This was a interesting woman’s fiction book. If you like the genre you will find it enjoyable. I would read this author again!

I am so glad Netgalley and Martine Murray sent me a copy of The Last Summer of Ada Bloom, for an honest review. I didn’t know what to expect from this author or this book, but I was happily surprised. I fell in love with Ada and her dysfunctional family. The book takes place over one miserably hot summer. It’s set in a small town and the year is 1980. A family starts to fall apart when secrets are exposed, as they start to break down the family dynamic. Ada has two older siblings, a brother and a sister. They both have one foot out of the house and poor Ada is the one who sees the most, but doesn’t understand anything. As the summer progresses we get to know each member of the family. The character development is excellent. Their interaction with one another is so real and the story is heartwarming. I was so glad I was able to read this book. Marine Murray is a writer who I will now start to follow. I read this very quickly because I couldn’t put it down. When you get a chance, get this story and enjoy every second. This was a four star review for me and I have shared this on my Instagram page.

This is the story of a long, hot summer. It's a story of a family fraying at the edges. I enjoyed the setting in Australia. Overall, I found it to be a solid read.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book. All thoughts are my own.

4-5 stars, a nice break from my normal genre. It was well written, with amazingly developed characters, which really helped make it seem like a real dysfunctional family. While I don’t really read non thrillers much, I am glad I picked it up, because it was written in a way that really tugged at my emotions! I highly recommend to those who love reading about dysfunctional families trying to make it through the tough things life throws at us!
Will make sure to buzz it up on all the different platforms and use my low amazon reviewer number!

Reminiscent of The Nest, this is a tale of siblings struggling to come together. It's cute, with some funny moments and quirky characters.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

This is a story of a dysfunctional family of five. Tilly is the oldest daughter, Ben the middle child, and Ada the nine year old daughter. Mike and Martha, the parents, are in a unsatisfactory marriage. Martha has many "what ifs" that keep her thinking about her life in a negative way and seems to have resentment for her oldest daughter because she sees her beginning to live the life she wanted for herself. Mike struggles with his wife's coldness and her complaining nature. Secrets abound and a tragedy occurs that adversely affects everyone. A good familial read.

Thanks to Net Galley for allowing me to read this amazing arc.

A beautifully well told story of a family falling apart and what they do to overcome obstacles. Loved this story with strong characters and so will you. Happy reading!

This was quite a quick read for me, the book was mainly character driven but no real storyline that was intriguing to me. Not something I would read again.

2 1/2 ⭐️‘s
With its beautiful cover and intriguing synopsis, I was excited to read this book. Unfortunately, it was just too SLOW for me. It was a short read, but at 3 days in when I was still only at 40%, I finally gave up on it! Sadly, it did not hold my interest.

I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a short and face paced easy read! I enjoyed it a lot and couldn't put it down. The characters were not characters I usually relate to, but I found them enjoyable.

Thank you kindly to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for this review copy.

A foreboding had gotten inside Ada and she couldn’t get it out again. Something felt threatening and inevitable.

The Bloom family unravels during one summer, but the fault lines were there long before. If Ada and Tilly’s mother Martha is ‘straining against the confines of her life’ then Tilly is straining against the confines of youth. It may well be that the endless possibilities for her daughter’s future reminds Martha of her own failures and roads not taken that are closed to her now. At seventeen Tilly has ‘taken on grown up airs’ and the distance between the sisters makes Ada feel lonely. Observing her sister is like being tangled up in a mystery that is waiting around the corner for her too. Then there are boys who will take notice too. Martha still has Ada to mother, but life is one big dissatisfaction, she feels time rushing along and nothing to show for it all, with the exception of her three children. Martha knows they won’t need her for long and now her body is beginning to slowly ‘undo’. Her desire has plummeted, but she still loves her husband Mike, doesn’t she? The true test may come with the arrival of ‘an old flame’, but nothing is as it seems, and the biggest mystery may not be the shucking of their daughter’s youth but the turmoil that arises with his visit.

