Title: Summer of salt.
Author: Katrina Leno.
Format: Hardcover.
Publisher: HarperTeen.
Page count: 256.
Release day: June 5th 2018.
Genre: YA, magical realism.
Rating: 3 stars.
What is it about? (Summary from GoodReads)
A magic passed down through generations
. . .
Georgina Fernweh waits with growing impatience
for the tingle of magic in her fingers—magic that has been passed down through
every woman in her family. Her twin sister, Mary, already shows an ability to
defy gravity. But with their eighteenth birthday looming at the end of this
summer, Georgina fears her gift will never come.
An island where strange things happen . . .
No one on the island of By-the-Sea would ever
call the Fernwehs what they really are, but if you need the odd bit of
help—say, a sleeping aid concocted by moonlight—they are the ones to ask.
No one questions the weather, as moody and
erratic as a summer storm.
No one questions the (allegedly)
three-hundred-year-old bird who comes to roost on the island every year.
A summer that will become legend . . .
When tragedy strikes, what made the Fernweh
women special suddenly casts them in suspicion. Over the course of her last
summer on the island—a summer of storms, of love, of salt—Georgina will learn
the truth about magic, in all its many forms.
My thoughts:
I was hyping this book up a lot before I read it. I had heard great thinks about from one of my favourite booktubers, Chelsea @Chelseadollingreads. And it kept being compared to The wicked deep, one of my favourite books. So of course I was very excited, and a bit afraid to pick it up. But I finally did, and I’m a bit disappointed..
I can totally see why people compare this to the wicked deep. I mean you have the island, the slightly magical stuff and a bit of a dark atmosphere. But I think the wicked deep did it better?! I think the wicked deep was even darker, and I loved that!
I can also really see why people love this book so much. I mean the setting is amazing, the characters are great! Personally I just thought the plot was a bit on the boring side, and I was quite disappointed by the ending, like ‘oh this is it?!’.
I absolutely loved the characters, they were all so interesting, even the side characters! I love how you could see slight changes in them throughout the book! Just because of Leno’s way of creating characters I would pick up another book by her!
Another thing I really loved was the setting, I think this together with the characters is the main reason why people love this book so much! It was so atmospheric, and I just started loving the island as much as the characters!
As I already mentioned I was a bit bored by the plot, since it felt like not a lot happened? Even tough there was always stuff happening, I just never got very excited about the action?! I don’t really know how to explain it without spoiling. But the action just felt very mild.
I will definitely pick up another book by Leno, since there were quite some aspects that I loved, maybe this one was just not for me.
I thought the ending was underwhelming as well. I loved the first half, it felt like an atmospheric summer romance with vaguely creepy undertones, and then it became… something in which the main character felt like a guest in her own story. It was almost more Mary’s story than hers, which was a disappointment.
Great review!
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Exactly! You explain it so well!
Yeah like you read it from a side character!