The summer '92 setting is gorgeously written. I was thrown back in time on the first page. I couldn't get enough of Fierro's beautiful prose. It captivates readers never letting go. The cast of characters are well-developed and so fascinating. There are a lot of them, but aren't hard to keep straight. Friendship, racism, social class, family, disease, and love are all explored throughout. Pop culture references of the time are present. The story is ambitious and Fierro pulls it off fantastically with her vivid, hypnotizing writing. If you enjoy family dramas or women's fiction, you must check out The Gypsy Moth Summer today!

As you can tell from the publisher’s summary there is a LOT going on in the summer of 92 on Avalon Island. Let me first address the book title and invasion of the gypsy moths. The details of their arrival and their nasty, dirty, all encompassing destruction is a character all it’s on this Ms. Fierro’s book. Her details left me cringing and honestly a little itchy at times. Amazing research and blending them into this story.

The people of Avalon Island are a stark contrast of the haves and have nots. There is class struggle and fears of racial mixing and so many darker themes throughout the book. I couldn’t help but feel empathy for Maddie and her younger brother. They live with an abusive father and a mother who has mentally left them alone. Their grandparents are part of the elitist society and Maddie realizes early on she can’t please anyone.

I was most drawn to Jules, he is married to Leslie, and now that her parents are deceased and have left her the castle he is in love with the grounds, the gardens, the maze, and he is deeply in love with Leslie. He had no idea how cold and unaccepting he would be to all the residents of Avalon.

I had a difficult time getting into this book, it started out great, then there was a lull, and the honestly gross progression of caterpillars to cocoon to moths….all of it devastating. Most of the characters have no redeeming value and it’s easy to dislike them. The few that do sweep you up in their stories break your heart.

I enjoyed The Gypsy Moth Summer, though I don’t think it’s a book for everyone. I think it’s a tragic look at our society, and really is 25 years that far behind us? If you’re a fan of Julia Fierro don’t miss it.

I was hooked from the first page of this novel The Gypsy Moth Summer, and author Fierro’s description of the way different sets of the younger residents of Avalon Island sought refuge in the woods on summer evenings. That description really resonated with my own memories of coming home, hot and pink, from the Jersey shore, and then wandering around my grandparents’ neighborhood until after dusk, playing freeze-tag with my friends, or hunting fireflies, or, later, finding that one spot where the honeysuckle vines formed a privacy curtain for a little private time with the boy of the moment.

With the subsequent introduction to Maddie, part of the IT-girl group, but not really one of them, I went from ‘hooked’ to ‘totally enthralled.’ I was twenty-two when this novel took place, but I remember what it was like to be on the fringe of different popular groups, wanting to be part of them, but never really meshing with the groupthink.

Beyond high school girl dynamics, though, this novel has it all – mysterious residents who return with new families, young love, small town scandal, and, of course, the life cycle of gypsy moths juxtaposed against it all.

Part classic beach read, part gripping community drama, part mystery, all brilliantly put together with language that moves from vivid and lyrical to snappy dialogue and back, as necessary, The Gypsy Moth Summer should be at the top of your summer reading list.

Goes well with a soft pretzel and an orange julius-type drink, preferably enjoyed on a boardwalk, amusement pier, or at a county fair.

Thy Gypsy Moth Summer by Julia Fierro takes place in the summer of 1992 in a town called Avalon Island. The gypsy moths caterpillar have invaded the town and they are used as almost another character in the book. Their constant eating is almost like a heartbeat, setting the pace of the novel.

Avalon Island is like a lot of towns in America, where one large industry supplied the town with most of it’s economy and jobs. In this case it is Grudder Aviation - a supplier of war planes.

The events of that summer are told through several different points of view, and there are a lot of events. Leslie Day Marshall, the daughter of a prominent family returns to Avalon Island to live in the “castle” owned by her family. She brings with her, her African-American husband and their children. Her son Brooke’s begins to hang out with the local teenagers and some race issues raise their ugly head.

The novel swept me along, covering a little bit of every social issue. There’s racism, animal cruelty, war, pollution, drug abuse, and sexual preference. It’s almost as if the author tried to through every possible issue our way. This was the same point that I brought up on my review of her other novel “Cutting Teeth” - she tried to include every possible type of parent in that novel

The relentless munching of the caterpillars, the increasingly wild activities of the teens, it all pulls you forward. You know something bad is going to happen.

