I really loved this book.

The characters were great. They were all so unique and interesting to learn about. The dynamics between them were also done really well—from the dialogue to their actions. It was also so rich in culture. Not only do you get a really beautiful description of Jamaica, but the author uses Patois throughout the story, so you really feel like you're in the country with Tilla!

The ending especially broke my heart, but I appreciated the character development that Tilla experiences. She really grows into herself as a person and becomes comfortable with her life. In the beginning, she did some frustrating things, but I don't fault her for it. I've definitely behaved the way she did when I was younger, so even though I was reading it from a "wiser" perspective, I could still see her justifications for her actions.

Side note: Mia, Tilla's sister is so precious and must be protected at all costs. I want a whole book just about her. Reminded me a little of Kitty from To All the Boys I've Loved Before!

Hurricane Summer is equally beautiful and painful. Beautiful because the language was very poetic at times as Asha relates Tilla’s feelings and experiences to a hurricane. Painful because Tilla goes through a lot of growth over the course of the book, but to get there she has to go through many life-altering situations. It got to a point where I was like ‘wow I think we all made it out of this’, and then Asha sprinkled in some more hurt, and I cried.

I think this story touches so well on how society can strip girls of their girlhood and push them to womanhood before they’re ready. Once they take your innocence, they expect more from you and look at you differently even though you’re still a girl, just not in their minds anymore. It’s even more violent and dangerous for Black girls who tend to automatically be viewed as older than they are.

This is a book where most of the characters will frustrate and disappoint you. I’m pretty sure I vocally said ouch a few times because of the way they treated Tilla. Andre was one of the best people though, and even though he faced a lot of colorism and mistreatment due to his dark skin, he still had this light about him.

I could probably write an essay about this book because there’s so many elements of it that I haven’t even touched on yet. The way Diana, Aunt Herma, and Jahvan treated Tilla needs a whole page dedicated to it. And Tilla’s desire to have a relationship with her father impacted so much of her behavior and interactions with other. It really drives the entire novel.

You shouldn’t read this book and expect it to give you an entire picture of Jamaica though. Hurricane Summer is about one family on one part of the island. It’s not meant to be a reflection of every person in the country. But it does highlight the resilience and determination of Jamaicans.

Overall, I would recommend Hurricane Summer if you want to read about a girl and an island that were weathered and beat but survived.

*Thank you to Wednesday Books for including me on the tour and for the ARC. All opinions are my own*

Thanks to the publisher Wednesday Books and St. Martins Press for reaching out to me for a blog tour for this book. It was not on my radar at all and not a book I’d typically read.
I do enjoy YA but it’s not something I pick up on my own.
Hurricane Summer not only has a beautiful cover it’ also has beautiful writing.
It’s real and sad and relatable. I immediately connected to Tilla’s story. My heart broke for her when she was suffering abuse at the hands of her family.
Definitely add this book to your tbr for May!
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for my advanced ebook copy.

"Mom says you get two birthdays." Asha Bromfield's gorgeous, moving debut had me hooked from that first compelling line, and it only becomes more engrossing from there.

I’m so excited to join Asha Bromfield’s blog tour for her incredible debut, Hurricane Summer.

Eighteen-year-old Tilla has spent most of her childhood missing her father as he goes between their home in Canada and returning to his family's homeland in Jamaica, every six months. When she hasn't seen him in more than a year, she and her younger sister Mia fly to Jamaica to spend the summer with him. Tilla has spent her life trying to make her father love her enough – enough to stay, enough to choose her and their family – and she dreads the trip. She desperately wants to understand what it is about Jamaica that makes her father choose to live so far away from his family.

In Jamaica, Tilla starts to unearth dark family secrets that unravel her life as she knows it. As hurricane season looms closer to the island, Tilla most learn to face storm and love and stand up for herself before she loses it at all in the Jamaican countryside.

This was a five-star read for me.

