Review: Hurricane Summer

Hurricane Summer by Asha Bromfield
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked this up just because of...was it in Jaroda's book haul? I think it was, and on that level I reached out to my local library to pick it up. They delivered it pretty quickly too - Fort Vancouver has some of the most efficient library service I've ever seen! And then of course I only realized after I picked the book up that its author was one of the stars of Riverdale - though, having never even finished the first episode of that show, of course I didn't know that, lol.

This debut contemporary...well, aside from the fact that the term #ownvoices is no longer used by most in the book community, that term does pretty accurately describe this book, written by and starring a Black girl, a Canadian of Jamaican descent, going to the island to see the land her family is from. In this case, specifically, her father, who spends half the year in Jamaica and half the year in Toronto, and is pretty clearly much more in his element in his homeland.

But then come the seedy undercurrents to life in paradise, of course.

This book isn't an easy one to read. It's a pretty quick read, but it deals with tons of heavy topics too. Trigger warnings abound for discussions and depictions of in-universe sexism, racism, colorism, the pervasive influence of the church in Jamaican life, and a graphic scene of sexual assault - all with the backdrop of an inbound hurricane serving as an effective allegory for all the destruction both physical and emotional this book contains.

As harsh and real as this book was, though, I feel like that might have ended up being the reason why I didn't like it as much as I was hoping I would. Maybe it was a little too much for me, and certainly not meant for me, but I firmly believe this book will have no trouble finding its intended audience. I think, though, that the one thing that just stuck a little too much with me was how one particular twist, I kinda picked out almost from the beginning, if only because of it also being a minor plot point in another island-based novel - specifically, the Dominican-set In the Time of the Butterflies.

For what it's worth, though, I do hope that this book is only the start of a super fruitful writing career for Bromfield, because she absolutely deserves it. Especially on the strength of not this book's first line...but its last.

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