Customer Reviews

Summer In The Land Of Skin (Red Dress Ink Novels)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Summer In The Land Of Skin follows the quest of Anna Medina to wake up, put down her binoculars, and actually live her life instead of living it through the people she watches through her beige apartment window in San Francisco. Her expedition starts in Bellingham, Washington to which she moves to learn the truth about her father's suicide while learning his trade of making guitars.

This book forces the reader to look deep into the hearts of it's characters as they are presented, to look far beneath the surface. Gehrman does an excellent job presenting the characters with just enough clues to let you figure them out for yourself. Summer is a very accurate character study of the 25 year-old; a sonorous depiction of the inner struggle between the drive for success and the devastating fear of failure. Her characters want so badly for their dreams to come true, but are far too afraid that they won't to even dare believe they will.

The quirky sense of humor, intense characters, and emotional plot make this book hard to put down. And after the last page, Gehrman's language is so well-crafted and her images so vivid that the impact they create last long after. Overall, I had to give this book five stars because I read it all at once and then had to go back and read my favorite parts all over again. I can't wait to read Gehrman's next book, Tart.

Gehrman has given us a character-driven first novel that by taking a rawer-than-usual look at the longings and fears of twenty-something women breaks standard chick-lit rules. Still, this edgy, sometimes painful examination doesn't go so far as to alienate the reader from the main character and her search for meaning and understanding of events that have sculpted an as-yet-unrealized human being during her less-than-ideal 25 years of living. Set in Bellingham, Washington and with no shortage of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll to color the action, Summer in the Land of Skin takes readers on a largely internal exploration of one young woman's reactions to her suicide-victim father, her over-protective mother, an understanding guitar-maker older man, a sexy musician, and a new best friend whose head is screwed on even less straight than her own. Though it is sometimes hard to reconcile why Anna would be drawn to someone as mean-spirited and unrepentant as the mercurial Lucy, her groping to find her own sense of equilibrium makes for a penetrating study into the mind of a young woman at odds with herself sexually, emotionally and philosphically while still gamely seeking to discover where her true ambitions lie. Gehrman is fully in command of description and metaphor and has debuted a literary career that promises to give future readers even more deep and revealing glimpses into the female psyche.

Gehrman's first novel was a surprise from this publisher. If the reader expects to read a Cinderella story, she will be surprised to find an edge to the story and the characters. Anna, a gritty, modern young woman, takes charge of finding herself, and along the way meets other characters who are much deeper than those found in other typical chick books! Lucy, Anna's friend, is down right mean sometimes, smoking too much and leaving her lover to visit other men. Lucy and Anna visit Lucy's mother and step-father in Sequim, and the reader is introduced to a seamy, unkind way of life. There are dark suspicions of things unspoken. In the end Anna finds her way to her father, her mother and her own sense of self. Some of her meanderings remind me of Annie LaMott's book Traveling Mercies. Gehrman has talent; she shows her education with detailed and beautiful language. I can't wait to read her next book.

Skimmed through this at Barnes and Noble (the cover caught my eye) and couldn't put it down. Ordered it a couple of weeks later and finished it just recently. One word: Wow! What an impressive debut and what a passionate and thoughtful writer Jody Gehrman is. Summer in the Land of Skin is a vivid, honest, painful, imperfect, and wonderful read. I hadn't heard of the Red Dress Ink books before; shame it is getting the "chick lit" rep because it is so much more, complicated and edgy, a true novel. Below is one of my favorite passages - I think it sums up a lot of what the book is about:

"We can never really know what people contain. Their hearts are like sealed boxes. We shake them, trying to gauge by the rattling sounds they make what secret treasures or broken pieces might be in there, but guessing is as far as we ever get. We have to live with the uneasiness of our ignorance, knowing only that we're vast and combustible, shifting, mostly hidden, probably f***ed up, but alive and mysterious while we last."

The main characters - Anna, Lucy, and Arlan - are alive and mysterious, and their stories are simple yet heartbreaking. I'm glad I discovered this book on a whim. It's great. Read it if you get the chance!

There was a lot of good writing in here, and the character of Anna was interesting -- to start. But nothing really happened, the development along the way was pretty sparse, and some of the metaphors began to seem strained after a while. It took me a week to read, which says something; I never picked up this book and found it hard to put it down.

This book is beautifully written, it was hard to put down to get something to drink. I still find myself thinking about the characters and what they're doing now. Cant wait for "tart" to come out!
I highly recomend it to anyone with a free afternoon!

This is a unique story of a girl coming of age. It shows you how she comes out of her shell through her relationship with very interesting characters. And it is all told so beautifully. Great read for anyone of any age interested in initiation themes.

I was very impressed with Jody's first novel. I feel as though I've spent a few days in Bellingham myself and am looking forward to another trip soon. I was given this wonderful book by a friend who said it was the best book of the year. I have to second that. When is the movie?
Robert Cooper
Middlefork, CA

Having an interest in guitars I picked this one up when I saw the cover(not a bad practise by the way). Gehrman's edgy portayal of a person's search for meaning not only in one's own life, but in the reasons for ending it, makes for some great escapist reading. I fell in love with this book. There is none of the sentimentalism one might expect from such an undertaking. Instead we get in intense, often distubing, journey into the world of Anna Medina, a complex character whose life I found myself strangely familiar with. Don't be fooled by the buzz about this being a chick book. It rocks.

Summer in the Land of Skin became a transcendental trip for me. A trip to a State I've never been, but real all the same. Jody Gehrman takes the reader, along with her main character, on a journey of self-discovery, one that isn't compromised by fairy tale endings and magical revelations. But one of truth and searching which rings home to this reader.

The characters became so real that I'm left searching at the end of the book for more information about their lives:"Lucy remained in Washington to eventually take a college correspondence....". Along with Anna, I also became enamored with Arlan. Gehrman's analogy is musical in its substance and drifts into your mind like a memorable melody. Thank you, Ms. Gehrman for giving my mind a vacation this summer.