Then it does. Two things really. It feels like the book has two endings. The first climax was so confusing, I read over it a couple of times to make sure I thought I understood what happened. I personally t think the book could have ended there, and left off the last bad thing to happen.

All in all, I enjoyed the pace of the novel and it held my interest, I’m just not too sure how I feel about the ending.

I received an ARC copy of the book.

Marvelous descriptions of flowers, plants, mazes, and gardens. The island of Avalon is suffering a deluge of gypsy moths this summer, but they are not the only threat to this beautiful island. Ms. Fierro's writing is exceptional, a kind of painting with words that is outstanding. I will be looking out for more from this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin Publishing for providing me with an ARC of Gypsy Moth Summer by Julia Fierro.

Having read and loved Julia Fierro's debut novel Cutting Teeth, I was excited to read her newest novel, The Gypsy Moth Summer.A part coming of age story, with equal parts dysfunctional families and race relations the author has thrown the reader back into the early 1990's when grunge was cool, parents were clueless, and drugs were a way to numb the boredom. On the beautiful shores and gardens of Avalon, Long Island, creeping pesky caterpillars have invaded the island causing destruction and havoc. As the caterpillars lay their eggs and slowly go through their metamorphosis, so too the unruly teenagers of the wealthy and privilege are expanding their cocoons and testing their boundaries. Change and trouble are colliding as the old generation is losing their hold on the Island youth and the once prosperous local corporation is about to go under.
Tension and passion is in the air, as you turn the pages to discover who is holding the secrets and how will this summer end. A gripping and disturbing read. Gorgeous lush prose and biting dialogue,make for a true page turner.

Don't get my DNF wrong - it seems as if it is going to be a great book but at 30% I felt myself losing interest. The characters are what kept me reading - the continuous talk of foliage and caterpillars and moths just didn't do it for me and I felt myself skimming pages. I also think it's just a mood thing for me at the moment.

However, if you like books that deal with a lot of drama inclusive of racism, abuse, classism and some animal abuse set in the 1990's during Clinton's reign, this would be the book for you. The writing is fantastic but there's just too many story lines to follow.

Bugs bugs bugs bugs bugs. There are so many bugs in this book! I had never heard of a gypsy moth before, but I cannot stop thinking of them now. Caterpillars hatching everywhere…

In all seriousness, Julia Fierro has created a captivating world in The Gypsy Moth Summer. I am Really Into fictional capsule worlds, and Avalon Island is definitely encapsulated. Off the coast of New York, Avalon Island is a place that has little influence from the outside world and seems to live in another time. While I was reading, it in some ways reminded me of a Southern Gothic setting with segregation of rich and poor, racism, and the rich white people’s coveted, outdated way of life coming to an end.

The thing about an isolated island is that it doesn’t take much to disrupt it, so when the summer of 1992 comes along with a plague of insects and a new biracial family, it is more than Avalon can handle. New people and old secrets come out and the island will never be the same. It is told from the view of six different people with decidedly different agendas and backgrounds. I always appreciate the perspective of different story tellers in a novel.

I did enjoy the book, though I think it may have taken on a little too much and could have benefited from a tad bit of streamlining, but that is being nit picky. Overall the book was well written and enjoyable, and I was deep into the world of Avalon Island. I thought that the teenager Maddie was the most well drawn character, and the one whose story I couldn’t quit reading and I am still thinking about today. It doesn’t hurt that I was a teenager in the nineties, so this book evoked countless memories for me.

My favorite part of this tragic story is how vividly I could see the island. I felt like I could hear the bugs and see the homes and the gardens. Fierro did a great job capturing a time and a place and I really felt part of the world. I am Really Into This book and Julia Fierro, however I will not miss those moths!

Special thanks to Julia Fierro, St. Martin’s Press, & Net Galley for providing our copy in exchange for an honest & fair review.

well written and intriguing exploration of race and class. There's a LOT going on here- perhaps too much. I realize that's how life goes but I think I might have enjoyed this more if there hadn't been just so many issues. I liked the use of info about gypsy moths to frame the novel. One thing to keep in mind is that this is set in 1992; although that isn't that long ago, some of the prejudices seem really old. I can't put my finger on any one character as they're all well drawn, even when you want to tell them off or to grow up. Leslie, Jules, Brooks, and Maddie all have something to tell us about how we view the world and each other. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. This is a smart beach book.

Favorite Quotes:

Penny had been far beyond the margins of Bitsy’s clique when a seizure in sixth-period chemistry led doctors to the tumor in her brain. A status that had scored Penny overnight popularity, and an invitation to join Bitsy’s crew — penned in Bitsy’s own bubbly script on her personalized stationery. Good for one official membership in the FRESHEST DOPEST gang of bitches at East High!

