many, we don't get to know any one of them all that well, including the main character, Leo. That's not a very good way to draw in a reader.

Leo's character is strongest when paired against his little cousin, Gracie, and only she seems to draw out any personality from him. It's too bad they're not paired more often throughout the book. The dialogue between them is great, but the rest of the novel's descriptions and characterizations fall flat.

Instead of character development and personalization, what the author does gives us is every little detail of action, step by step, as it occurs. Unfortunately, it's all action that we, the readers, don't need to know and don't care about. It reminded me of someone who likes to talk on the phone for hours and give you every little detail of their day. For example: "I did this and then I did this and then I did this and then..." UGH. Stop already. Please.

I have to admit that I stopped reading IN SUMMER after 100 pages. I couldn't take it anymore. A friend once told me, "Life is too short to read bad books." In the first 100 pages of the 300-page book, here's what I learned: The main character's name was Leo. Later, Leo Peery. I learned that he just graduated high school and that it was summer. Summertime. Summertime. Leo is a lifeguard at a pool and he has lots of random friends and girlfriends and likes to fish and gets injured a few times and his mom is a nurse and she is going to Europe and she wants him to sell her antique sports car for her while she is gone so he can use the money to buy himself a new car for college. Oh, and that the author LOVES writing run-on sentences using the word "and" a lot. That was it. There's no plot focus. There's nothing moving the story forward. In 100 pages, that was all I knew about the story and its characters. Was it enough to make me want to go on? Anxious to find out what was going to happen to them next? No. A big fat resounding NO. Sadly, I still didn't really know any of these characters yet and found my will to continue diminished. If, after 100 pages, I didn't know about or care about the characters, why should I continue reading? This is not how I want MY summer to be remembered.

I very much enjoyed this novel. The main character is extremely likable. As opposed to another reviewer who found him detached,I found him very sensitive. As a health care provider I find a denial/avoidance reaction to a new diagnosis of cancer to be very common. And since teenagers are notoriously absorbed in their own dramas, it seemed very realistic for him to avoid dwelling on his mother's illness.

I thought the emotional confusion of adolescence was conveyed smoothly and very much enjoyed the characters. Sure, they spoke a bit too precociously ( I call this the "My So-Called Life Syndrome"), but they were fun to spend time with.

It may not be a life-changing novel, but if you enjoy coming-of-age novels, I don't think you'll be disappointed with this one.

It left me feeling warm and satisfied.