Review: The Summer of Letting Go by Gae Polisner

Title: The Summer of Letting Go
Author: Gae Polisner
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Publish Date: March 25, 2014

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "Just when everything seems to be going wrong, hope and love can appear in the most unexpected places.

Summer has begun, the beach beckons and Francesca Schnell is going nowhere. Four years ago, Francesca s little brother, Simon, drowned, and Francesca s the one who should have been watching. Now Francesca is about to turn sixteen, but guilt keeps her stuck in the past. Meanwhile, her best friend, Lisette, is moving on most recently with the boy Francesca wants but can t have. At loose ends, Francesca trails her father, who may be having an affair, to the local country club. There she meets four-year-old Frankie Sky, a little boy who bears an almost eerie resemblance to Simon, and Francesca begins to wonder if it s possible Frankie could be hisreincarnation. Knowing Frankie leads Francesca to places she thought she d never dare to go and it begins to seem possible to forgive herself, grow up, and even fall in love, whether or not she solves the riddle of Frankie Sky."

My Two Cents:

"The Summer of Letting Go" is the story of Frankie, known to her friends as Bean. She lost her brother several years ago and blames herself and feels like her mother blames her as well. Meanwhile, she has a crush on her best friend's boyfriend and doesn't know what to do before things get too deep. Things start to change the summer after 10th grade and Frankie feels like she is starting to come into her own, with many bumps along the way. This book is a truly unique coming of age story of learning to let go and to move on in a positive way and I definitely enjoyed it.

There was sort of an almost magical realism quality that I really enjoyed. In the book, Beans meets Frankie Sky, a young boy, who has an uncanny resemblance to Beans' brother, Simon. The resemblance is so much so that Beans almost believes that maybe Frankie Sky is the reincarnation of her brother but the logical side of her believes that can't possibly be true. I loved this element of the book. It really added a lot of interest for me because it was so off the beaten path.

I really liked Beans' character because she really comes into her own in this story. She goes from being sort of afraid of a lot of things because of what happened to her brother and how it changed her family to realizing that she has a lot more control over things than she ever realized before.

The writing of the book was good and the pacing was nice. There were a couple loose ends but that didn't take too much away from the book. This book will appeal to those that have enjoyed books by the likes of Sarah Dessen and Elizabeth Scott!