Hurricane Summer by Asha Bromfield |Blog Tour|
fictiveescapes Book Reviews, Book Reviews May 8, 2021 3 Minutes
The thing that drew me in the most about this novel was the vivid blues and greens on the cover; they are so stunning and I think that the rain effect is cool.

This novel is Asha Bromfield’s debut novel and I hope that she writes more in the future because the way that she writes is so unapologetically emotional and full of life. It was refreshing to see. This novel isn’t afraid to be real and it doesn’t talk down to readers.


Hurricane Summer was an intense read; probably the most intense read that I have read since I read Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson in high school.

Novel Summary: In this sweeping debut, Asha Bromfield takes readers to the heart of Jamaica, and into the soul of a girl coming to terms with her family, and herself, set against the backdrop of a hurricane.

Tilla has spent her entire life trying to make her father love her. But every six months, he leaves their family and returns to his true home: the island of Jamaica.

When Tilla’s mother tells her she’ll be spending the summer on the island, Tilla dreads the idea of seeing him again, but longs to discover what life in Jamaica has always held for him.

In an unexpected turn of events, Tilla is forced to face the storm that unravels in her own life as she learns about the dark secrets that lie beyond the veil of paradise―all in the midst of an impending hurricane.

Hurricane Summer is a powerful coming of age story that deals with colorism, classism, young love, the father-daughter dynamic―and what it means to discover your own voice in the center of complete destruction.

The Novel brutally mirrors real life; there are no easy relationships or quick solutions to be found. And heavy topics are in abundance such as misogyny, colorist, privilege, classism, abuse (physical, sexual, emotional, and others), and shunning… and probably many more that I didn’t know to look for (this is a very nuanced novel).

This novel made me feel deeply and passionately. That emotion was mainly anger but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I wanted things to be better; much like the anger that Tilla herself carries throughout the novel. There was a lot that was going on in this novel that I didn’t fully understand but I am glad that I read it anyway. Any novel that can bring forth real emotion with the reader is automatically five stars to me.

Normally, I would summarize the novel more but this is one novel that you just have to go in blind and fully read for yourself; it is 100% worth it. I am calling it now this novel will be one of the stand-out novels of 2021.

I do feel like I have a responsibility to warn readers that there is a rape scene in the latter half of the novel and there is major character death.


Asha Bromfield is an actress, singer, and writer of Afro-Jamaican descent. She is known for her role as Melody Jones, drummer of Josie and the Pussycats in CW’s Riverdale. She also stars as Zadie Wells in Netflix’s hit show, Locke and Key. Asha is a proud ambassador for the Dove Self-Esteem Project, and she currently lives in Toronto where she is pursuing a degree in Communications. In her spare time, she loves studying astrology, wearing crystals, burning sage, and baking vegan desserts. Hurricane Summer is her debut novel.

Author’s social handleso Twitter: @ashabromo Instagram: @ashabrom

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https://wednesdaybooks.com/the-real-deal/hurricane-summer/

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I would recommend this novel to anyone looking for a real look at Jamaica as a country and a culture (the descriptions of the scenery are amazing). I look forward to more from Asha Bromfield in the future; I want to thank NetGalley for the opportunity to read such a thought-provoking and emotional novel.

This book was absolutely gorgeous, and I’m so glad it’s made its way into the YA universe! In my past life in academia, I’ve actually read hundreds of works of Caribbean and Caribbean diaspora literature in English and French. This story roots itself beautifully in that tradition (for instance, its poetic reflections on the duality of the hurricane) and offers something new, expressing one perspective on Caribbean diaspora experience through the relatively recent genre of contemporary YA. The author offers a complex portrait of rural Jamaica that is nuanced enough to allow readers (and Tilla herself) to contextualize the abusive behavior she encounters there and to understand the people perpetrating it, but she does not shy away from depicting this violence and critiquing the silence surrounding it. Given that it’s YA and also relevant to the plot, the explanations of Jamaican dialect weren’t excessive IMO, and the glossary will likely be helpful to readers too.