He knew he played that game to give his ego a charge when it felt like a dead battery, and while it felt good to hold people’s prejudices up to their faces like a mirror, he always felt shitty after. A self-righteous hangover.

The Colonel’s favorite afternoon snack was a beer and chunk of Limburger cheese, which made the fridge at the big house smell like diarrhea farts.

Maddie had given her a gift. A book filled with inspirational quotes from Miss Winfrey. The kind of thing people read on the toilet. She’d memorized all of Queen Oprah’s words.

They were the kind of boys people didn’t trust. That was why she’d had to pick them. She had counted on their anger, their frustration, their pent-up lust for power, which, she’d known, since she was a girl, burned brighter in boys than even their need for sex and money.

My Review:

The Gypsy Moth Summer contained an ambitious, well-crafted, and busy storyline that was hip-deep with compelling, eccentric, and unusual characters, characters who were not always likable or even admirable but were unfailingly intriguing and well embellished. The plot was highly nuanced and sneaky; it was full of tricks and twists that held me captive, stole my breath, interrupted my sleep, and also had me cringing on several occasions.

A variety of physical and social ills had befallen Avalon Island, a small island off the coast of Long Island; an antiquated microcosm of society populated by the powerful country club member/war-mongering/factory executives on the East Side, and their working class factory employees on the West Side; all intent on continuing their proud history of creating aerial war machines despite peacetime and the despised liberal political landscape of 1992.

Various narrators took turns providing us with their insights and observations, each with their own mysterious agendas – which were often at odds with the other characters. Each one holding tight a multitude of dark secrets, profound fears, longings, regrets, and long-held and well-earned hatreds. In addition to an uncomfortable and highly distracting insect infestation of moths, were the more deeply seated and long-term issues that plagued the population such as various cancers, substance and domestic abuse, bigotry, neglect, mental illness, an unknown vigilante tagger stirring up trouble and inciting unrest, as well as inbred corporate greed and corruption.

I was enthralled, physically tense, chewing my lip, and more than a bit anxious as I read, which is typically what occurs when I fall into an exceptionally well-written tale. It may have broken off a few pieces of me by the end, but hours after finishing I find I remain firmly entrenched in their story and continuing to ruminate over their words. Julia Fierro has mad skills and a new fangirl!

Pensive, poignant and undeniably tragic!

In this latest novel by Fierro, she transports us to Avalon Island, an islet infested by not only the gypsy moth but small-town, small-minded politics, economics, and environmental consciousness.

The prose is vivid and exquisitely descriptive. The characters are destructive, materialistic and damaged. And the plot, which is ultimately about love, life, loss, cruelty, deception, familial dynamics, and vengeance has too many subplots and tackles too many issues, including industrial pollution, social and class division and strife, abuse, racism and emerging sexuality to not get a little bogged down and awkward.

I have to admit this was a really hard one for me. There is no doubt that Fierro can write and write well and some readers will love the dark, somber feel of this story, but for me, I couldn't quite connect with the characters and the story had too much misery and not enough redemption.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and Julia Fierro for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

For now, they are young and beautiful, pure muscle and unblemished skin. They are in love— a faith that makes them tease death. They swing out over the sea cliffs clutching a tire tied to a tree; drop two tabs of acid and swim to the end of the ferry landing and back; drag race down the wrong side of the causeway at two in the morning; fly headfirst toward danger, deaf to their mothers’ warnings— Be careful— all to win a bet. To prove they are what they feel. Immortal.
The Gypsy Moth Summer by Julia Fierro is a kaleidoscopic tale of the inhabitants of one island during the devastating gypsy moth invasion of 1992. Alternating between narratives of the young and old, Black and white, the rich in East Avalon and the poor in the West, Fierro paints a vivid picture of the struggles felt across every generation of Avalon. Peppered throughout with moth references and entomological insight, the development of the moth mirrors the building tension on the island until it culminates in one explosive finale- like the first flight of the moths.
On an island, time can freeze, but that summer the islanders felt a change coming. East and West agreed: there was a yawning divide between old and young. Yesterday and tomorrow. The new generation of Avalonians worshipped at the altar of MTV; didn’t fear the Bomb; heard the slogan “Be All You Can Be” and thought not of defending his or her country but, instead, imagined their future selves waiting to hatch like the moth eggs tucked in the crook and bend of every tree on the island.
Maddie Pencott LaRosa, recently initiated into the elite group of girls at school, quickly falls victim to the pressure of her peers and the temptations the drugs, drinking, and sex. In an attempt to escape the troubles of her life at home- a depressed mother, abusive father, her childhood best friend's brain cancer- she loses herself in the vortex of summer. But one evening, everything changes. Maddie begins to learn what real love is and what it costs to maintain it in the isolated despair of Avalon.

