Kirsty Eagar

The children are hogging the computer so I'm going to do my best with my phone... Which is usually where I do these anyway but I wanted to give this more effort. Oh well.

The title saws raw and that's what this is. A brutal, knife's edge first person from the perspective of Carly, a 19 year old rape victim who can only get out of her own head in the ocean.

No one writes quite like Eagar, I'm afraid. If I had to draw comparisons I'd say she's similar to [a:Julianna Keyes|7254943|Julianna Keyes|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1540518536p2/7254943.jpg] with romance being slightly less central.

Carly strikes up an unlikely friendship, at one point saying she didn't choose her friends (something pointed out to her in this book) with a 15 year old with synesthesia whose courage and perceptions intrigue her. Her interactions are short, often meaningless, often torn between shame and terror. And I think that's what's effective about this book. Carly is navigating PTSD, anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation in hefty doses. But she's also navigating her life, living for surfing, getting trapped into friendship by well-meaning and pure characters but not really living until a split second decision and chain reaction of things gone wrong send her crashing into another surfer.

And oof, is it well done. You are pulling for this unlikely gentleman. You are pulling for Carly.

It's not the romance. It's the journey. It is how real it all is. It is so well done.… (more)

The path to happiness and togetherness is not always that clear cut build-up, neat conflict, and ultimate outcome. Nowhere is that more clear in the most new adult to ever new adult than in this straightforward book. I loved the central friendships in this, and that these two were respectably, age appropriately, struggling with who they were and who they wanted to be. And a bit immature at that.

The style of writing supported these rapidly-changing new adults, leaving aside sentiment and overdone descriptions in favor of immersing readers in the world in an accessible, if almost distant and observational way. Almost like an in-depth journalist would chronicle a relationship: A year in college.

None of this is bad, though reading a Romance in this style may not be for everyone. It's not really tugging at your heart strings as these two take a baby step forward just to get in their own ways (again in a way that feels so familiar to that time) and drag themselves back by great distances. It's not taking any cheap shots to make your compassion activate, more like dropping you in without a parachute and saying, "hey, remember shit like this, can you relate?" It's not fancy or beautiful (at times it is in its simplicity all these, including funny) but it's effective.… (more)

Summer Skin is a racy romance which doubles as a feminist primer for girls about to embark on college life. It features the unlikely pairing of Jessie, a girl who isn’t afraid to speak up about sexist attitudes, and Mitch, who has a lot to learn about the subject, giving the usual boy-meets-girl romance a new twist. College guys seeing women as sex toys and publicly shaming them is a real and ongoing problem, and Summer Skin fearlessly picks at this festering academic scab. Jessie’s story is the thinking girl’s guide to navigating the grey areas of college life. She is relentless in pointing out the double standards surrounding her, which leads to plenty of funny and clever moments along the way:

“STUD
STUT
SLUT

‘Stud to Slut in two moves.’ Jess told her.”

Reading Summer Skin took me back to my own uni days, which could often be messy and confusing. Jessie’s struggles reminded me of the rawness of those encounters. This is the kind of book I would have loved to have come across back then.

*With explicit sex scenes, Summer Skin is recommended for readers seventeen years and older.
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