Cicada Summer was a great novel. I loved the characters and the exploration of them. I loved the setting and it's the perfect summer read.

My thanks to the publisher for my digital ARC of Cicada Summer by Erica McKeen! I thoroughly enjoyed this sophomore novel, a haunting but somewhat whimsical story imbued with grief. The writing is ethereal, which lends even modern and difficult topics like COVID a dreamy feel.

In one storyline, a woman and her girlfriend have moved in with her grandfather following the death of the woman’s mother. Father and daughter grieve for the same woman, known to them in completely different ways. They find a book of short stories written by the mother, and reading them together, come to see her in a new light.

For me, the mother’s short stories absolutely stole the show. They’re interspersed throughout the text in their entirety, but they could have just stood alone as an excellent short story collection. They’re reminiscent of Julia Armfield, tackling topics like grief, postnatal depression, mental illness and family through horror. I was kind of sad to leave a story behind to get back to Husha and Nella’s story, which isn’t ideal but also is a testament to the strength of the stories.

It’s also a moving exploration of what it means to look after an ageing relative; the sudden removal of privacy, new intimacies, attempts at saving their dignity.

Overall moving and eerie, just how I like it.

The author did a great job of making me feel a connection to the main characters, but the plot itself is a bit lacking. I found myself having to force myself to keep turning the page at times.

Cicada Summer by Erica McQueen drew me in from the very start. The way it is written is right up my street and I was immediately intrigued and captivated. It explores themes of grief, longing and the complexities of human relationships. As the periodic cicadas emerge during the heatwave and pandemic in 2020, Husha mourns the death of her mother as she quarantines with her grandfather, Arthur, and ex-lover, Nellie. Together, they read Husha’s late mother’s unsettling short stories. I loved how these stories were interwoven within the lives of Husha, Nellie and Arthur, how they applied to their lives, and the stories they shared as a result of reading the collection together.

This book just was not for me. I think there are elements that I found enjoyable... but few, and overall I found it difficult to get into and to enjoy.
The book is about Husha, whose mother died at the beginning of Covid. Husha is spending the lockdown in her grandfather's cottage; with him and her girlfriend Nellie. Husha finds a book written by her mother and they read it together.
A lot of the book is made of these short stories - in between parts about Husha, Nellie and the grandfather Arthur - and they are... a weird mix of stories, most about bodies, either growing strange things (a woman's body becomes covered with eyes), or more generally about illness and motherhood. These are themes I find interesting but I hated the execution. Mostly what I disliked was the writing: either long sentences that stopped making sense after a while; the dialogues - no inverted commas, hard to follow, mundane in a way that tries to be profound - and the style in general, somewhat repetitive. McKeen hardly uses pronouns, so all the characters' names are repeated all along: Husha does this. Husha thinks that. Husha wonders about whatever. Husha walks to the kitchen. Husha pours some tea.

I found it overall unpleasant and I am not even sure the stories would have worked better by themselves - they felt unfinished and chaotic, and the book looked like it had been put together hastily. I hate to leave such a poor review; and I can see more positive ones, so I don't mean to discourage anyone from giving it a try.

Cicada Summer follows Husha, her grandfather, and her former partner as they quarantine together in the remote lakeside wilderness. Husha discovers a book her dead mother began writing. The group finds that each story they read begins to resemble their lives in the cabin.

The writing in this is honestly beautiful, McKeen is clearly talent and is incredibly good with descriptive language. The imagery is so clear and the smallest moments were developed perfectly. My only issue was with the formatting, it took me a while to get to grips with, and as it’s a short novel, there wasn’t much time to do so. Overall a really intriguing read!

Thank you to Netgalley and W. W. Norton & Company for the ARC!

wasn't a huge fan of this i'm so sorry! would have been better if it was shorter and therefore able to have a bit more BITE.

Cicada Summer so artfully captures the dream-like, dissociative state during that summer of 2020. We follow Husha, grieving the recent loss of her mother, Arthur, Husha's grandfather, and Nellie, Husha's ex-lover, as they hunker down in a remote lakeside cottage amidst the heat and song of the emerging cicadas. After finding a collection of short stories from Husha's mother, story layers on story as the group works through the strange and surreal writings.

The writing in this is beautiful and the stream of consciousness pairs well with the content but the organization and overall set-up in this one just didn't work for me. Reading the acknowledgements and finding out a lot of the short stories in Husha's mother's book were stand-alone short stories previous to this book makes a lot of sense. The book felt very disjointed and would've been much more successful as a short story collection as the storyline with Husha, Arthur and Nellie never really developed or had much substance past the surface-level.

This was... I don't even know what this was. It was a bunch of super weird short stories inside of a larger story about grief, which on the surface sounds incredible but the execution was kind of chaotic. The short stories were very creepy and had a few too many body horror elements for my comfort level. This book also had no quotation marks which is a pet peeve of mine. That being said, I didn't hate reading it and I actually highlighted a lot of really beautiful prose—Erica McKeen is clearly an incredible writer and should definitely write more horror and short stories. I became very engrossed in many parts of this book. I do think that overall it was a little disjointed so it didn't fully quite come together for me.