Hurricane Summer is a powerful debut from Asha Bromfield and it shows her immense promise in the writing world. This book was beautifully written and the emotion in every bit of this novel was palpable. Tilla's voice was so strong and the setting in Jamaica was incredibly vivid. This book is gorgeous inside and out and I can't recommend it enough. I'm eager to see what else Asha Bromfield will do hereafter!

this book discusses so many intersections of race, gender, wealth, and mental health that I found to be quite poignant. It’s a coming of age story (a favorite trope of mine), and a family story about a father and daughter and their complicated relationship. It holds themes on colorism and classism, and it’s consumable while also exploring important topics. Highly recommend this one, I really enjoyed it.

I’ve been sitting on this review because this book is so good, and I just needed to process and get my thoughts together

When I tell you this book had my younger self sitting at attention...LISTEN this book is so painfully beautiful. I was both broken and rebuilt along with the main character Tilla as I hurt for her and for the little girl in me who connected to her pain. If you can’t tell already, Tilla really goes through it in this story

Be prepared for themes of colorism, classism, sexual violence and daddy issues

For the main character Tilla, what was supposed to be a fun trip to Jamaica to spend time with her estranged father ended up being a dark and painful summer. Tilla and her mother were both concerned about hurricane season in Jamaica, but little did Tilla know she would go through a personal storm

The story so beautifully intertwines the hurricane and Tilla’s personal storm. Ultimately, she realizes that the destruction of a hurricane and destruction in her life don’t have to be just a negative thing. She learns destruction produces strength and opportunity for renewal

This is a heartfelt and powerful debut! It gave me all the feels from being teary eyed to cheering when Tilla found her voice. You know a book is good when you’re thinking about fighting fictional characters. Y’all I was ready to square up for Tilla!

I’m ridiculously excited to read more from Asha Bromfield. PICK THIS BOOK UP!!!

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced e-ARC

Hurricane Summer has had me twisting and turning about reviewing and how I felt about it. Before I start I just want to say I'm not an own-voices reviewer and a lot of Jamaican reviewers I have seen that has read this book have not liked it....Like at all. Apparently, the word bank has some definitions wrong (I don't know barely any Jamaican patois but its what my Jamaican book friends have said...) I'm going to start with my disappointments from Hurricane Summer and then move on to my appreciations of Hurricane Summer. There's a lot of triggers in Hurricane Summer so beware.

Both of Tilla's parents are supposed to be Jamaican but she can't understand any Jamaican slang, that's cap. I DON'T CARE WHAT ANYONE ELSE SAYS, it doesn't make any sense; none at all. Even talking about it right now has me frustrated. The fact that Tilla makes it seem like she had never been exposed to anything Jamaican made no sense. She would have some Jamaican influence in her life; whether it was her parents speaking, the way they cook, or the community they probably would have had in Canada. The ignorance of Tilla about everything makes no logical sense. Tilla herself was dumb, a dunce. She's 18 and attractive but she's never had male attention before, it doesn't make sense except to the plotline. Every decision she made when it came to interacting with young men around her made no sense... I felt somewhat fetishized with some of the wording throughout the book when came to certain things; it made me feel weird. The relationship with one of the young men was interesting, but at the end, she says she "sacrificed everything for him" when that was not the case. She was just dumb and let things happen to her. There was no healing from the sexual assault and it was brushed under the rug. The family dynamic was interesting. I would have liked it if it was done differently but basically, all the adults on her father's side were evil. In fact, basically everyone on her father's side of the family was evil or twisted in some way except a few of the kids but especially Andre. I'm not sure how Bromfield could balance the 'beauty of Jamaica with the evilness of the family, (I'm saying this sarcastically).'

I would say the conclusion I really did enjoy. The complex father-daughter relationship was the best part of the book for me. The part where Tilla realizes that she cannot be responsible for how her father treats them and she lets that go was so beautiful. The growth from that was good for me. I think it's important to realize that you cannot control how other people treat or feel about you. You can forgive them but you can't change their behaviour. Bromfield's writing by itself was great, the cadence and flow of the story kept it very readable.

This isn't the empowering story it's supposed to be, but the part of acceptance and realization is something I'll take. You could honestly take the Jamaican setting away and some of the patois and this book could be set anywhere.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found elements and peace anyone can indentify with. A coming of age story mixed in with the beautiful landscape if Jamaica. A girl who struggles with identity and defining who she is rather than being defined while juggling her roots and love of family. A must read.