Son Ben is the adored one, given far more freedom than Tilly, though he is only 15. Ben even has his own Bungalow, being Martha’s favorite, which of course is heaven for him. It never sits well with Tilly, who knows if there were ever a threat, he’d be the first one saved. Martha is cold to Tilly, if love is an effort with her husband Mike, it seems more so when it comes to her eldest child. The biting words seem to escape of their own volition when she interacts with her daughter, her jealousy and regrets arising with the blossoming of Tilly. Martha is far more demanding with her, and the weight of her mother’s ugliness, evident in Tilly’s sadness doesn’t inspire shame or pity in Martha, but strangely more anger. It’s painful to witness, but the reasons Martha pushes Tilly away are more about Martha and her past. The stink of secrets we throw down the well of our past can easily be detected. Martha isn’t as indifferent as she seems. In her clouded mind, every single person in her mediocre life is failing her while she does her best to pretend that all is well.

Mike isn’t any happier, thinking of his wife and her severe ‘unnecessary scrutiny’ of all things, her disappointment with their conventional lives and Arnold’s swooping in and upsetting the balance. Why was his approval once so vital to Mike? Arnold who ‘had always been a silence between them.’ He is proud of his little life, of the family he made, but he is still a man who needs to feel the pulse of being alive. Why should he feel like he can live up to what Martha needs? Why isn’t what they have made enough?

Ada’s curious nature is fed by an abandoned well and rusted old windmill, all sorts of things can end up in that abyss. Maybe even the innocence of childhood. Ada sees something that changes the structure of her family, and burdens her with secrets that should never have to be shared. The adults are failing each other, and everyone in between. A story of family fractures, shame, regrets, betrayal and blossoming- sometimes you have to shed the old ways to be born into something new. But do they have enough hope in their hearts? Can you make good on all the pain you have caused to hide from your own shame?

Ada’s naivety took me back to that fragile time when you are on the cusp of understanding, when knowledge seems to spoil one’s carefree existence. It starts when she feels something is off, but doesn’t quite comprehend what she instinctively knows. The relationship between Tilly and Ada is tender, even if it feels like Tilly is drifting away. Even sisterhood can lose it’s balance, without ill intentions. It’s easy to be hard on Martha, but she is a mess trying to contain itself and Mike fails his children too, in a big way. Ben is self-centered, and of course it’s forgivable in a boy, especially as the favored son but for me the heart of the novel is born from past transgressions. Motherhood certainly doesn’t fit every woman like a glove, and sometimes the worst in us is so hard to overcome, as can be the things that happen to us. I really liked it, it is far more realistic than explosive dramas, it’s the silences between partners that make for the richer novels.

Publication Date: April 7, 2020

Tin House Books

This is another mediocre, Switzerland read for me that I didn’t passionately enjoy it because of some irritating characters of the book but it is still above the average and great start for the first adult novel of popular children/YA books Aussie author Martine Murray.

The book‘s story takes places in Melbourne, centered on dysfunctional and estranged family members of Bloom family:

Martha: depressed, restless, resented, criticizing mother, drifted apart from her husband, allured by a man from her past and her husband Mike mostly resented from his wife’s attitudes but he doesn’t fight for his marriage as well.

And three children feel the tension at the house but their reactions are so different from each other. The elder ones are adamant to get away from there to start their own paths. The elder child, Tily is planning to leave for Melbourne University to open up herself the different opportunities of life as the middle child, Ben still discovers his manhood, putting himself into a toxic spiral, making mistakes. And the observant, nine years old
Ada watches her family members’ imminent change in front of her eyes, still holding onto her lovely childhood memories and her own innocence, rejecting the change.

The book may be a little shorter to fasten the pace and keep the interest of the readers alert. Maybe this was just for me but I found Ada’s parents a little dull, boring and I couldn’t relate with them which meant I didn’t enjoy reading their parts of the story.

Overall: Writing is still promising, emotional and unique. I enjoyed to be part of little Ada’s world. But at some parts the story became repetitive, slow burn, uninteresting for me. So I’m giving my three stars. I still want to read more adult books of the author because I can sense her talent from her story-telling, word choices and especially young adult parts of the story worked well for me.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Tin House Books for sharing this ARC with me in exchange my honest review.