Asha Bromfield’s worldbuilding blew me away. I can’t remember the last time I read a YA contemporary where the setting is such an important aspect of the book. The scenery of Jamaica, the lush setting and vivid descriptions make the readers feel as if we are right there beside Tilla as she experiences so much upheaval and change.

Emotionally, this book hooked me right from the very first line. Lush descriptions coupled with vivid characters create a deeply moving, powerful story. I find it impossible not to relate to Tilla and her struggles with crushes and attention from boys and men, understanding how to form friendships with girls who view her as competition, and figuring out the changing family politics and dynamics.

This book pulls no punches in dealing with difficult, important topics – from racism and colorism to classism and sexism. The journey from girl to woman is complex and difficult, and Asha Bromfield navigates it in this book with deftness and deep emotional impact.

I loved this book.

TW: rape, physical and emotional abuse, slut-shaming, sexual abuse.

A big thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

I received a free electronic ARC of this modern, YA debut novel from Netgalley, Asha Bromfield, and St. Martin's Press. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this novel of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. We see Jamacia from an entirely different point of view than that normally seen by non-islanders, as this pair of young Toronto sisters fly down to spend the summer months with their estranged father.

I found the nuances experienced in the voice of our older sister, Tilla, very telling, as are the actions of the older folk when the girls are sent to the 'country'. But most interesting are the reactions of the girls and their companions in the country who experience the hurricane first hand. The youth of our countries is our future, whether or not we currently manning the oars would steer the boat in that direction. Mostly this is a good thing, in real life as well as in our excellently told tale.

🦋🦋🦋🦋 (four stars as rated in a butterfly pendant on a little gold chain)

Tilla's relationship with her father is complicated. He spends every summer on his home island of Jamaica, leaving her, her mother and her sister, Mia, behind in Canada for long stretches of time. When she and Mia are sent to spend the summer with their dad, Tilla hopes the months together will help them all to repair the damage done by his absence. But when nasty rumors begin circulating about her on the island, and with a hurricane barreling toward them all, Tilla wonders if it isn't already too late to salvage her relationship with her dad or even to enjoy what's left of her summer in Jamaica.

“I can’t help it. I succumb to the spell of Jamaica as the fantasy of who my father is radiates in front of me. My heart instantly wraps around him, and I forget every time he has broken it.”

Hurricane Summer was such an experience. I am overwhelmed by how much nuance and imagery this single story holds. This book is proof that we can sometimes learn just as much from fiction as nonfiction. The mentions of colorism and colonialism in particular were so poignantly and elegantly done that I could have spent a whole novel on the ins and outs of that alone. That plot though... I could feel it developing from page one - like a storm building on the horizon.

I am a sucker for the trope of "protagonist is wronged but the wrongdoers get their comeuppance in the end." It is just so darn satisfying when someone stops letting people push them around and establishes their worth. I loved witnessing TIlla and Mia's growth and the development of their character arcs as a whole. The respective scenes in which they both finally said their piece really were everything I wanted them to be. Also, I love when an author writes realistically about young adult emotions. For all her faults, for all her bad decision making, Tilla is just a teenager trying to sort through the trauma of her father's abandonment in a country where no one (besides Andre) has her back. I was proud of the way she grew in the end and that she didn't hold "the island" itself accountable for what she'd gone through. She was wise enough to understand the how and why of everything that happened over the summer and I think that's a level of maturity she wouldn't have demonstrated at the start of the book.

"When they ask how I weathered the storm, I will tell them I did not. I was uprooted like the palm trees and shot down like the birds from the stormy skies. I was ravished like the zinc houses and devoured like the soil as it swallowed itself whole. I was ruined. I was disaster. I was dancing in the eye of God’s will. “Thank you,” I whisper as we ascend into the sky. How beautiful it was to be destroyed.”

✨ Rep in this book: Jamaican and Jamaican-Canadian cast of characters, own voices

✨ Content warnings for this book: drowning, death of a parent, death racism, racial slurs, domestic abuse, violence, vomiting, sexual assault, abortion, infidelity, sexual content

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⚠️ - rape , physical , emotional & verbal abuse , death of a child , mention of cancer

Going into this book I was nervous because this follows a daughter who is trying to get her dad to care about her and that hits a chord for me because I am always trying to get my mothers love.

This story follows Tilla and her and her younger sister move to Jamaica for the summer to have a better relationship with her Dad and meet that side of her family. Once she get there Tilla has a lot of acclimating to do. Her family does not accept her and constantly makes digs at her. If she wakes up late (because she has jet lag) she gets yelled at. If she doesn’t make her bed as soon as she wakes up she gets yelled at. Seems to me they just didn’t like her because she came from Canada.

I wanted to fight all of Tilla’s family especially her Aunt Herma and Uncle Junior because they always had something to say about her or making up lies about her. There was a point where one of her cousins spread so many lies that even her Dad believed everything.

Tilla tried to find love as well during the summer which I was supportive at first about until things went south.

I do love that we was able to learn about the Jamaican culture and learn Patois. I loved seeing Tilla go from this timid girl who wanted to be accepted so bad to this young lady who learned how to use her voice and stand up for herself.

You see in this story how Black families in particular will put their insecurities or whatever on their children. There is a quote that Tilla says that explains it all.

<i> “it’s as though adults make it their personal mission to scar their children. To bear them with their own insecurities and shortcomings as if we are responsible for their raging hearts. We are forced to drink their turmoil until, slowly, their blood spills from our lips and onto our hands and we are stained. Scarred. Ruined. We are poisoned from the inside out” </i

I feel like all the adults in this story had some trauma they had to heal from but instead of dealing with it internally or talking about it they took it out on the kids. There is a couple instances where Andre (Tilla’s cousin) gets picked on and abused because he is darker than the other cousins. And then when <spoiler> he died </spoiler> then everybody want to throw a party and be all fake.

Following Tilla during her summer gave me so many emotions and I also love how you can feel Jamaica. You can feel the hot weather or when the hurricane came it felt like I was in the house with them listening to everything or with the kids when they was playing at the beach. I really enjoyed this story and I hope you pick up a copy when this book comes out on May 4th.

This book hurts. Like a lot. But it was so beautiful. The writing was poetic and lyrical. You can feel the authors love for Jamaica and it’s people, however problematic some of those people might be. What Tilla goes through is one traumatic thing after another. Some readers will say it’s too much but the message I got from this book is that we are not defined by our worst experiences. We pick ourselves back up after tremendous hurt and loss and hopefully grow from it. Another thing I got from this book is that we have to learn to love ourselves. Experiencing the love others have for us is amazing but we can never truly be our best selves until we love ourselves wholeheartedly. We do not need the love of others to make an impact on this Earth. Before reading, there are a ton of trigger warnings including assault, colorism, classicism, and death.

Lyrical, gorgeous writing.
Violence- especially against women. Racism. Regrets. Bitterness. Jealousy.
I love the dedication- to the author's younger self. Really spoke to me.
Tilla and her sister, Mia, are sent to Jamaica to stay with their estranged father for two months of summer vacation.
Mia - nine years old, has an amazing, joyous time with her aunts, uncles, cousins, friends.
Tilla is held accountable for those around her and their issues. As a young woman, Tilla's family judges her harshly for her interaction with the young men - especially the promised man to her cousin.
Do they hold the men accountable? Do they believe Tilla as she defends herself? No - the talk tears her apart, defenseless and isolated.
Amazing account of young women's experiences, especially in more traditional cultures.

This is a spoiler-free review. No details will be shared from the storyline itself that aren’t available or inferred from the book jacket and online descriptions.

[First Glance]
This book landed on my radar after I saw a couple of ads for it online. One of the ads allowed interested bloggers and readers to sign up for the official blog tour. I applied to participate, because I thought it’d be great to read the book before it came through our local library on my TBR. I received a free e-book ARC via NetGalley for Hurricane Summer after signing up.

[Positive Bits]
I need to break from my normal pattern here to share the first line that hooked me and drew me in. It comes from the dedication page, and it set the stage of what would be a heartfelt and raw story of family and self-discovery.

For Little Asha,
And all the girls with holes
in their hearts,
the size of their fathers.
You are worthy.
You are resilient.
You are love.
I poured my heart onto
these pages,
With the prayer that it
would give you the courage
To set yourself free.

That said, the second bit that excited me was the word bank included before the first chapter. I don’t think enough people appreciate the ideal placement of a language glossary at the front of a book, particularly in e-book format. As Patois (the dialect of English spoken in Jamaica) plays a constant role in the story, being able to review and get familiar with some of the common phrases before diving into the meat of the story helped immerse me in it. Instead of struggling through unfamiliar words and phrases, I had a rough understanding of the dialect going into the story. My understanding also matched that of Tilla, our main character, so we were left on equal footing with the narrator.

Tilla’s deep love and need for her father gripped me from early in the story and kept me captive in her desperation to be loved back. As the book’s description says, he’s a man who’s traveled to and from his family in Canada to be back home in Jamaica for half of every year. In coming to visit his homeland, she hopes to find out why he never stayed with them for long – she wants to understand that the siren call of Jamaica sounds like, to be so much more powerful than the love of a family. And I think, by the end of the book, Tilla gains that knowledge as well as a clearer image of who her father is as a person. Forgiveness plays a role in various layers throughout Tilla’s summer, and how she chooses to give or abstain from giving forgiveness plays a crucial role in who she grows into by the end of it all. I may not have made the same choices as she did, but each one she made fit who she was at that moment.

Aside from her father, there are a dozen or so characters who play a role in Tilla’s coming of age over the course of this summer in Jamaica. However, my favorite would be her cousin Andre. They were close friends as children, over a decade ago when Tilla’s family all came down to the island to visit. Experiencing their rekindled friendship felt the same as my own relationships after moving around with the military my whole life; there are just some people who you connect with instantly and consistently. Andre is Tilla’s best friend in the way only a cousin can be, and without his involvement I don’t believe her summer would’ve been so alive. He provides the perfect foil to Tilla’s more privileged life in Canada, compared to his life in the countryside of Jamaica – but without judging her for it. Andre plays the part of both her safe haven and the devil on her shoulder that dares her to do something reckless, and I only wish there were more of him to go around.

[Less Enjoyable Bits]
This book should’ve had a trigger warning, but I can see how including it might’ve ruined the plot. Still, sexual violence of any kind is a heavy topic that deserves a head’s up. That said, I will note that the violence isn’t explicitly graphic or used as the only method through which a character can grow as a person. It fit the story, so just be aware as you read that Jamaica isn’t all paradise.

It’s hard to really consider the pieces of the story I didn’t enjoy, because most of those moments are key to the story. Hurricane Summer is about the father-daughter dynamic in the context of an absentee father who’s coming and going to Jamaica constantly throughout Tilla’s life. As someone with their own complicated father-daughter relationship, I think I just get frustrated by someone being either too kind or too harsh to either party in the dynamic – all based on my biased opinion of who is in the wrong, of course. Add in the difficulty of tackling topics like classism and colorism while pointing the blame at the primary culprit (society), and much of what I didn’t like about the story was meant to be unlikeable. Instead, it’s a mirror into how flawed families, communities, and even paradise itself can be.

The same could be said for the family dynamics at large, from cousins to aunts and uncles to the community itself. I both understood and disliked them for being inherently human and flawed. That’s the point, though. By the end of any good story, we find ourselves more aware of the humanity in both the heroes and the villains. The author did this amazingly well, leaving us as wrung out and changed as an island battered by a hurricane.

Is it worth the coin? Yes – Asha Bromfield did an amazing job capturing the pain and paradise of growing into a woman, as well as learning about where you come from and who you want to be. Her heart is on these pages, and you’ll cry at least once before you reach the end.