The writing in this book is really phenomenal. Just look at that cover! that's how gorgeous it is. I was instantly drawn in, and I could have sworn I was actually in Jamaica from the description alone. It was that real. However, I can tell that this book is going to have a lot of pain, and after reading some other reviews, I know that my mental state can't take this book right now. It would send me spiraling and I can't, even though it's utterly gorgeous. So it's going on the 'maybe later when emotionally ready to be destroyed' shelf.

I would recommend it to everyone with the caveat that the writing is so real and immersive that what I gather is a lot of sexual harrassment (possibly even sexual assault?) would be absolutely devastating to anyone who has experienced it and is feeling emotionally fragile.

*Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for providing an e-arc for review.

"𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘢 𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘴, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘵𝘩 𝘰𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘣𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴. 𝘐𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦."

𝗛𝗨𝗥𝗥𝗜𝗖𝗔𝗡𝗘 𝗦𝗨𝗠𝗠𝗘𝗥 is an OwnVoices YA debut novel that's as intense as the storm of the title.

Tilla has spent all of her 18 years trying to make her father love her but he and his heart are always far away on his home island of Jamaica. When Tilla and her her younger sister are forced to spend the summer there, she hopes to reconnect with her dad and come to understand the draw of the place that he chose over his family. But as a devastating hurricane bares down on the country, Tilla wrestles not only with their relationship but also with the secrets she's learned and who she wants to be.

There is a lot I liked about this book - the metaphor of the hurricane for the chaos in Tilla's life, the Patois dialect the Jamaican characters use (it takes a bit to get used to but the there's a handy glossary in the front of the book) and the lush descriptions of the island and the people who live there. It also tackles some heavy subjects like poverty, sexism, colorism and sexual assault which I didn't expect. What I struggled with was Tilla herself. I found her very self-centered and didn't understand her choices. I think I would have been more invested in Tilla if the author allowed us to know her more. There's also a plot point toward the end of the book that was too much for me - after so much darkness, I was ready for some light.

I do recommend people take this journey with Tilla. The book delivers some powerful messages and it helps you appreciate that sometimes "there is beauty in destruction."

3.5 stars rounded up

Thanks to St. Martin' s Press, Wednesday Books and NetGalley for the copy to review.

Tilla, the 18 year old protagonist, and her younger sister are sent to spend the summer in their parent's homeland of Jamaica. Their recently estranged father has been residing there for a little over a year; and, the girls are looking forward to spending some time with him. Upon their arrival, he bombards them with loads of affection before dumping them off at their cousin's house in the country. The girls are mostly regarded as foreigners by "friends" and family in the country who are often jealous and hyper-critical of them; especially when it comes to Tilla. While in Jamaica, Tilla, unsuccessfully, spends a majority of the summer looking for the love and acceptance she hoped to find in her father.

This book is EVERYTHING! It had lots of action, drama, trauma, and even hope. Chapter 30 alone was a whole therapy session that a lot of women and girls, including myself, could benefit from.. Although the story does not offer assistance and/or resources for girls who have experienced sexual trauma, this book was and will continue to be desperately needed in any and all libraries serving a female youth demographic.

This books was hard to read at times. I really connected with it and felt that it was my experience in Trinidad being put on the page. My mom didn’t let me continue my vacations with my father after the first time I went alone. But I recently rekindled my relationship with my aunties and cousins and my father and I can only imagine how hard it would have been, for me, as a very sensitive, racially conflicted child to continue in a country where I don’t know the culture. The issue of colorism in this book is very real! The gossiping and putting you down. The island men and their women. Not keeping your dad’s secret, whether conscious or unconsciously, is a very traumatic thing for a child to bear. I honestly feel that as hard as this was to read, it has helped me on my journey of self love and acceptance.

This YA debut novel will have your emotions all over the place! Just amazing - from the characters to the feel of the island life! Such a powerful debut novel!

Tilla’s mother sends her and her sister Mia to Jamaica for the summer so she can spend time with her father. What she thinks will be summer to bond and get to know her father, leaves her discovering family secrets, getting involve in family dramas and learning the hard truth about life and love. Tilla’s heart was cracked, violated, broken and shattered to pieces that only she can mend back, fight for the love she deserves and surrender to the summer of her own hurricane.

