Simplistically told tale through the eyes of a thirteen year old. Good or bad characters with no gray lines. Not sure of the intended audience. Just okay.

Thank you to NetGalley for the chance to preview this book.

I binged this coming of age story set in the 1960s centered around 13 year old Corky navigating the racial divide in her small town in Texas. Corky meets super fast and talented 16 year old America who the Baptists recruit to play in their yearly softball game against the Methodists.

We in the US have much to learn from our past and I appreciate the uncomfortable picture this novel paints and the message of hope the author leaves us with at the end.

This book felt more YA or even close to middle grade to me, and I think going in with that expectation would improve the experience.

📖: Mockingbird Summer
✍️: Lynda Rutledge
⭐️: 5 of 5
💬: "It made her feel too much. Because as she kept reading, something onimous threatened to happen on the pages of the story, a potentially horrible something. And the dread of it felt personal as if happening in front of her... as if it could happen to her. The magical way that characters of a good novel seem alive in a reader's mind was that she'd always liked most about the few she got to read. She enjoyed waiting for the people on the page to come to life, excited for the chance to feel deeply what they felt"


My Thoughts:

My second Rutledge book. West With Giraffes is one of my all time favorite so I was excited to dive into this. It definitely did not disappoint. This did take me by suprise being a coming of age story and was really more of a YA novel, but it was still so good! I'll admit that I did feel it was a bit slow at parts, and the last 25% of the book was the best. I found myself emotional and crying my eyes out at Corky's letter. Just one of those books that you hug as soon as you read the last page. On that note, I'm pretty sure I'm now going to have to read To Kill A Mockingbird.

Thank you, NetGalley, and Lake Union Publishing for the opportunity to read and review this advanced copy.

4.5 Stars

We all have that summer, the one where we come to understand so much, the one that defines us. Summer, 1964 is THAT summer for naive, 13 year old Corky. Her brother is home from college and seems different. She meets 16 year old America from the other side of the tracks and wants to be friends, but is discouraged. Her parents are arguing and she doesn’t know why. A beautifully written book set in a small town in Texas, but it could be any town in the US.

The characters are well written; their innocence, hope, ugliness, the fear of change and the ability or Inability to accept it. I loved the depiction of summer in a small town with its endless days, walking to the library, soda fountains and ice cream cones, watching or listening to ball games, Sunday dinners and the family unit. The developing friendship between Corky and America was unique. A minor character, Roy, steals my heart. As with its famous To Kill a Mockingbird, the tough topic of racism is tackled, along with emerging Civil Rights Movement. I found the ending emotional and satisfying. I have this author’s previous novel on my bookshelf and need to move it to the top. I highly recommend this book.

Thanks to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for this ARC. This is my honest opinion.

I loved 'To Kill A Mockingbird' as a teenager and then reviewed it again from an adult perspective when my son read it and we watched the film for his English studies.
That is why although a very plausible coming of age novel that had interesting characters I kept wondering if it was misplaced in the adult section of fiction and should have been in Young Adult (YA) section where I feel it has a rightful place.
In segregated High Cotton Texas in the 1960s we can explore Corky Corcoran's developing friendship with America, the daughter of their Haitian housekeeper and see some subtle realisations in Corky's mind and emotional feelings for the community around her.
But overall I struggled to read this because it definitely seemed pitched for a younger readership and I'd be happy to recommend it as such.

I think it's a good historical fiction that I would recommend for younger reader as it's the story of coming of age and it's a bit too easy.
Well plotted and well written
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Mockingbird Summer is a coming-of-age novel set in the 1960s Texas. I am a big fan of historical fiction but this book disappointed me. It reads like a book for teens. I struggled to turn pages and I finally just gave up. Thanks to author Lynda Rutledge, Lake Union Publishing, and NetGalley. I received a complimentary copy of this ebook. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

Mockingbird Summer is a book that I look forward to sharing and discussing with my daughters and grandchildren because it is set in the exact same time period that I was coming of age. However, I did not witness racial inequality firsthand because I was raised in a totally white Midwestern community. I wonder how I would have viewed To Kill a Mockingbird if I had read it at that age rather than years later as an adult. Thanks to NetGalley, Lake Union Publishing and the author for an advance copy to read and review.

Mockingbird Summer takes the reader back to a small Southern town, High Cotton, Texas, in the summer of 1964. The Civil Rights Act was just about to be signed into law, but its implementation was far from starting. That year, thirteen-year-old Corky Corcoran meets sixteen-year-old America Wilcox, whose various talents amaze her. While trying to be America's friend, Corky, a caucasian, inadvertently does things that come across as insensitive to the fact that America is black. Since she admires America, Corky wants to make things right so they can be friends.

