Toddie
Downs
Wow!
This is the first Early Reviewers' book that i have read in a long
time and felt this good about on finishing ~ at least
since November 2011 and the Treehorn trilogy, and that's an
established children's book ~ so the first thing to say is,
definitely a success.
I
would guess that Summer
Melody is probably
marketed as a juvenile, aimed at teenage girls, certainly an audience
i am fitted to be part of by neither age nor gender. The primary
character, the one we are introduced to first, and from whose point
of view much of the story is told, is a female teenager. Jane is
fourteen, distinctly uncool, and feeling rejected by the world,
including her family. Fortunately all is not as dark as it seems for
Jane, though the summer does get fairly bad at times, what with her
mother's stress over her grandmother's dementia, her cousin's
on-again off-again romance, and trouble with the boy she is asked to
babysit. The end, while perhaps simplistically happy, does seem to
signal that things may be preparing to improve.
The
other two main characters, from whose alternating perspectives the
other chapters are told, are Bonnie, Jane's mother, and Meg, her
cousin. Each of the three have problems in their lives, mostly
rotating around familial orbits, and each has to rely on others to
help solve them. I like this feature, as it seems to reflect quite
closely on real life, where we have to depend on others as well as
ourselves.
I
must say that i found the alternating perspective a little confusing
at first; i would say that i was about four or five chapters in
before i fully understood, and i remember having to go back twice to
see which character was which: Somehow the very simplicity of the
names allowed them to be blurred in my mind. Fortunately the
chapters are short enough that i had not invested too much time in
each, and was not really confused for long before being able to go
on.
The
rest of the writing style i found enjoyable. Downs developed the
lesser characters and plot-lines well, so that i felt that there is
quite a lot of texture to the book (ironic, as it's an e-book), a
good background against which the main lines and characters develop.
The question of who Pete was, for example, and why Vivian is the way
she is; the lovely actions of Brady's father at the wedding
reception; the relationship between Mona and her dress designer:
These are all non-essentials, but cleverly thought through and well
written, adding much to the pleasure of the book.
In
the end, the one minor caveat aside, Summer
Melody was a complete
success for me, and i am delighted that i was given the opportunity
to read it.
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