This one will make happy, the joy of celebrating one’s youth, it will make you fall in love and reminisce you own summer; it will make you sad, to discovery that the people you expect to protect you, will end up betraying you; it will make you mad for all the choices Tilla made but will make you think you were young once and probably did something similar. The story deals with internal racism, colorism, classism, young love, father-daughter relationship, abuse, violence and self love and discovery amidst the hurricane that comes in your life.

Thank you NetGalley for the e-ARC. This one is out and would recommend you read it!

Asha Bromfield’s debut novel Hurricane Summer is set to become a must-read for young adults for its complexity on issues of identity and the enduring strength of one’s own resilience. Bromfield explores a father-daughter relationship that is compelling and flushed out. Bromfield zero’s in on the psychology of these characters and adds to the story a complex look at classism, colorism, within a group of people not often given their due. Our protagonist is a young Canadian Black Woman named Tilla who is set to re-establish her relationship with her father and his immediate family across the world in Jamaica. The novel flows like a river often calm, yet swift and sudden. I am looking at you (47%) on my kindle, ha! I understand this novel is not for everyone and is often difficult to read. I myself experienced “discomfort” when reading this novel but understand it is that discomfort that adds merit to the topics explored and their relevancy in the world around us. That I believe is the power of literature. I give this novel a strong five out of five stars. This novel has trigger warnings for death, sexual assault (on-page), rape ( on-page, explicit), colorism, physical abuse (explicit), slut-shaming, sexism, classism, abuse (physical, verbal, and emotional), guilt, character death, and blood(mention) *Inclusion of religious belief and ideas of God.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for a review copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Oh my heart, this one broke me over and over again. We follow Tilla as she and her sister visit their father in Jamaica for the summer. While Tilla is there she has many bad experiences. She is slut shamed, verbally abused, sexually assaulted, her father can't be bothered to spend time with her and her sister and unfortunately there is more. My heart absolutely broke for her.

I was totally captivated by this story. It destroyed me totally and completely before it finally mending my broken heart. The writing is beautiful. The way certain parts are written... they just rip your insides apart. I wanted so badly to walk inside the book and just protect Tilla from everything she was being put through. The author did an amazing job painting the different scenes and characters throughout the story. It was so easy to visualize everything. I was absolutely blown away and I can't wait to read more by this author.

A beautiful and well-written story. I enjoyed being taken into Jamaican culture and look forward to re-reading this one on audio.

Asha Bromfield's debut novel is a heavy coming of age story that tears at the emotional heartstrings. A Jamaican girl living in Toronto with her mother, just-turned-eighteen year old Tilla and her nine year old sister Mia are off to spend the summer with their father in Jamaica. Tilla hasn't seen her father in years; he always has an excuse why he can't come home to Toronto.

Upon her arrival in Jamaica, Tilla learns she'll be spending time "in country" with her father's family, who live in poverty. They all look up to Tilla's father, Massa Tyson, as they call him, because he takes care of them. Tilla immediately resents them since in order to take care of them, her father has neglected to take care of her and Mia.

Tilla is also resented by her aunt and cousin and they often refer to her as a spoiled princess. Their father leaves the girls in country and returns to Kingston. Tilla then must navigate her way in an unfamiliar country, where her friendliness earns her a bad reputation and she has to deal with classism, sexism, and even racism within her family - her favorite cousin, Andre, has very dark skin and is badly mistreated by the lighter-skin family members.

This is a coming of age novel for sure, and Tilla's character arc is beautifully written. She is a vastly different person at the end of her time in Jamaica than she was when she arrived. Hurricane Summer is an amazing own voices debut that should absolutely be on everyone's TBR pile.

There is a LOT going on in this book, and some of it is really good and some of it is really bad, but I definitely looked up the age of the author after this and I'm genuinely convinced that in a decade or two, she's going to come back to this book and wince because there's so much she gets right but so, so much that she doesn't understand how to write quite yet. And I'm not saying that 26 year-olds shouldn't write books: Asha Bromfield clearly has a lot of talent and a lot to say. But after reading this, I genuinely don't think that she's finished processing her traumas yet in a way where she's actually forgiven the people who hurt her given the way she forces our heroine Tilla to forgive, and so the denouements feel more forced and shallow than they might in, say, fifteen years, when she's finally come good with what happened to her.

(I am not a doctor, I only play one on TV*.)

