Speaking of Summer: A Novel
3.5/5
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About this ebook
A “powerful song about what it means to survive as a woman in America” (Jesmyn Ward), this “fiercely astute” novel follows a sister determined to uncover the truth about her twin’s disappearance (Tayari Jones).
On a cold December evening, Autumn Spencer’s twin sister, Summer, walks to the roof of their shared Harlem brownstone and is never seen again. The door to the roof is locked, and the snow holds only one set of footprints. Faced with authorities indifferent to another missing Black woman, Autumn must pursue the search for her sister all on her own.
With her friends and neighbors, Autumn pretends to hold up through the crisis. But the loss becomes too great, the mystery too inexplicable, and Autumn starts to unravel, all the while becoming obsessed with the various murders of local women and the men who kill them, thinking their stories and society’s complacency toward them might shed light on what really happened to her sister.
In Speaking of Summer, critically acclaimed author Kalisha Buckhanon has created a fast-paced story of urban peril and victim invisibility, and the fight to discover the complicated truths at the heart of every family.Editor's Note
Engrossing…
True crime expert Kalisha Buckhanon’s engrossing psychological thriller is getting rave reviews. When her twin sister, Summer, vanishes without a trace from Harlem, Autumn desperately tries to figure out what happened, but police indifference, a secret trauma in her past, and a tangled relationship with her twin’s ex-boyfriend make things complicated. Can she save Summer before it’s too late?
Kalisha Buckhanon
Kalisha Buckhanon’s first novel, Upstate, won an American Library Association Alex Award and was nominated for the Hurston/Wright Foundation Legacy Award in Debut Fiction. Terry McMillan selected her to receive the first Terry McMillan Young Author Award in 2006. A recipient of a 2001 Illinois Arts Council Artist Fellowship and an Andrew Mellon Fellow, Buckhanon frequently teaches writing and speaks throughout the country. She has a M.F.A. in creative writing from New School University in New York City, and both a B.A. and a M.A. in English language and literature from the University of Chicago. She was born in 1977 in Kankakee, Illinois.
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Reviews for Speaking of Summer
17 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I had a hard time getting into this novel - the narrative was jerky, the writing seemed rather opaque, and Autumn - the narrator - was, in many, ways, inscrutable. I almost gave up on it, but ultimately I'm glad I didn't. Through the story of her missing sister and through flashbacks to their childhood and the illness and death of their mother, Autumn confronts the complexities of race and gender in American society, as well as the role of trauma and mental illness on identity.I was not familiar with Buckhanon or her work before seeing Speaking of Summer in the Overdrive catalogue. She has written three other novels, all of which sound intriguing. I look forward to reading more.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Its more on speaking and inter active way for us to share our ideas and insights to others. I like it
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As a thriller, it's a slow-burn style for sure. As literary fiction, it's powerful, relevant, emotional, and hopeful. Together, an excellent read that I'm still thinking about.