Hurricane Summer by Asha Bromfield

Abstract

Reviewed by: Hurricane Summer by Asha Bromfield Deborah Stevenson, Editor Bromfield, Asha Hurricane Summer. Wednesday/St. Martin’s, 2021 [400p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781250622235 $18.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9781250622303 $10.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 10 up Tilla is eighteen, shepherding her nine-year-old sister Mia as the two travel from Toronto to Jamaica for a summer with their never-home father. Once there, she’s hurt and furious to discover Dad will be largely staying in Kingston while she and Mia bunk with extended family in the country. As the summer goes on, she learns more about her father’s strengths (he’s financially helping most of his extended family) and weaknesses (unbeknownst to her mother, he’s got another family in Kingston), renews her friendship with a cousin, falls for one sexy guy (who’s promised to somebody else) and makes out with another one, and suffers a sexual assault and a torrent of slut-shaming. She also falls in love with the beauty of Jamaica, and she sees its fragility when it’s hit by the ferocity of Hurricane Gustav, an event that leads to personal as well as national loss. The father plot roots this in domestic realism but it blooms into reality-enhanced melodrama, with heightened emotion, shivering, satisfying sexual encounters, and even a Real Housewives–level catfight. Underneath the sometimes literal Sturm und Drang are sharp observations about cultural difference, class implications, economic privilege, and colorism; the Jamaican characters’ use of Patois helps mark Tilla as the outsider she is (called, sometimes affectionately, sometimes derisively, “Canada”). Prose about Tilla’s reflections and the glory of the countryside is accessible yet sumptuous, and readers will yearn for an island summer, preferably sans hurricane, of their own. Copyright © 2021 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois