The Square Root of Summer

"I've got the earth between my toes."

I am with many other reviews in saying - I'm not 100% sure what I just read.
But, I have suspended my disbelief for many a book, and I will definitely for this one.

For me, the time travel and the wormholes....they are all a part of the story but not the part I held my breath at. I enjoyed slowly unraveling Gottie's world. She is stingy at first - leaving us in her memories and in her quiet sleeping moments.

It takes chapter and chapters for her world to erupt. For sunlight and mud to fly off the page - for Thomas to bat-gab onto the scene, for Jason to whisper his words, for Ned to scream and for Sof to shine. But when the worlds finally all start aligning and Umlaut growls left over socks under the show more bed, I was completely wrapped in Gottie's world. I was holding my breath, wanting it all to work out.

Did this book hit me especially hard because I, too, just experienced a horrible, gut-wrenching loss? Maybe. But that's okay too. It was a wonderful read. show less

A gorgeous lyrical book where I have no freaking clue what is going on.

I will admit that much of this went over my head but I still liked reading it. There was a lot of timey whimey ness and some physics and math to try and explain it all, but if I tried to unravel everything my head would start aching. So I stopped trying to figure it out and just let the story carry me along. I think I got most of it, but can't help feeling like there are still pieces I'm missing.

Still, lovely. Grief, as portrayed by wormholes. Love, as exhibited by time paradoxes.

Gottie H. Oppenheimer. Margot. I found myself looking back to the beginning and flyleaf of the book, to see if it had been translated from German, yet it took place on the coast of England. Add in a cat named Umlaut and a lot of math, and you will understand while it finally dawned on me that the parts that I thought were poorly translated were in reality, a lot of mathematical and scientific principles trying to be explained to the reader. It's an eccentric romance story, but after I waded through all of the math, time travel and dark matter, I also found a story of huge sadness and grief. I don't want to give much away, but suffice to say, you really just have to keep reading it to understand it.

Gottie thinks "I'm ready to live in the show more world again, but the world won't let me." p. 204 show less

Margot (Gottie) Oppenheimer has lost a lot lately. Her mother died soon after her birth. Almost a year ago, her hippie grandfather Grey died and at the same time, her first relationship with Jason ended as well. She's been isolating herself from just about everyone and is just starting to reconnect. Coincidentally, her childhood friend Thomas is returning to live at her house after a falling out with his father. Gottie doesn't know how to feel as the anniversary of her grandfather's death looms and her friend who never wrote her is set to return. Then Gottie notices that she's losing time as she slips into past memories and then returns sometimes hours later with no memory of what she did in the present. What's happening?

Gottie has had show more an emotional year, spent mostly keeping to herself. She has blocked out her best friend and her family as she does the least possible to avoid thinking about her grandfather and her ex-boyfriend. A few things make her stand out from the typical protagonist. She excels at math and science, which is refreshing. Her father is German, so many German words are bandied about and German recipes are enjoyed. I had to look up some words, but most were apparent in context. Gottie isn't perfect and makes numerous conscious and unconscious mistakes throughout the story. One thing I particularly liked was that she had sex with her ex-boyfriend, but didn't regret it. He was a jerk to keep it a secret from everyone and for the way he treated her after Grey died, but she was in love and doesn't regret her decision. Her relationship with Thomas is sweet and like they picked up where they left off so long ago. After an initial awkwardness, it was easy to get back into their friendship and something more as they caught up.

What I had a problem with is the science aspects. The She hypothesizes that she's going through wormholes to different realities where certain things happened or didn't happen. The different realities thing seemed to come out of nowhere near the end of the novel. Before that, I thought she was just visiting the past, She tries to explain it with math equations and baking metaphors, but none of it really made sense to me. When I stopped trying to make sense of it, I enjoyed it much more. The pictures and equations kind of went over my head because I'm not a math or science person, but it was nice to get a small taste of what Gottie enjoys.

