Wednesday 21 April 2021

Summer Bird Blue by Akemi Dawn Bowman


Ebook provided by NetGalley for review. Thank you.

Read April 2021.

Rumi is struggling to cope following the death of her sister, Lea, in a car accident, the apparent disappearance of her mother and a forced excursion to Hawaii to stay with her aunt for the summer. When she arrives she's grieving, angry with the world - her mother in particular who she feels favoured Lea - and has lost her passion for the  music that she shared with her sister, culminating in a final unfinished song.

This was a beautiful story about grief and how it can colour the memories of the lost person. I loved the variety of characters that Rumi met in Hawaii, Kai was adorable! And Mr. Watanabe was a hell of a character! I loved the lack of romantic entaglements, seeing Rumi figure out her identity and being OK with a lack of interest in dating was reallly refreshing  and great representation,

I especially loved Rumi's growth as a character, I felt like she really matured and learned to open up. The way she repaired her relationship with her mum was beautiful, they both did wrong, admitted it, learned from it and grew as people.

Akemi has a beautiful, lyrical writing style with brilliant description. The Hawaiian accent in writing took a couple of chapters to get used to but it was in no way extreme, not like the Yorkshire dialect in 'The Secret Garden'.

5/5 stars

Stef Out x

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