Thank you to the publisher for reaching out in order to become involved in the blog tour for Hurricane Summer. This book was not on my radar at all, and I'm glad I got the opportunity to pick it up. As a debut and own voices book, I was immediately impressed with how quickly this book drew me in and allowed me to connect to Tilla's story. The constant back and forth in her mind about her father at the airport was crushing - will he show up, does he care, does he love me, do I love HIM? And throughout her and Mia's stay in Jamaica, the explicit and implicit abuse she suffers at the hands of her family, of those she is supposed to lean on in this place she has never known, was absolutely heartbreaking. I appreciated the inclusion of Patois, and while I did find it hard at first, the glossary at the beginning made that adjustment for me a lot easier.

This book is rough to read. It's honest, it's real, and some might say it's too sad (and typically, I'd be inclined to agree). But that doesn't mean it's not important. And I think that many will be able to relate to Tilla's struggles and connect in many ways that I cannot. I don't want to take their solace in this book away from them. While it was not my typically read, I am glad I took the chance on it. *Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday books for the e-copy, all thoughts and opinions are my own.*

Hurricane Summer is a coming of age book, but it was unlike anything I had ever read before. From the stunningly beautiful cover to the heart wrenching story inside, this story is a tangled mess of raw beauty. It gives you love and beautiful scenery one minute and the next it gives you destruction, hurt and pain.

The first sentences set the tone for the book. It will come full circle. While Tilla does not understand it now, she will grow to....
'Mom says you get two birthdays.
The first one is the day you are born.
The second is the day you leave home and give birth to yourself.'

Tilla and her sister Mia are set to spend a summer with their father in Jamaica. They live full time in Canada with their mother and their father comes for visits, if that. The majority of his time is spent in Jamaica. He is drawn to his country and fits in there more than he does with this daughters and the foreign land of Canada. Tilla being 18 has felt her relationship with her father has disintegrated over the years, but she always forgives him and runs right back to his arms. She wants a father and approval of him. She wants to be loved and accepted as any child does. She has a father-sized hole in her chest that only one person can fill. Will her father be able to fill it?

This story completely surprised me. That cover drew me in with it's colorful grace. But the words and journey for Tilla in between? It broke me. While Mia was there in Jamaica with her, this was Tilla's story and how she changed in a few short weeks with her other half. With the part of her that she doesn't get to feel and see much. The Jamaican part. The part that is her father. She may have a broken relationship with her father, but she comes to understand how and why during this summer trip. She spends time with her father's family and all the country family she gets to see everyday. Her father leaves his children for 'work' in the city. That's where he is needed. But when he leaves, that leaves Tilla open to many attacks by people that see her as a threat and that see her as just a foreigner. I felt for Tilla and the outright abuse and the subtle abuse she had to take from loved ones. It hurt me to watch a young woman, just 18, fighting for herself in a foreign place. Who would be on her side? How would she come up and breathe the air she so rightly deserve?? And when the hurricane hits, what destruction will it leave in it's wake for the country people and Mia and Tilla?

Hurricane Summer is not only a book about coming of age, but it's a book of importance of family, race, colorism, class, abuse and a bit of sexual assault by an #ownvoices author. If these are triggers, you are warned. It also includes a lot of Patois language to make it that much more real. Thankfully, Ms Bromfield included a glossary at the beginning with all the meanings. It slowed down my reading a bit at the beginning, but then I grew accustomed to the language and didn't need to look up all the phrases. You can FEEL this story and the beauty of the setting. Their is a heartbeat to it. Even with ugly events that happen, there is beauty to be found in it all. That brings me to Andre. One of Tilla and Mia's cousins. He was wise beyond his years. He may not have been formally educated and was frowned upon because of the darkness of his skin, but he knew the power of his land. He showed Tilla there was beauty in destruction and she began to realize her part in that as well. Their time throughout this journey was the part that stood out most to me. That's where the book came to life.