Hurricane Summer is the story of the summer of 2008 in Jamaica, immediately before, during and after one of the most devastating hurricanes to hit the island. Tilla is 18 years old, and sent away from Canada with her nine year-old sister to spend the summer with her father in her parents' homeland of Jamaica. Tilla's parents have a strained marriage, with Tyson floating in and out of his family's lives, traveling back and forth between countries. As the story begins, Tilla and Mia haven't seen their dad in over a year, but he's keen to have them visit and learn about their culture, pooh-poohing their mother's concerns about the dangers of hurricane season.

It's culture shock almost immediately as the girls land, as their dad keeps them waiting for almost an hour before picking them up. After love bombing them, he spirits them off to the countryside instead of to his Kingston home, dumping them to stay with their country cousins before hightailing back to the city himself. While their grandparents and boy cousins are happy to have them there, the rest of the family takes a much dimmer view, from their bitter Aunt Herma to menacing Uncle Junior. Cousin Diana, who's about the same age as Tilla, initially seems to take the "foreigner" under her wing but soon makes it clear that they're going to be frenemies at best, even before Tilla meets Hessan, the cute guy Diana regards as her own.

When Tilla isn't foolishly falling in lust with Hessan, she's exploring the island with her cousin Andre, who introduces her to the best of Jamaica, including one memorable scene in the middle of the hurricane. But it's also Andre who opens her eyes, however unwittingly, to the colorism and sexism of Jamaican society. As her summer lurches from one disaster to the next, Tilla needs to overcome heartbreak and claim her own identity independent of the men she loves who fail her over and over again.

First of all, I want to scoop Andre out of these pages and put him somewhere safe where he'll never be hurt again. I want to nurture and protect that sweet shining soul, and I'm only going to imagine the best and most wonderful things for him. He's one of the loveliest fictional creations I've encountered this decade.

I wish I could say the same for anyone else in this book, including poor Tilla. It's just hard to believe that at the age of 18 she's never had a best friend, and that she's still so pressed about a dad who's been a fucking deadbeat for years. So much of what happens reads like she's a 13 year-old aged up to make some of the situations more "appropriate" for a YA novel (and more on this in a bit.) It's also really hard to imagine that anyone this passive would suddenly grow a spine and tell as many people off as she does in the end. I just... there's been a trend in contemporary literature lately of girls who just do whatever guys say despite their own wishes and despite not owing the guy, usually a virtual stranger, a goddamn thing. Ladies! You are allowed to say no! You are allowed to not put yourself into dangerous positions! You are allowed to not be polite when all your radars are going off!

Because lots of bad shit happens to Tilla when she doesn't listen to her internal danger sense, stuff that makes me really hate that this book is shelved as YA. Sexual pleasure and assault are both treated in a way that feels more graphic than it needs to be for this genre. This is a grown up book about grown up problems, and it is weird as hell to see it cynically marketed for readers who may not be ready for all that.

It's also weird to see Tilla just not understand Patois, which anyone who speaks English should be able to pick up easily from context clues. I get not being able to speak it, but needing to ask the meaning of "wha gwan" (what's going on), "mongrel" (dog) and ffs <i>"shop"</i> (shop!) is just bizarre and makes her seem extremely childlike. Which leads to my (other) main criticism of the book: that Jamaican culture and society is overwhelmingly portrayed as abjectly terrible. Except for Andre and several minor characters, everyone is outright awful. Tilla proclaims that she loves Jamaica and feels it running through her spirit, but you get the feeling that she kinda hates all the people? But radically forgives them, as she says in one of the opening dedications, or something?

In the same way that I rail against the North American concept of niceness, I also rail against the idea that you have to forgive people, <i>especially if they make no attempts at amends.</i> While we owe it to society to be the best people we can possibly be, we do not owe it to individual people to not hold them responsible for their bad actions. If someone hurts you, you are under no obligation to let them think they can keep doing it. Abusers and their enablers will tell you over and over again that YOU need to be the better person, when it's on THEM to change. Being good does not mean allowing other people to get away with harmful behaviors!

