BOOK BY: Rachel Hauck
This women’s fiction piece is not an easy read.
The story follows four friends, nicknamed the Four Seasons (due to their uniquely weather-related names) who become friends in kindergarten and remain friends until the last summer before college. Readers move seamlessly between the years 1977 and 1997, as each friend shares equal page time in showing her side of the story.
There’s angst – as is normal with high schoolers embarking on a new chapter – but in this book, there’s quite a lot of it. Each girl is grieving the death of a friend who was like an older brother to them (and actually a brother to one of the girls), and with that grief comes accusations, acting out, and a whole lot of trouble.
Trouble leads them to an arrest and serving community service as camp counselors in Tumbleweed, OK.
As always, Rachel Hauck brings a bit of the supernatural into the story in the form of The Preacher. References to him are peppered throughout the book, especially in Summer’s story line.
Without giving any spoilers, this story isn’t an ideal “light read”. It may bring back nostalgia for those who were teens in the 70s (or even 90s), but the topics dealt with in this story are hard and raw. Grief, deception, selfishness, lust, murder, death, and mentions of terrible tragedies that happened in 1977 bring an emotional story taut with a rawness that will make readers think.
I didn’t like Summer. She is wild, unpredictable and so insecure that she makes foolish decisions. All. The. Time. Though her story is one of redemption, I really didn’t connect with her at all. She just made the whole situation more difficult for her friends. And I’m not sure I would’ve stayed friends with her – even knowing what she was going through. She wouldn’t listen to any one, even though others tried to help her. She didn’t want to be helped – even to the very end of the story.
The three other friends would have been better off without Summer. But then, this story wouldn’t have been as good! And the redemption/forgiveness thread wouldn’t be necessary.
Anyway – it’s a great angsty story.
I received an ecopy of the book from the publisher through NetGalley. All opinions expressed are my own.