How could she tell him the truth? That she was worried her cousins would see them and tattle to her dad, who’d beat her. Because he was a racist. Because we all are, she thought.
At the start of the summer, Leslie Day Marshall returns the island with her husband and two children in tow and she doesn't bat an eye at the whispers, glances and shuffling of feet as her old friends and neighbors repress their shock- Mr. Marshall is Black. The prodigal daughter of one of Avalon's most prestigious families, she has returned to fight the establishment of Grudder Aviation for one heartbreaking reason that becomes clear as the story unfolds. This should be cause enough to ruffle the feathers of the Avalon elite, but by flaunting her Black husband she has also forced them to face their ingrained prejudices rooted in the starkly white history of the island.

And she too wanted to believe in a sense of order, divine providence or whatever— a sign— linking the arrival of Leslie Day Marshall’s family and the metamorphosis of the island, overnight, into a nest of ravenous pests.
Julius Marshall has been uprooted from his home, taken from his beloved garden, and replanted among the elitist citizenry of Avalon. Haunted by the voice of his father and his constant preaching on the differences between black and white, Julius struggles with finding a place for himself and for his family. Afraid to reproduce in his son what his father bore into him, Julius focuses on reviving the sprawling garden of their new home- putting his Harvard degree in Landscape Architecture to use and getting lost in his own thoughts.
Should he warn Brooks? He’d leave it be, for now. Last thing he wanted was to become his father, his son’s only inheritance a fear that keeps him from living life, taking risks, seeing the world in all its spectrum, not just black and white. That line from his favorite Baldwin essay was in his head: You can only be destroyed by believing that you really are what the white world calls a nigger.
Bearing witness to it all is Veronica, Maddie's grandmother and wife to the former Grudder Aviation president, who remembers Avalon as it once was. Veronica is not without her own secrets, however; her husband's severe dementia, his emotional and physical abuse and her own failing battle with breast cancer. In an effort to secure her family's legacy, she collects the young and those not yet beaten down by the island like pawns in a game using each as she sees fit until the shocking conclusion.

The Gypsy Moth Summer is a poignant examination of one communities destruction: by the moths, the pollution of Grudder and its very inhabitants ruthlessly tearing each other down.
Let the men and women of Avalon Island, East and West, play make believe—pretend they control life and death, war and peace, their kings and queens and workers and servants and country, and the warbirds they bring to life with aluminum and steel, baptized by fire. Let them believe—for one last night—they are immortal.

Ever since I first heard about The Gypsy Moth Summer I've been intrigued by it. I've heard lots of interesting things about it since I first added it to my list, but somehow it has taken me months to actually pick it up. One of the reasons is probably that I tend to have mixed reactions when it comes to literary fiction... And unfortunately The Gypsy Moth Summer ended up being one of those books where the genre just didn't work for me. I really wanted to like this story and the plot is without doubt both intriguing and well developed. I liked the idea behind the island of Avalon, its history and all events leading up to its 'climax' during the summer of 1992. Why wasn't my reading experience better then, would you wonder? First of all, during the whole length of this story I found myself unable to connect to the characters OR get used to the writing style, which put a mayor damper on things. I'm not saying this story isn't well written, but it's what you call an acquired taste or at least doesn't appeal to everyone. It just all felt a bit too chaotic to my taste and I personally struggled with this story. I understand the gypsy moth information bits are used to bind the plot together and these insects play a both a literal and symbolic role in the story, but unfortunately they mostly ended up distracting from the plot. And as for the characters: like I said before I found it impossible to warm up to them and I couldn't really appreciate the liberal use of sex, drugs and alcohol in the story without consequences either. It might be that those elements are used to symbolize the chaos unfolding on the island, but it mostly made me dislike the characters even more. All in all The Gypsy Moth Summer definitely wasn't for me... But if you enjoy reading literally fiction and like the sound of this story, don't let my review discourage you.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of this novel in exchange for this honest review. I'm rating this one 3.5 but I'll round up for the beautiful prose. This author does a great job of making the reader get a sense of time and place. Everything is so well described and the imagery is beautiful and maddening. Told from multiple points of view, the plot builds to a crescendo as the moths chew through the entire fictional island of Avalon. Negatives for me were the inclusion of two many villainous plot points and an ending where I'd lost touch with some of the characters.