This book just wasn't for me, unfortunately. It was a little too cerebral and fragmented for me to follow. I'm a pretty black-and-white person so maybe for people that are a little more contemplative this would be a good fit! I found myself often distracted and the lack of a clear plot left me wanting more.

I really enjoyed "Cicada Summer" by Erica McKeen. This is a powerful novel which portrays a chosen family during the pandemic as well as facing the aftermath of Husha's mother's death. I appreciate how McKeen's depiction of grief shows how it can be visceral but also come up in mundane tasks like doing laundry. "Cicada Summer" contains a book within a book with stories written by Husha's mother, including some that contain elements of horror. There are also poignant themes of aging, vulnerability and devastation and whether one can really know anyone else, including our own parents. Thanks to W.W. Norton and Company and NetGalley for the eARC. "Cicada Summer" will stay with me for a long time.

DNF at 7%

I just couldn’t get past there being no quotation marks for dialogue. I’m not sure this one would have worked for me regardless, though.

Hmmm this is a strange one. There was a lot to like in the story, but the writing felt a little disjointed at times. I found myself distracted a lot while reading and never felt completely immersed, despite enjoying many aspects of the story.

[arc review]
Thank you to NetGalley and W.W. Norton & Company for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
Cicada Summer releases June 18, 2024

<i>“She called it the Cicada Summer because that’s how she wanted to remember it—in noise, the sound of the cicadas screeching from the trees, a white sustained vibration in her ears.”</I>

In the summer of 2020, Husha spends her time in quarantine with her grandfather and ex-lover in a remote cabin in the wilderness.
Left behind and written by her late mother is a short story collection that Husha discovers and starts to read.

I found it quite difficult to get through this one as it was intentionally repetitive and quite fragmented structurally. Very little of it is told from the cabin in the present day.

Incorporated throughout is some weird body horror in which multiple bumps of eyeballs grow on the surface of a scalp. I have trypophobia so I found this to be too grotesque.

In addition to that, the narrative was often written in convoluted riddles that were nearly impossible to wrap my head around:
<i>“She’s well, she’s nothing, nothing matters about well in the nothing that inhabits her brain. She’s now, in the space between not yet and already and since. In the space between the not yet here and the already happening and the since then, the afterward, what she used to call now. Now the now sees forward and backward.”</I>

Once I reached the section that had 160 consecutive questions (yes, I counted), I lost interest.

cw: suicide/overdose, miscarriage

DNF at 10% - This writing style just isn't for me, it's not bad but it's just a bit too abstract for me which makes it harder for me to get invested into the story. It also really hurts my brain when writers don't use quotation marks for dialogue.

Cicada Summer is a mesmerizing, meandering story about Husha, her grandfather, and her former partner as they quarantine together in the remote lakeside wilderness. Husha discovers a book her deceased mother began writing, and together, the group reads each story that eerily begins to resemble their lives in the cabin.

What struck me most about this book was the beautiful writing with descriptive language. As a reader, I was able to visualize every detail so clearly, and the simplest actions and scenes were developed with such cleverness. It was a short novel, but it felt like poking around in someone's dream. I look forward to future books from the writer!

*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance reader copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review*.

Cicada Summer follows Husha as she quarantines with her grandfather. They are quarantining at her grandfather’s lakeside cabin in remote Ontario. Her ex-lover, Nellie joins them. Husha finds a strange book whilst cleaning her dead mother’s house. She finds a journal which contains short stories.

This book was an okay read but not something I’ll think about again. Personally I didn’t find the short story elements interesting but I also struggled to care about Husha. It wasn’t bad at all just not to my taste. I would still recommend this but I can’t say I’ll think about it again. It just wasn’t what I was expecting at all and it feels pretty empty to me.

A story told in fragments, dreams and excerpts Cicada Summer follows Husha through her days living with her grandfather Arthur and partner Nellie during the pandemic. Her mother has passed away and we experience her grief and healing process.

Husha finds the beginning of a book her mother was writing, hesitant to read it at first and unsure if it was meant for her to see, eventually Arthur, Nellie and her sit down to read it over several evenings.

As a reader it felt like I was gathering with them to listen to the reading of her mothers stories.

This book asked many questions and felt like an opportunity to reflect on love, life and the meaning of things alongside Husha.

I liked the use of cicadas throughout the story as a continuing symbol and multisensory experience; hearing their buzz, Husha holding them in her hand.

If you like books that make you contemplative and you can revisit to further analyze the meaning of the content then I recommended this.

Thank you NetGalley for the e-ARC.

I feel this book deserved a better reader than me, to pick up the subtleties, and all the emotions.
I fear I didnt understand it quite as I hoped, non the less I enjoyed it on a storytelling level.