"Yuh cyan know light without dark, Tilla. Just 'cause di storm is scary nuh mean say it meant fi harm you."

All in all this book was powerful, yet hard to read at times. BUT I enjoyed seeing Tilla grow and change and come into her own. To find and lose love and to grasp her heartbreak and sorrow and become stronger for it. It shows the resilience of a young woman and of a country and it's people. You could feel the life in this story. The blood flowing through the words and it's characters giving them strength and perseverance. It didn't read as a debut, but as someone's heart bleeding onto the page. You could feel the honesty and pain in each supporting character as well as the main character.
There were a few minor issues I had, but overall this mature YA/NA was a 4+ star read.

🚨Debut Author Asha Bromfield writes her first novel “Hurricane Summer” about two sister who leave their mom and Canada for a summer in Jamaica with their dad.

The novel revolves around Tilla and the evolution she goes through of growing up in a foreign country with family who doesn’t accept her. Tilla is so strong throughout all the trials she faces with tough relationships, young love and a hurricane filled summer. This was to be the summer with her dad and it turns out not to be, putting a strain on the relationship not repair it. Beautiful setting and beautiful story as Tilla evolves through all the hardships a bit stronger. 🌺.

YA read and was definitely deep at times but made feel all the emotions with Till and at Tilla as she grew so much in one summer. Novel out t May 4th.

#julesbookshelf #ashabromfield #hurricanesummer #ya #arc #netgalley #yabooks #booksofinstagram

Wow!!! I was not expecting the rollercoaster that was this book. I laughed. I cried. I was angry. I cried. This was beautiful and heartbreaking and everything in between.

This felt like a coming-of-age story but even after reflecting upon Hurricane Summer, I still don’t know what the lesson was. Everyone sucks and life is terrible?

This is supposedly an ode to the wonders of Jamaica, but except for some scenery and landscape all we hear about are poverty, shaming, racism, and abuse. Tilla and her younger sister are visiting their father down in Jamaica for the summer, and almost immediately their father drops them off in the country and bounces back into the city. It felt like foreboding for the rest of Tilla’s experiences: lower your expectations and it won’t be so sorrowful.

Hurricane Summer had no redemption arc for me. There was toxic abuse from her supposed family and right when I thought there could be some hope for happiness: BOOM. CRY.

I enjoyed the dialogue being almost entirely in Patois, but it did add to the difficulty of the read. While I do think the culture shock contributed to my reaction to Hurricane Summer, I can’t believe how terrible everything is yet I’m supposed to just accept that this behavior is normalized?

It was a little too “sad, everything is terrible, Oprah-book-club literary fiction” for me.

I'm unsure about this book. I like the idea of it - Tilla and Mia live in Canada but go to Jamaica for the Summer to stay with their dad. There they learn more about the culture they come from and about how people from their family live in the country and in the city. In the process, they learn more about themselves - especially Tilla. And they also have the opportunity to see how the local people prepare for hurricane season. In theory, it seems like a pretty interesting come of age book.
But on to the technicalities - I found it kind of hard to read since they added the Jamaican dialect to the dialogues. I felt like I had to keep coming back and forth to the glossary at the beginning to check some words (which would have been fine in a physical book, but it was so burdensome in a digital galley). I also didn't like the main character so much - I couldn't relate to her worries and problems.
In the end, it is a nice YA book that portrays the beauty and the differences of Jamaica, but I'm not really sure how much I actually liked it.

Hurricane Summer is a really great book. Not only could I relate to it (which is something that hardly happens), but it contains a story filled with growing up and hard truths about understanding yourself.

The story is about Tilla who lives in Toronto, Canada and is going to visit her father in Jamaica with her litter sister Mia. She already has a strained relationship with him and she is hoping that this summer would help to fix it. During her "vacation" she is able to gain a best friend and learn some things about herself that changes her. She does not leave the island the same person she was when she entered.

