Publication Date: June 26, 2012
Publisher: Kensington
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
FIRST LINE
(May differ from final copy)
Fourteen-year-old Rosie Patterson stood at the window in the
living room of her family’s house on Pond View Road in the town of Yorktide,
Maine.
Rosie Patterson is the target of a bullying campaign at her
school. What starts as just teasing from a group of girls, turns into full on
abuse. The ultimate betrayal that Rosie receives is her best friend and next
door neighbor, Meg Giroux, lets slip a big secret that is used to humiliate
Rosie in front of the entire school. This pushes Rosie over the edge and into a
downward spiral and ends with self-mutilation. The aftermath ends up tearing
apart not only Rosie’s family but also Meg’s. Both families must come full
circle and learn to forgive and move forward.
I am going to be completely honest and say I felt no emotion
while reading Last Summer. I was fully expecting to be torn apart due to my own
personal experiences but instead I felt I was just reading a story. Chamberlin
didn’t pull me in. After reading the Q & A at the end, I figured out why.
Chamberlin has never experienced bullying or any of the after effects., she has only
researched it because she was asked to write a book on bullying. The storyline
was well thought out but it is missing that emotion that needs to be
incorporated to pull the reader in and make the impact that it should. I would still recommend readers to pick this book up just because Chamberlin does tell the story from many POVs and the reader realizes how bullying can affect the victim but also ripple thru everyone associated with the victim.
PRE-ORDER LAST SUMMER
2 comments:
Maybe the Q/A section was different in the review copy you used. In the published version on p. 314 Chamberlin describes her personal experience of being the subject of bullying and having friends bullied.
Thanks for pointing that out. I did read that and she mentions having an incident as a child. But she was never bullied as a teenager or an adult which this book mainly deals with. The book is very well researched and Chamberlin pulls in what she witnessed as a child growing up that is why I still recommend this book to readers.
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