While enjoyable, the simplistic story-telling makes it feel like a young Adult novel. With a few exceptions, the adults seem very one-dimensional. Many are prejudiced and don't want things to change. There is a wealthy town bully, who is very stereotypical. The only tension in the novel revolves around whether or not America will play in the annual softball game between the Methodist girls and the Baptist girls. On the positive side, the novel does an excellent job of showing how a young friendship can shape a person forever.

I was fortunate to get an advanced reader copy. I found a historical error, that perhaps will be corrected before the novel is published. Corky listens to a Texas Rangers baseball game with her grandfather. The World Champion Texas Rangers did not start playing in Texas until 1972. At the time of the novel, they were still the Washington Senators.

A historical novel drawing inspiration from the classic novel 'To Kill A Mockingbird', 'Mockingbird Summer' captures the spirit and atmosphere of that great work. In fact, I found it a worthier sequel to that great work than Harper Lee's actual follow-up, 'Go Set A Watchman'. It is more readable, more coherent, and more enjoyable.

The story is set in 1964, in the hot July of a small, segregated Texas town, thirty years after the setting of 'To Kill A Mockingbird'. Some things have changed and improved in that time, but a lot hasn't. The central character is Katherine 'Corky' Corcoran, a naive and talkative white thirteen year old. She is delighted to discover their new Black maid's teenage daughter is an exceptional athlete, and invites her to join their church softball team. Readers will be unsurprised that not everyone in the town is as enthusiastic as Corky about a mixed race team, to say the least, ultimately with tragic consequences.

Rutledge is a very good writer who is somewhat unknown - I hope this book will help more readers discover her work. She draws on her own experience of growing up in a similar small southern town, segregated by railway tracks. I can visualise every detail of High Cotton, with its drug store and baseball field, churches and separate neighbourhoods on either side of the tracks. I could feel the heat and dust and sleepy summer atmosphere, in the same way I could when reading 'To Kill a Mockingbird' itself.

Corky is a sympathetic if slightly irritating character - which she is meant to be. Her naivety is frustrating, and in some ways she seems too young for thirteen - but making allowances for the different era and her sheltered upbringing it's probably reasonable. There are strong supporting characters, including Corky's mother - who turns out to be rather more than a standard downtrodden housewife - and her principled older brother Mack. Plus a very loveable dog named Roy Rogers.

The story is well judged, neither too melodramatic or too tedious. The only part I found hard to read was the softball game, which the book takes us through in great detail. Knowing nothing about softball or baseball I found that a bit tedious and didn't understand it properly. Other than that it is really well paced and flows beautifully. It's clear from the start that something dramatic is going to happen eventually, so you have that sense of building tension as you try to second guess what will go wrong.

I would suggest this is a must-read for anyone who enjoyed 'To Kill A Mockingbird' or with an interest in historical fiction, American history or simply looking for a well written and readable story that has the ability to transport the reader to another time and place.

For me, this book read very YA or even appropriate for older middle graders (there are mentions of kissing and hickeys and what the word r$@e means, but otherwise clean.) Therefore, it fell short for me as an adult reader because I was expecting more depth. Rutledge did a lot of basic exposition about the 1960s that would benefit a young reader. For that, I would definitely recommend it for readers aged 11 and up, I would pair it with To Kill a Mockingbird as an educator. I wouldn’t really recommend it for an adult reader who wants more depth and grit about the summer of 1964 and the Civil Rights Act. 3 stars for an adult reader, but I’d probably give it a 4 for younger ones. My thanks to Net Galley and the Publisher for this advance reader copy.

This novel about corky and America beautifully describes the realities of being a teen in the 1960s and the various social issues happening at the time. The struggles with fitting in as a teen is something everyone can relate to.

*thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for a copy of this eARC in exchange for my review*

Moving. Haunting. Beautiful in a broken sort of way. Lynda Rutledge perfectly captures the crackle of tension in the summer air as she tells a story inspired by history. Our history.

At first, I was afraid it was just going to be an imitation of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, and to be frank, there are quite a few parallels. But the parallels actually make the story more poignant as they drive home the question: “Are we learning or repeating?”

This tale of friendship and crossing lines tugged at my heartstrings many times. Rutledge has a gift for showing the reader how things look from many perspectives. I felt the emotions of so many different characters as I moved through the story. I slipped into each of their shoes seamlessly, and that is how the complexity of the plot is laid bare. So many perspectives. So many opinions. So many choices with their cascade of effects.

Rutledge is a talented storyteller, her characters and emotions and motivations stand out like bright colors on a history we have let fade far too quickly. I didn’t need the resolution in the epilogues—sometimes in life, we don’t get goodbyes—but we are grateful for them when we have them.