Yet for all that I rail against the cultures that put Tilla through this absolute hell of a summer -- and look, I know it's empowering to think that <spoiler>YOU'RE the hurricane and you get to go home while these people pick up the pieces,</spoiler> but <spoiler>YOU'RE not the rapist or the people who encourage and excuse him while slut-shaming you, and you don't need to minimize your own pain just to make life easier for other people</spoiler>! You deserve to take up space! You matter! -- I cannot deny the power of this story. It is brutally honest and wonderfully observed, and the fact that I'm so overwrought with advice and love for Tilla and women and girls like her speaks to how vividly this book is written. It has its flaws, for sure, but I wish only the best in healing for Ms Bromfield, and hope she takes comfort in knowing that she's built an incredible monument here to Andre and his friendship and love. She and I may not agree on radical forgiveness (which, btw, is not uniformly applied in this book, as if even she doesn't really believe in it) but I 100% believe in the power of the radical empathy she puts on display here.

*This is an old joke, a protomeme, if you will, from 1984 (the year, not the book. Sigh. Whippersnappers.)

Hurricane Summer by Asha Bromfield was published yesterday May 4 2021 by Wednesday Books, and is available from all good booksellers, including <a href="https://bookshop.org/a/15382/9781250622235">Bookshop!</a>

Wow. This was raw, heartbreaking and incredibly emotional. I am usually a fast reader; can usually read a book in a few hours, but this took me weeks. Here's why: it was so hard to read for two reasons. First, the subjects addressed in this made me so emotional, I had to only read a couple chapters at a time. Second, the Patois language was hard to get a handle on. There was nothing gentle about this book. It was poignant and tears you apart. You really need to be in the right state of mind for this book. I applaud the author for her willing to get honest and get in the trenches and show us that process.

Like most books I read, I went into this one not knowing/re-reading the summary, and found myself...a little disappointed but also intrigued.
- I liked that this YA novel covered so much ground. HURRICANE SUMMER revolves around a young woman returning to her parents’ hometown in Jamaica and being culture-shocked. She is appalled to discover the dichotomies and stigmas associated with being foreign vs. belonging, education vs. uneducated, and being from town vs. from country. All those combined with the shock of colorism, sexism, and classism threw main character Tilla into a frenzy and further into an identity crisis. Oh, and she also realizes her biological father is a dick. Which tugged at my heart strings bc he reminds me of my own father.
- While the book covered so many topics, the one theme I felt like was shortchanged was about Tilla’s sexuality. The word sexuality only appears once at the end when Tilla accuses her aunt of “challenging” her sexuality. I think this may be misleading bc that implies Tilla had agency over all her sexual experiences which the reader knows is not the case (CW: sexual assault)
- On that vein, I did not like the romance between Tilla and Hessan. There’s too much “I can’t help myself when I’m around you” and other sappy and overly cheesy feelings. (Okay, I realize this is YA but am I just a grumpy 30-something??)
- I love the character development that happens with Tilla at the end. I love how she comes to a reconciliation WITH HERSELF about her she feels about her father. I think this is a rly important takeaway for youth and adults alike — that sometimes closure in dysfunctional relationships does not require the other person's repentance but rather a better understanding of why that person has so much baggage and your own relationship to that baggage.

Tilla and her younger sister Mia are spending the summer with their dad who lives in Jamaica. Mia is excited to see their father while Tilla still remembers all her fathers broken promises. 

After arriving in Jamaica, Tilla and Mia stay with their aunts, uncles, and cousins in the country. Mia only being nine easily acclimates and gets along with her cousins while Tilla can’t quite find her place in this family she hardly knows and who don’t seem to want her.

Tilla's story is sad, she’s in a country she’s supposed to a part of just trying to fit in while her aunts and cousins are telling her father lies left and right. Tilla is only eighteen, still trying to find herself, all while being shamed for being from ‘foreign’ and being different.

This book was intense to say the least and it’s definitely not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. I highly recommend having tissues on hand because this book will bring out emotions you had no idea you had. There were several moments in this book that I just wanted to crawl through the pages and punch some people. 

I had to set this book down a few times just to stop and take a breath, to wipe my eyes, because my heart ached for Tilla and all I wanted to do was reach through the pages and wrap my arms around her.

Hurricane Summer is about a girl who is just looking for the love of her father. It’s about the shame young women get for showing their sexuality. It’s about the differences in lifestyles of other countries. It’s ultimately about the dangers of growing up and becoming a young woman.

I’m glad I was asked to be a part of this blog tour. Thank you, Wednesday Books and NetGalley for providing me with an arc for this book.