I expected The Square Root of Summer to be a light fluffy summer read, but it deals with realistic things like grief and loss. I thought the ending was a little too tied up, but otherwise enjoyable. I enjoyed the book and felt for Gottie even when she was making some awful decisions. Worth a read. show less

Goodreads Synopsis:
This is what it means to love someone. This is what it means to grieve someone. It's a little bit like a black hole. It's a little bit like infinity.
Gottie H. Oppenheimer is losing time. Literally. When the fabric of the universe around her seaside town begins to fray, she's hurtled through wormholes to her past:
To last summer, when her grandfather Grey died. To the afternoon she fell in love with Jason, who wouldn't even hold her hand at the funeral. To the day her best friend Thomas moved away and left her behind with a scar on her hand and a black hole in her memory.
Although Grey is still gone, Jason and Thomas are back, and Gottie's past, present, and future are about to collide—and someone's heart is about to show more be broken.
With time travel, quantum physics, and sweeping romance, The Square Root of Summer is an exponentially enthralling story about love, loss, and trying to figure it all out, from stunning debut YA voice, Harriet Reuter Hapgood.

My Review:
I received a copy of this book through netgalley. First thing, I want to say that I absolutely loved this book. I'm confused at why it has mostly three star ratings, but I guess not everyone liked it as much as I did. Margot is a seventeen year old girl who lives with her father, brother, and now childhood friend who never tried to talk to her once he moved away. She used to live with her grandfather too, Grey, but his passing was really tough on everyone and she's still trying to get her life back together almost a year later. Her brother Ned is mostly away at art school but its home during the summer, and his best friend Jason comes around a lot more often than she's like. She's not happy about having him around, although he's her brothers best friend, as they had a secret relationship that ended badly around the time her grandfather died. Honestly she isn't sure what she should be thinking. Worst of all this stranger who looks like her old friend lives in her house now, and although they were close when they were young, it's been five years without so much as a hi, and things are different now. Strange things tart happening hen Margot starts losing time, literally, being thrown back into lifelike visions of her past while simultaneously still moving around and doing things, like she blacks out but instead of her memory being blank, it's a particularly painful memory. She starts learning about the math behind it all, wormholes and black holes and screenwipes and such, sometimes it feels like there's another reality on top of her own changing the outcome of what's happening. She first blames it on her lack of sleep, but it has to be more than that. This book is unlike anything I've read lately and I loved every moment of it. The characters are super realistic despite what's happening to them or should I say her specifically, and I found myself wishing I knew her and her family, especially her grandfather, he seemed like a good guy. The story took turns I never thought would happen, and I didn't expect any of it. I loved the little notes and diagrams added into the story as well. Definitely check it out if you haven't already.
Thanks for reading! Check out this review and more at my blog.
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I think 'strange' is the best way to describe this book. If I'd been more invested, this could have been strong.

I had to suspend my disbelief about halfway through and I went with the flow instead of trying to wrap my head around what was happening, but perhaps that meant that I got less out of the book because I was rather confused by what had happened at the end. If I'd spent less time being confused, I might have become more invested in this book. I did appreciate that the author tried to mathematically explain all that happened and I loved a certain cannoli analogy, but I didn't understand it enough to buy why it would happen just to her.

I felt that the characters could have been better fleshed out. Sof, for example, had a show more personality that was a neat idea but only really shone through once. I don't even know who Meg was, though she was fun when stoned. I felt like reading Jason and Thomas talking they could have been the same people. That was a real detriment to the book in my opinion.

Ultimately I think the most important aspect to this was overcoming grief and managing to achieve and accomplish despite. Our main character, Gottie, was an incredibly talented mathematician (physician?) and I appreciated that her talent didn't go unrecognised.

If you really enjoy (or even have a baseline understanding of) math and physics and enjoy YA, this might be for you. But I think I'll have to read this another two times before I'm no longer puzzled.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. show less

Got this as an ARC. Loved it! Reads a little like John Green but with a decidedly female bent. The protagonist is smart but not unrelatable and I can see this really taking off as a big YA of the summer.

Highly recommended.