This is definitely young adult. Well, it definitely reads as a young adult. The MC is 13 years old. The book is a tad over descriptive. I had a hard time hooking into the book. I liked the premise and the history. Corky the MC is Reading to Kill a Mockingbird and the events going on in the town relate closely to the book. Overall, a good read just not my favorite.

“Today as I thought of you, I’ve been thinking about lines. Lines that we stand in. Lines that divide us. Lines that, long ago, blurred for a moment at a little baseball field when, all together, we cheered the extraordinary in our midst. And lines others crossed to do wrong after such a moment of doing right.”

Mockingbird Summer touches on some big issues through the eyes of a child. It discusses To Kill a Mockingbird throughout the book. The book felt like it may have been written for a younger audience. It was still enjoyable and I’m glad I read it.

If you enjoy historical fiction or coming-of-age stories, this is most likely for you.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book in return for my honest opinion.

| ARC REVIEW |

Mockingbird Summer |
by Lynda Rutledge
Genre | Historical Fiction
ARC | Publish date: January 30
Rating | 4/5 stars

Many thanks to Lake Union Publishing and @netgalley for the advanced electronic copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Set in 1964, in a small town called High Cotton, it is the coming-of-age story of Kathryn ‘Corky’ Corcoran. She’s 13 years old, pretty naive and in store for a summer that will stay with her for the rest of her life. I loved her dog ‘Roy Rogers’.

When Evangeline, a Haitian woman, and her daughter America come to town, things really start to stir up. America can run faster than the wind, and soon she’s enlisted to play softball for the local Baptist girls team. There are people who will do almost anything to stop her from playing. Corky idolizes America and quickly learns how little she truly understands about the differences of race in that time.

I enjoyed how the author incorporated the classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, into the story. This book is all about doing the right thing, in spite of the cost. It’s about the racial divide and the ugliness that can exist in the world.

‘What you make of tragedy is what makes you.’

While I can say I enjoyed the ending, it felt a little too neatly wrapped up for me. It’s a story with a powerful message that I think is so important to remember. I’d recommend this book if you enjoy thought-provoking stories centered on racial/gender inequality.

CW | A bit of mild language

Mockingbird Summer is a coming of age novel set in the 1960's that I was very excited to read. While Rutledge's West with Giraffes is still on my TBR, I have heard so many rave reviews of it. Unfortunately, Mockingbird Summer fell a bit short of my expectations. I wonder if upon the pub date it will be classified as a YA book perhaps? It is set in Texas with 13 year old Corky becoming friends America, whose mother works for Corky's family. The story kept me going and it wrapped up well but overall it was just ok. There are many serious issues within and the book softly touches To Kill a Mockingbird, which does add to its appeal. Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for a free e-copy in exchange for my honest opinion. Mockingbird Summer will be available on 1/30/24.

A thoughtful look at growing up in a small Texas town in the 1960s- a time of great change. Corky and America are wonderful characters. This is more a YA than adult novel but I still enjoyed it. Hopefully, it will send people off to read To Kill A Mockingbird (movie is great but the book, ah the book!).

This book is not described as a YA book, but I feel like it should be. I understand the main character is 13 so the author's writing mirrored the mentality of the main character, but I felt like there were several things overly explained that didn't need to be for an older audience. Oh the 1960's. Such a period of change. This story hit on racism, segregation, and the civil rights movement, but on a high level/simple level. I wanted there to be more depth. Again, this is where I feel this book should be labeled as a YA book. I am actually excited for this book to publish so I can get a copy for my 12 & 13 year olds.

Corky and her brother Mack are growing up in the 60s when America is going through major changes; their segregated Texas town is becoming anachronistic. The novel is also very loosely based on To Kill a Mockingbird, which Corky reads at the beginning of the novel (I see Corky as a Scout-like character and Mack as Jem). At the beginning of the summer, Corky befriends a Black girl named America who has astounding athletic abilities and they convince her to play on the all-White church softball team, not surprisingly. America’s inclusion in the softball team is not at all popular with the racist sect of the town who are not comfortable with the changes happening in society at a macro level and in their town at a micro level. America’s integration with the team sets off a series of events that changes the town and the characters’ lives forever.

I personally found this book enjoyable especially since it referenced one of my favorite novels. Some readers reviews felt that this book read a bit YA, but so does To Kill a Mockingbird and the author was writing a bit in that style, and who cares either way - it did not change my enjoyment level. The story is about a completely sheltered girl who is trying to learn how to be a better person once she has been exposed to the wrongs of the world. I do think there are some one dimensional characters in the book, but in many ways this is a morality tale and so I think it was fine.

4.25 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for the ARC to review