Monday 25 April 2016

The Square Root of the Summer, Harriet Reuter Hapgood

Pages: 323
Publisher: Macmillan
Release Date: 5th May 2016
Edition: UK proof, review copy

My heart is a kaleidoscope, and when we kiss it makes my world unravel…

Last summer, Gottie’s life fell apart. Her beloved grandfather Grey died and Jason – the boy to whom she lost her virginity (and her heart) – wouldn’t even hold her hand at the funeral. This summer, still reeling from twin heartbreaks, Gottie is lost and alone and burying herself in equations. Until, after five years’ absence, Thomas comes home: former boy next door. Former best friend. Forever everything. And as life turns upside-down again, she starts to experience strange blips in time – back to last summer, back to what she should have seen then…

During one long, hazy summer, Gottie navigates grief, world-stopping kisses and rips in the space-time continuum, as she tried to reconcile her first heartbreak with her last.

Ever since I heard about Harriet’s debut, I knew it was going to be right up my street. I totally called it; I loved The Square Root of Summer.

Gottie is drowning in grief. The loss of her grandfather, Grey, and the unceremonious not-even-dumping from her first love have left her reeling. She takes comfort in her love of physics and the combination of her studies and the return of her childhood best friend cause her to fall into wormholes from the last summer before Thomas left and the last she spent with Grey. I was a little worried about the physics element as although I like science, physics was never my thing, but I ended up really enjoying it. Even though I didn’t understand it! It's so nice to see a heroine with a love and understanding of such a complex, and stereotypical male, academic interest and it really set Gottie apart.

It brought up lots of questions and I had to keep reading to find out the answers: What happened the summer Grey died? What’s Jason’s deal? Why is Gottie experiencing wormholes and screenwipes? How? As Gottie’s summers tangled together, memories came flooding back and things were revealed about what happened and I just fell more and more in love with her and the rest of the characters. Everyone is so perfectly flawed in a way that made them jump off the page and straight into my heart. Every character in The Square Root of Summer makes a stupid decision, does something selfish, says something hurtful or retreats into themselves when they shouldn’t and that’s life. The relationships were only stronger for that.

The Square Root of Summer is a gorgeous debut filled love, grief, friendship, family and physics and I completely loved it. If Harriet carries on like this, I’ll have to make her one of my favourites…

Thanks to Macmillan for the review copy.

Sophie 

1 comment:

  1. Oooh, I haven't really heard much about this, just vaguely aware of the title but it sounds amazing! Definitely keeping my eye out for this

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