Interesting read but it has its faults; it was too slow at the beginning, maybe too much physics,. Boring.

The Square Root of Summer by Harriet Reuter Hapgood

The Square Root of Summer is a unique, albeit strange book. I was expecting exciting time travel, but this book is really more about grief and friendship. I liked it anyway, but some people might be disappointed. The premise is definitely unique: Gottie is recovering from two different kinds of loss and is starting to notice odd things happening to herself. She begins to have episodes where she seems to slip into another time and then come back to her present time as if nothing had happened while she was gone. She uses her knowledge of science and math to try and figure out what's going on. Luckily it was not important to actually understand and absorb all this technical mumbo jumbo, because I just could not wrap my head around it. LOL. I had to skim through some of the grief because I'm currently grieving the loss of my grandpa, but the writing is well done and I can see teens empathizing with Gottie. With a quirky cast of characters, lovely writing, and a unique and very smart storyline, there's lots of reasons to recommend this!

A special thanks to NetGalley and Roaring Book Press for the ARC of this book. I voluntarily read and reviewed this ARC all thoughts and opinions are my own. Last summer Gottie’s life fell apart. Her grandfather pasted away and Jason left. Jason who was her everything is gone. So this summer still Gottie’s lost and alone and burying her self in equations. Until Thomas the former boy next door returns. Life starts to turn upside down, she stars to experience strange time blips. Seeing things from her worst summer. She keeps working on solving the time space continuum. A great book for Teens about loss and grief and moving on.

The Square Root of Summer, Harriet Reuter Hapgood’s debut novel, had a lot of potential. Some aspects met that potential while others fell flat. I wanted a lot more from it than I got but I still found myself enjoying it.

Pros:
Concept: The concept behind The Square Root of Summer was so unique and interesting. Time travel has always been something I love reading about and having it tied in with such a contemporary story was something I’d never thought of and was looking forward to reading. I think the concept was wonderfully executed and I would definitely love to see more contemporary stories with these magical elements thrown in.

Characters: This is weird because I’m pretty sure I liked all the characters except for Gottie, the one that I felt like I really should like. Gottie’s family was crazy and messed up but so much fun. I especially loved Grey even though you only ever hear about him in flashbacks since he passed away the year before the book is set. Every character brought something to the story and they were all so quirky and unique. They each had these amazing personalities and they weren’t afraid to be themselves. They all had issues, that’s for sure, but they embraced them and tried to work past them.

Cons:
Super confusing: all the mathematical and scientific lingo was really hard to understand. I’m not stupid or anything like that but this book sure made me feel like I was. Gottie was clearly extremely smart but the things she thought and said sometimes needed to be dumbed down so I could understand them. The whole time travel aspect just made no sense to me no matter how many times I read things over and tried to understand them.

Gottie: Gottie was so hard to relate to. She was so distant and closed off from everyone and everything. It was almost like she thought she was the only one affected by Grey’s death and it didn’t matter how everyone else felt about it. She was selfish and immature.

Overall, The Square Root of Summer could have been better but I don’t regret the time I spent reading it. I could see myself reading more from Harriet Reuter Hapgood in the future.

I found this to have a very slow start. Beautiful cover though.

Goodreads Synopsis:
This is what it means to love someone. This is what it means to grieve someone. It's a little bit like a black hole. It's a little bit like infinity.
Gottie H. Oppenheimer is losing time. Literally. When the fabric of the universe around her seaside town begins to fray, she's hurtled through wormholes to her past:
To last summer, when her grandfather Grey died. To the afternoon she fell in love with Jason, who wouldn't even hold her hand at the funeral. To the day her best friend Thomas moved away and left her behind with a scar on her hand and a black hole in her memory.
Although Grey is still gone, Jason and Thomas are back, and Gottie's past, present, and future are about to collide—and someone's heart is about to be broken.
With time travel, quantum physics, and sweeping romance, The Square Root of Summer is an exponentially enthralling story about love, loss, and trying to figure it all out, from stunning debut YA voice, Harriet Reuter Hapgood.

My Review:
I received a copy of this book through netgalley. First thing, I want to say that I absolutely loved this book. I'm confused at why it has mostly three star ratings, but I guess not everyone liked it as much as I did. Margot is a seventeen year old girl who lives with her father, brother, and now childhood friend who never tried to talk to her once he moved away. She used to live with her grandfather too, Grey, but his passing was really tough on everyone and she's still trying to get her life back together almost a year later. Her brother Ned is mostly away at art school but its home during the summer, and his best friend Jason comes around a lot more often than she's like. She's not happy about having him around, although he's her brothers best friend, as they had a secret relationship that ended badly around the time her grandfather died. Honestly she isn't sure what she should be thinking. Worst of all this stranger who looks like her old friend lives in her house now, and although they were close when they were young, it's been five years without so much as a hi, and things are different now. Strange things tart happening hen Margot starts losing time, literally, being thrown back into lifelike visions of her past while simultaneously still moving around and doing things, like she blacks out but instead of her memory being blank, it's a particularly painful memory. She starts learning about the math behind it all, wormholes and black holes and screenwipes and such, sometimes it feels like there's another reality on top of her own changing the outcome of what's happening. She first blames it on her lack of sleep, but it has to be more than that. This book is unlike anything I've read lately and I loved every moment of it. The characters are super realistic despite what's happening to them or should I say her specifically, and I found myself wishing I knew her and her family, especially her grandfather, he seemed like a good guy. The story took turns I never thought would happen, and I didn't expect any of it. I loved the little notes and diagrams added into the story as well. Definitely check it out if you haven't already.
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