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A review by tildyreads
One Summer in Savannah by Terah Shelton Harris
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
A beautiful, painful, and incredibly thoughtful story. First and foremost, one of forgiveness, but one of love and understanding. There is so much growth in these pages, and the use of poetry is absolutely exquisite. A deeply moving book, I know that the story and the characters of One Summer in Savannah will stay with me for a very long time.
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Warning: this is a book about a young woman who has had a daughter after being raped.
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Nine years ago, Sara was raped at a party. There was a trial and her rapist was sent to prison. When she found out she was pregnant, she left for Maine, and that is where she has raised her daughter, a genius, in secret. But when her father, who only speaks in poetry out of long-standing grief, is sick, Sara bravely decides to return home. But there’s more than family and the ghosts of what happened in Georgia. There’s also Jacob, the twin brother of the man who hurt Sara. Jacob is a different man, dealing with his own pain and grief of a family fractured by death and this crime, and also returning home after leaving. In an incredibly written story, these two come to know each other, trust, and find love and forgiveness together.
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I’m absolutely in awe of Harris’s storytelling. The depths of sorrow these characters have felt, the blows they’ve been dealt, and the way they have survived is breathtakingly told. It’s hard to believe that such a story can be realistic, that forgiveness like this can exist, but Harris writes truly. She notes in the “conversation with the author” section that she was inspired by the forgiveness of the survivors and relatives of those killed in the 2015 Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church shooting of the shooter. She writes of a different kind of forgiveness in One Summer in Savannah, but one that may be just as hard to come by.
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There is so much growth in this book. It is compounded by fierce love, familial and platonic and romantic. It is buoyed by poetry, by gorgeous descriptions of place and emotion. It is a book about hard things, but is easily read, and absorbed. It’s not to be missed
•
Warning: this is a book about a young woman who has had a daughter after being raped.
•
•
•
Nine years ago, Sara was raped at a party. There was a trial and her rapist was sent to prison. When she found out she was pregnant, she left for Maine, and that is where she has raised her daughter, a genius, in secret. But when her father, who only speaks in poetry out of long-standing grief, is sick, Sara bravely decides to return home. But there’s more than family and the ghosts of what happened in Georgia. There’s also Jacob, the twin brother of the man who hurt Sara. Jacob is a different man, dealing with his own pain and grief of a family fractured by death and this crime, and also returning home after leaving. In an incredibly written story, these two come to know each other, trust, and find love and forgiveness together.
•
I’m absolutely in awe of Harris’s storytelling. The depths of sorrow these characters have felt, the blows they’ve been dealt, and the way they have survived is breathtakingly told. It’s hard to believe that such a story can be realistic, that forgiveness like this can exist, but Harris writes truly. She notes in the “conversation with the author” section that she was inspired by the forgiveness of the survivors and relatives of those killed in the 2015 Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church shooting of the shooter. She writes of a different kind of forgiveness in One Summer in Savannah, but one that may be just as hard to come by.
•
There is so much growth in this book. It is compounded by fierce love, familial and platonic and romantic. It is buoyed by poetry, by gorgeous descriptions of place and emotion. It is a book about hard things, but is easily read, and absorbed. It’s not to be missed
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cancer, Chronic illness, and Rape