Customer Reviews

The Summer of Naked Swim Parties: A Novel (P.S.)

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book has appeal to all age groups. Teens will love it , almost adults will identify with it and adults and seniors will laugh until they cry and feel the pain of the remembrance of a time past. You will adore being part of the process that a young girl goes through to find her true person and her own set of values to live by. But best of all you will be happy that the message that family is everything and always there in the end is so brilliantly expressed by the author....Today this cannot be said too often.,.This book is a must READ!!!!!

There's a way in which books and characters lodge themselves in our brains. The narrator of this book, Jamie, sticks with you long after you put the book down. Even though she lives in southern California, anyone who grew up in the 70's will recognize the overzealous and hysterical search for meaning through things like dope smoking, family therapy and encounters with ponderous, mystical, Native Americans. The book is a total hoot!

Prepare yourself for flashbacks, a few belly laughs and some very uncomfortable (but familiar) moments. Blau has created a nearly perfect summer novel. I felt like I was an invisible woman staked out on a stool in the family's kitchen. By the end of the story, each character was vivid and very real. I did not want to let them go! Splurge and buy two copies because you are going to feel compelled to share this one.

This novel by Jessica Blau is a funny and witty coming of age story set in California in the bicentennial year of 1976. Aside from the fascinating and touching story it tells of a teen-ager's coming to find and appreciate herself and her unconventional family, it is also a powerful evocation of a particular period in American cultural life. It does for the 70s what The Graduate (the novel and the movie) did for the 60s and does it just as memorably and with scenes that are funnier.


Few books I have read in recent years have registered themselves on my consciousness with such filmic intensity. I can't imagine that this book won't become a great movie. I can recommend this novel enthusiastically to anyone who grew up in or was an adult witness to the decade of the 70s.But I'll bet it will also find passionate fans among the current generation of teen-agers who will surely identify strongly with the novel's teen-age heroine.

The Summer of Naked Swim Parties is a funny and fun read that captures the awkwardness of adolescence. As soon as I finished reading it, I started it again and I couldn't stop thinking about Jamie and all the other characters I met. Blau has a gift for the image (the way she describes a crying baby's fists) that lingers, and a smooth and heartfelt way of writing about awkward and difficult emotions. I highly recommend this book.

As someone that normally hates reading anything very long, I had no problem getting into this novel, nor finishing it. Jessica does a great job of portraying the freedoms of the 70's as well as its horrors. I enjoyed almost every single page of the novel, and recommend it as an essential read for anyone who like myself was born in the 70's and wants to hear the stories behind those faded photographs.

Someone said that this is the best title--ever, and he's right, but don't let the title fool you. While this novel is centered around naked swim parties as hilariously viewed through the eyes of 14-year-old Jamie, at its core is the story of one young woman's journey through a summer filled with insecurity and heartache. Don't let the age of the narrator fool you either; while young adults will certainly appreciate this novel, it also speaks to adults of all ages--especially those who lived through the 70s.

This book is a must read for the summer.

This book has a terribly awkward first paragraph--full of contorted, run-on sentences, cluttered with parantheticals. It's hard to believe anyone edited it.

Luckily, i read on. And discovered a lovely, raw, coming-of-age story. Either the writing improves or I got used to the author's curious cadence.I didn't care at all once I started laughing, often and outloud.

In the end, it an endearing first novel.

This first novel is a delightful portrayal of the struggles faced by a teenage girl coming of age in the 1970's. More than an easy summer read, this story is touching and humorous in its depiction of family dysfunction. I knew people just like these in upstate New York where I spent my own teenage years. And family dysfunction is family dysfunction - I think we've all been there to some degree or another. Some of the situations that came up with Jamie's family made me laugh out loud. Honestly, this book really delivers. The characters are quirky and flawed, yet genuinely human in their foibles. And throughout there is an underlying message of hope. I just loved it.

I loved this book. I too grew up in Southern California in the 70's and this book brought me back. The beach, the pool, parents straight out of the 60's, the boys on surf boards, handfuls of Cap'n Crunch. I sought this book out hoping to find a bit of nostalgia and I found it. Jamie is funny and innocent and very real. She could have been me or any one of my friends. I highly recommend this book to anyone who grew up in Southern Ca in the 70's.

I can't wait for Jessica Anya Blau's next book!