This story really resonated with me because, I was born in Alberta, Canada and my parents are from Grenada (an island from the caribbean). As I was reading this novel, I could vividly picture the beautiful island that I visited for the first time at 10 years old. I could also picture the culture shock that I felt, meeting my family members who lived "in the country." While my family members seemed to be the complete opposite of Tilla's family in Jamaica, I could still see my cousins and and Aunties/Uncles in the characters. Asha does a terrific job at describing the island and the people who live in the caribbean.

I think this book is an important representation needed in today's society. We hardly get to see YA or NA books that focus on coming of age stories featured in different countries, with different cultures. Although I feel like this book is geared more towards NA, I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys the caribbean and likes reading books that will make you think about your own coming of age story. However, this isn't for the faint of heart, as there are elements of sexual assault, verbal and physical abuse, colorism and death.

Thanks to Netgalley and publishers for allowing me to read this arc in exchange for an honest review!

3.5 ⭐️

First off I want to give a huge thank you to St. Martin’s Press & Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

Secondly, for those of you who don’t like long reviews but want to know what to expect: Hurricane Summer is emotionally turbulent and devastatingly raw.

Tilla and her sister Mia are sent off to Jamaica to spend the summer with their distant and absent father, but things do not go according to plan. He and his family are hateful towards Tilla, leaving her feeling unwelcome and unwanted, while her sister is doted and loved upon. While Tilla’s summer does not go as expected—there’s tons of secrets, abuse, racism, slut-shaming, and trauma; it is a summer of growth and healing despite that.

While I enjoyed most of the book, I had a hard time stomaching the abuse, which at times felt excessive and set my anxiety on edge, and then the whole glossing over of the sexual assault business... Just didn’t sit so well with me, hence my rating.

Overall Hurricane Summer is a well written but heavy coming of age story that is definitely worth the read.

This is a coming of age story that is quite blunt in spots. Tilla and her younger sister Mia have been sent to Jamaica to spend time with their father- things don't go the way their mother thought they would. Tilla, at 18, finds herself involved with a young man who, well, no spoilers. Her father's family (and her father) are hateful to her, It's not a happy time by any means, The dialogue is written in patois which readers struggling to flip back and forth from the handy glossary on an e-reader, will eventually find themselves falling for. This is listed as a YA novel; given the themes and some of the scenes, I'd make it more of. a NA crossover. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It's about two sisters who go on a trip to Jamaica to meet their father that has left them. Tilla, the eldest, must now face her family matters and experience a hurricane along the way. I really enjoyed this book and when I heard it featured a hurricane, I knew I had to read it as I have experienced some major hurricanes in my life. This book is very raw and one of the most emotional books I have ever read. The writing was pure and felt that the author has gone through the same journey as the main character. Readers can experience and feel the pain, hope, and adventures in this book. The setting was great as it takes place in Jamaica where you can learn all about the people's current situations, culture and imagine the beauty of the country. The writing of this book was just well done with characters that speak patois and there is a dictionary to help readers know what the characters are saying which is really cool.

I enjoyed the main character, Tilla, in this book. She had a huge character development throughout the book and a character that learns about how privileged she is. There are some greatly written side characters too though most of them were those negative family members who hated Tilla and her sister just because she came from Canada. They were very toxic to her and I just didn't like them. Though there was a character that I truly enjoyed because he was one of those supporting characters that had hope and dreams for their future. This book has a huge family theme to it which talks about how families can act to one another and how supportive they can be. There is also romance in this book between the main character and another person which is a little detailed.

The ending was well done for this book and I think it was perfect for the way it ended. I enjoyed a lot of the book but the part I didn't enjoy was the negativity in this book. I felt that there was more negativity and toxicity than positivity. I understand it was trying to capture those raw and hurtfulness to the characters but sometimes I just wanted to through the book across the room because everyone was just mean to Tilla for just coming from Canada. Overall this was a great book and I truly enjoyed it. I recommend reading this book and also it's written by an own voice author!