Summer Bird Blue by Akemi Dawn Bowman - OPTIONAL

Summer Bird Blue by Akemi Dawn Bowman, 373 pages.  Simon Pulse, 2018.  $19.  

Content: Language: R (47 swears; 17 ‘f’); Mature Content: PG; Violence: PG.  

BUYING ADVISORY: HS – OPTIONAL  

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE  

Rumi loves to make music, especially with her best friend, her little sister, Lea.  Rumi has always felt like a second parent to Lea, so when Lea dies in a car accident Rumi is devastated.  What amplifies Rumi’s devastation is that their mother can’t cope with her grief and care for Rumi, so Rumi is sent to Hawaii to live with her aunt.  Rumi feels like she has been abandoned by the two people who she loved, so she wallows in her grief and confusion, until Rumi meets her two neighbors who help Rumi navigate her music and her grief.  

This book is depressing and heartbreaking, but I felt like the author helped me to understand what grief would look and feel like.  Rumi’s character is not kind and is judgmental about her mom’s grief, and her selfishness lasts a long time, but I loved the neighbor characters and their contribution to Rumi’s healing.

Reviewer, C. Peterson.