This One Summer

Every summer for as long as she can remember, Rose, her mom, and her dad head to a lake house at Awago Beach. It’s a refuge, a getaway, a chance to relax and recover from the stresses of the past year. And every summer Rose’s friend Windy and her family are there as well. Windy and Rose are like sisters and best friends. This year though...things have changed. Rose’s mom and dad just won’t stop fighting. Rose is growing up and beginning to notice the local boys and is interested in horror movies. And a couple of the local teens have an encounter that will change things for everyone. This is going to be a summer like no other.

This is one of those stories that is hard for me to write a review. Because I want to write so much show more about it, I want to tell you what happens, but I don’t want to spoil the story. And it’s also difficult, because the story is so realistic, so vivid, that I felt like I was reading Rose’s diary. It feels almost like an invasion of privacy, because the story is so well told that in just a few short sentences we can understand the swirl of emotions and drama and chaos that Rose is experiencing. Because we remember what it was like to go through that transition. We are no longer children, but we are not yet quite adults either. And it doesn’t matter if you’re male or female, we can all remember that time of struggle. Wondering what it’s like to be an adult, trying to be an adult, trying to figure out what love is and not make a fool out of ourselves. Mariko and Jillian have accurately captured the feelings of this age and make the reader feel like they're actually participants in what's going on, not just mere observers to the world.
I think what I like best about the story though, is that the dialogue feels real. It’s like we’ve stepped into a local school and we’re hearing teens from today talk about what’s going on in their lives. But we can also feel like we’re stepping back into time to the 90’s and the dialogue would still feel the same. So many authors struggle with trying to be real teens, it’s like they’ve forgotten what they were like and imagine that everyone talks in complete sentences. But not in this story. Here we have the broken sentences, half words, not real words, and everything in between.
The artwork for this story is absolutely gorgeous and breathtaking. The simple color palette of blue and white capture the emotion and intensity of the what's going on and have the characters leaping off the page into the real world. The blue and white also echo the idea of the lake and waves crashing against the shore nicely. It's that idea of swirling chaos and beauty that we see and feel when standing on the shore. The color palette also reflects the idea that we’re reading Rose’s diary or hearing her tell the story. Even more than that, it feels like we’re watching an old home movie, where the film has faded slightly, but we can still feel and be a part of the story.

The design of the characters though is my favorite aspect. There are no “perfect” bodies or super models. We see real people, real teens. Skinny, chubby, fat, slim, muscular, old, and everything in between. In other words real people. It isn’t something shows up often in young adult books, and I am so glad to see it here.
This is one of those books that I could give and recommend to so many different groups: to teen girls just at that age of childhood and adulthood with so much to look forward to and to fear; to women that want to remember what it felt like at that age--the first crush, the separation of childhood friends, of growing up; and to guys that just want to understand the depth and emotion that this age holds. I give this book 5 out of 5 stars and look forward to seeing what Mariko and Jillian do next.

ARC provided by Gina at First Second show less

This One Summer by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki (cousins) got it right. Deceptively simple, I thought this book conveyed so many emotions and family dynamics. Effortlessly capturing a young girls transition from child to young lady over the course of one summer, both the artwork and the writing are exceptional. This book managed to touch me, even though much of the emotion and growth was internalized.

The interplay between Rose and her friend Windy felt very real and brought back memories of being that age myself. The setting of a vacation cottage helped create that mix of feeling free on one hand while being forced to be with family for much of the time on the other. Rose’s semi-crush on the store clerk was also very well done, showing show more how confused she was with these new felt emotions that she didn’t know what to do with.

Rose’s family appears to be imploding around her and her outwardly showing no reaction but inwardly seething with emotions was almost uncomfortable to watch. There was a scene that showed Rose sitting alone after a family blowup and then just moving her foot enough to knock over a half empty wineglass that spoke volumes. When she and her mother finally have their confrontation, Rose lets her hurt out but isn’t mature enough to realize that her mother has something to say as well.

By the end of the summer, Rose has changed, she is edging toward growing up with all of it’s unknowns, but I suspect she will always remember This One Summer. show less

(4.5)

This One Summer is one of those beautiful and somewhat melancholy graphic novels that stick with you and makes you think about it more and more that time goes by. I think the more I do think about it, the more I like it.

Content warnings:
Suicide attempt
In-book misogyny (& challenged by other characters)

Every year, Rose and her family go to their Awago Beach lakehouse, and every year Rose spends time with her friend, Windy, who has a cabin there too. But this summer, Rose is twelve and Windy ten. Their age gap is becoming more apparent, with Rose becoming interested in boys, and Windy still wanting to dig holes in the sand and never wanting to get married. That’s not all: Rose’s parents are fighting, and then she and Windy find show more themselves involved in a drama that opens their eyes to what teenage life might be like.

