The 12-year-old narrator of this story is Juillet, but she goes by several names through the course of the story. She and her mother are spending the summer vacation in California. Her mother is an emergency room doctor and is very busy, which means that Juillet has a lot of time to fill in an unfamiliar town. But her first day she meets Summer, a girl her own age, who quickly befriends her. This transforms Julliet’s life as Summer teaches her how to be comfortable in the sea, riding various boards to catch waves. She develops some great skills but her friendship with Summer also helps her overcome her dark mood. She had started out full of gloom, mostly because her father had recently left her and her mother and had moved to France. This had meant that she had had to leave her old school and move to a new place where she didn’t know anyone. So she is full of fears about the future and the world when she arrives, and she has a terrible attitude. But within a few weeks she totally loves life, and she also has a crush on her friend Summer. She learns to articulate her feelings and express the emotions that were making her so gloomy. That doesn’t mean that everything is easy for her — there are some real problems that both her and Summer have to face. But she is better placed to do that by the end.

Apart from setting out the psychological lessons of the benefits of friendship and learning sports skills, Summer and July also depicts the charms of a Californian surfing town. The friendship between the two girls is nicely drawn, and the story proceeds at a good pace. The unabridged audiobook is performed by Hope Newhouse, who brings energy and conviction to the reading. 

Christian Perring is editor of Metapsychology Online Reviews. He teaches philosophy in the NYC area and is an APPA certified philosophical counselor.

Categories: Fiction, AudioBooks, Anxiety

Keywords: YA literature, anxiety, surfing