First thing that comes to my mind is a wild thickness of detail, themes and plot I have rarely met in coming of age novels. This completely makes sense, due to the period of time portrayed and the hippy characters, their naive behavior and need for attention.

I was overwhelmed by this book and had trouble going past the first 50 pages. I believe one really needs the mood and patience to delve into the amalgam of it, I will definitely give it another go, because I felt its potential and its beauty among all the complex phrases and hidden meanings.

I definitely recommended this, it might be your next favorite book if you are up to the challenge of sailing through the depths of its happenings and ideas. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

It’s the summer of 1992 and a plague of gypsy moth caterpillars has hit Avalon Island, a community built around Grudder Aviation and packed with magnates’ mansions on the East side and factory workers’ accommodation on the West. But the creatures are just one of many threats to this would-be fairy tale world.

For Maddie Pencott LaRosa, it’s not just a simple Sweet Sixteen time of testing out drugs and sex at parties. Her grandfather “The Colonel,” the Grudder president, is back in town with her ill grandmother, Veronica, and they’re eager to hide the fact that he’s losing his marbles and hardly fit to lead a company. Also recently returned to the island is Leslie Day Marshall, daughter of the previous Grudder president; she’s inherited “The Castle” and shocked everyone with the family she brought back with her: Jules, an African-American landscape architect, and their two mixed-race children.

Depending on when you were born, you might not think of the 1990s as “history,” but this novel does what the best historical fiction does: expertly evoke a time period. From the uproar over the possible election of Bill Clinton to the slang and pop music, reading this will make you feel like you are (back) in the early ’90s. Moving between the perspectives of six major characters, the novel captures all the promise and peril of life, especially for several of them who love the ‘wrong’ people. I especially loved small meetings of worlds, like Maddie and Veronica getting together for tea and Oprah.

My main criticism would be that there is a lot going on here in terms of issues – racism, homosexuality, domestic violence, miscarriage, alcohol and prescription drug abuse, cancer, teen sex (a whole lotta sex in general) – and that can make things feel melodramatic. If you’ve read her debut, Cutting Teeth, you’ll know Fierro doesn’t always write likable characters, and there will likely be one or two here you hate. But in general I loved the atmosphere of the book: a sultry island summer of Gatsby-esque glittering parties and garden mazes, a time dripping with secrets, sex and caterpillar poop. (3.5 stars)

In 1992 on Avalon Island there is gypsy moth invasion. Leslie moves home with her African American husband and their 2 children. The island has lots of opinions about the mixed race family. Also Grudder Aviation, the island's main employer, seems to be causing cancer for the workers. This book deals with many issues including racism. There was quite a lot of characters and sometimes it was a bit hard to keep everything straight that was going on. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an ARC in return for an honest review.

Upon first reading the synopsis of Julia Fierro's The Gypsy Moth Summer, I had no real idea what kind of book it was supposed to be. Its mention of young love in the midst of troubled times made me think I would be losing myself in a young adult tale of star-crossed lovers, but, the more I read, the more complex the plot seemed to become. Ms. Fierro's second novel is a beautifully tragic examination of love, race, class, and revenge, set against the backdrop of one memorable summer on Avalon Island.

During the summer of 1992, millions of gypsy moths invade the tranquility of Avalon's woods and gardens. The sound of their nibbling serves as a sort of soundtrack to the lives of a group of dysfunctional men and women, all seeking to make sense out of the chaos of life.

Maddie Larosa is sixteen that summer, and, while the countless number of caterpillars puzzles and irritates her, it's far from the most exciting thing happening in her world. She finally knows what it is to be truly, madly, deeply in love, and that trumps everything. She's always been a bit of an outcast with a foot in both parts of Avalon's society. Her father is an abusive, Italian mechanic, while her mother, who exists in a fog of alcohol and sleeping pills, comes from a well-to-do military family. Maddie can't figure out where she really fits, and this troubles her greatly.

Then, Leslie Day Marshall moves back to Avalon, bringing scandal along with her. Once Avalon's darling, Leslie is now married to an African-American botanist and is the mother of two biracial children. Soon, the residents of Avalon are in an uproar, as racial tension creeps up on them. Everyone has opinions about Leslie and her family, and most of them aren't kind.