I don’t know what it is ... maybe it’s the incredible art, the monochromatic purple coloring, or the very minute nuances in facial expressions, but this graphic novel is something else. It’s incredibly gripping and says a lot more between the dialogue than with its actual words (maybe that’s why a lot of reviewers say “nothing really happens”, when there’s actually lots going on).

The entire story happens through Rose’s eyes, whether it be overhearing her parents fighting (and she never really understands what about until she overhears another conversation later in the book). Things don’t always add up here until later scenes seen or overheard through Rose; the book kind of has an attitude of “you’ll understand when you’re older”.

I can’t explain this well, but the book is a treasure of a coming-of-age story; it feels so real. The way the kids hear older boys calling their girlfriends “sluts”, and then Rose calling girls sluts in a derogatory way because she likes those boys. The way her younger friend Windy calls her out on it, because she’s not yet at that age where she wants to be a part of that culture (but let’s be real here: Windy’s a lesbian). It’s just such a good story of what it’s like to actually be on the cusp of becoming a teenager and absorbing influences from all sorts.

Not only that, these authors know exactly what it’s like to be kids. The dialogue, the gestures, the specific looks; they all perfectly encapsulate childhood. And the character design? Superb. I adore the style and the way everyone’s design differs from one another. They’re people, not perfect designs, not perfect human specimens, etc.

I think I’ll like this more as time goes by, and I’ll definitely read it again. It’s a beautiful novel with lots of layers (the parents, the kids, the teenagers, and how their separate storylines come together -- or, at least, how they all come to impact each other’s). It’s probably one of the best coming-of-age stories I’ve ever read. show less

YA graphic novel about two pre-adolescent girls spending the summer with their families at a lake. Deals with the ways they start to understand things about the adult world by watching the older kids (in their late teens) and the adults around them. A lot about body image and beginning (mis)understandings about sex, what it is, how it works, what it's "supposed" to mean. The adults around them are dealing with some pretty heavy stuff, too, and the reader slowly starts to understand, as the girls do, what's going on there. Very good, very well done. Artwork is excellent. (This is a Caldecot Honor Book, and I gather that's generated a bit of a ballyhoo, as it is not a "picture book" intended for young children but rather an illustrated show more book intended for, oh I'd say, 12+. Not sure where I fall here except to say: it's an excellent book excellently illustrated for (older) children and it is definitely not what I think of when I think of the Caldecot. *shrug* No real pony in the race, I guess.) Recommended. (Definitely a book to read along with kids, though, (especially the under-sixteens, I'd say) and be ready and available to discuss. Important and disturbing.) show less

Rose and her less mature friend Windy are on the edge of beginning their teen years. They have spent every summer together at a lake house with their parents. The girls wander around the line between childhood and adulthood savoring summer memories past, eavesdropping on the dramas of local teens and their own parents, commenting ironically on the kitsch activities their parents sign them up for, and illicitly watching slasher movies. Rose has an intense need for privacy and refuses to ask for help from adults as she skulks around trying to piece together what is going on with her parents and her teenage crush. Rose doesn't know what she doesn't know and the graphic novel format lends itself to evoking that time of childhood when a show more person is so desperate for information, but is still too young to understand; some panels are heartbreaking in their pathos. Ten out of ten would recommend. show less

The graphic novel This One Summer is like a visually fleshed out novella, featuring contrasting themes of unwanted teen pregnancy and a mother's unfulfilled desire to have another child. We watch it unfold through the eyes of two pre-teen friends on their annual summer vacation in cottages near Awago Beach. Rose is on the cusp of teenage-ness, and both she and Windy are wondering about things like sex, boobs, pregnancy and so on. At the same time, they still like to play at the beach and while away the summer hours. The local video rental is staffed by two teen boys willing to rent them "R" horror movies like Nightmare on Elm Street, which become their shared secret night-time entertainment.

They are fascinated by the local teens and show more study them, including an apparently pregnant and angry young girl and her skeptical, responsibility-dodging boyfriend. At the same time, Rose's mother is mourning the miscarriage loss of a desired second child, as her marriage to Rose's father frays.

An unusual story for graphic treatment, beautifully carried out by the Tamaki cousins. They manage to convey that long lazy feeling of summer along with these potentially explosive personal dilemmas, all viewed through the eyes of two young friends edging toward adulthood. The graphic treatment allows entry into the girls' world in a mesmerizing and convincing way. show less

January and February was a reading challenge at my library to read as much J/YA fiction as possible which even for ME, a CHILDREN'S LIBRARIAN, is HELL, I do NOT like YA books but I take exception to this! Which is for everyone! A great, sensitive, and extremely beautiful book about being an age at which nothing really happens to you but everything happens around you. The illustrations are beautiful. I have never seen someone communicate in art so well what it's like to listen, to watch, to wait, the passage of time, the elements, etc. Lovely, recommended, the best of the best.