From the moment Maddie meets Brooks, the teenaged son of Leslie and her husband Jules, she knows the two of them have to be together. I found her utter certainty a little hard to stomach, but I suppose that's how love is when you're sixteen - wild and all encompassing. She knows her father won't approve, but she can't allow herself to care. Spending time with Brooks is all she cares about.

As Brooks and Maddie fall in love, the rest of the island is dealing with far uglier emotions. It seems that chemicals used by Grudder Aviation, the factory that employs many of Avalon's residents, could be to blame for the cancer running rampant throughout the island, and feelings are naturally running high against the company. Maddie’s grandfather, who used to work for Grudder, is desperate, out of a sense of misplaced loyalty, to prevent the factory being declared responsible, while his frail wife doesn’t want anyone to work out that her husband is suffering from dementia and tries, just as desperately, to reverse and/or cover up his odd decisions and actions. Jules struggles to make sense of his family's return to Avalon, a place he has long wanted to cut ties with, while Leslie seems to become ever more involved with the rich, white women who secretly mock her. All the while, tensions brew as plots of love, revenge, and survival are hatched.

As you can probably tell, The Gypsy Moth Summer is anything but a simple story. Its characters are incredibly flawed, each dealing with his or her own brand of trauma. Sometimes, I had trouble disentangling one subplot from the next. For example, it's obvious Leslie has returned home for a very specific reason, but it was really hard for me to follow the clues the author left for me as a reader. This was frustrating at times, but I'm glad I stuck with it until the end.

Ms. Fierro's writing is lush and evocative. This is usually a trait I love, but I must admit to finding it rather ponderous on a few occasions. I sometimes felt like I was wading through a morass of words to grasp even the simplest of meanings, and this made the story harder to get through than I would have liked. Good writing isn't just in the construction of lyrical sentences and detailed descriptions. It's also about making the reader feel a connection to the characters and setting, something I struggled to maintain at certain points.

The story is told from multiple points of view, allowing the reader to see things from myriad angles. This works well for the most part. The characters are very well-drawn. Ms. Fierro has a definite knack for creating people with identifiable strengths and weaknesses. No one is all good or all bad, and I was glad of this. I don't do well with cookie-cutter characters.

As someone who grew up in the nineties, I was hoping to relate to the teenagers in the story, but my suburban childhood was nothing like theirs. Here, it's commonplace for kids as young as twelve to be drunk or high. Substance abuse seems quite normalized by the author, something I imagine some readers may take issue with. This is a world of wild parties, unprotected sexual intercourse, and very little adult supervision.

There is so much more I could say about this incredibly complex story, but I don't want to spoil anything. Part of this book's beauty comes from the gradual unraveling of the characters’ lives and secrets. I do want to caution readers about a few scenes of pretty graphic animal cruelty. If you're an animal lover like I am, you'll want to be prepared. Still, I hope you won't be dissuaded from giving this book a try. Despite its faults, The Gypsy Moth Summer is an engrossing read that has a lot of relevant things to say about human frailty in all its forms.

I can still hear the caterpillars crunching their way around the island. Ugh! But in a good way. The imagery of this story will stay with me for a long time, such was the stunning, superb writing.

There were a host of characters in this book, each so well developed and some became so dear to my heart, especially Maddie and Brooks who I was rooting for. Their young love was sweet and powerful and I loved watching it unfold. Others I didn't come to love as much but they had a specific purpose in the book and they were fascinating to watch as well. Everyone has their own agenda during this summer interlude and in the end some of those agendas clash and the results are stunning and unexpected and tore at my emotions.

I recommend this book to lovers of drama of all kinds, but especially the family kind. There is some sexuality so beware if you're offended by that, but this is a fabulously written book and one that will stay in my mind for a long time.

This is my first book by Ms. Fierro and I enjoyed the ethereal quality of the writing. There was a dream-like quality to the story and her style is very descriptive. The story takes place on the fictional Avalon Island off the coast of Long Island which is inhabited by a host host of characters.. The island was home to Grudder Aviation, but the island has always been culturally divided into two halves, the tony rich and the workers and families employed by Grudder. Many people are suffering from cancer in 1992 when the book takes place, so there a feeling of unease and the arrival of the gypsy moth just makes things even more uncomfortable. I struggled to feel engaged with the characters and the plot. I just couldn't get into the story of what was happening and connection between the characters. Thank you to Net Galley, publisher, and author for the review copy in exchange for my honest review.