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A review by katdotniche
The Drowning Summer by C.L. Herman
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Drowning Summer was one of those books I picked up on a whim, I liked the cover, and I was feeling good about a mystery book. It turned out to be so much more than that. The ghosts were fascinating, and the story behind them felt like it could be a whole other book, which I would love to read if the author ever wanted to write it, but they were just a part of the story, a backdrop for Christine Lynn Herman to deal with the complications of family life: depression, the way it feels to be the result of a teen pregnancy, how siblinghood survives when only one of you manages to get out. And she deals with incredibly complex emotions around loneliness.
Lynn Herman also deals with the effects of climate change on the ocean, and on the ghosts – something new and fresh in this genre. It was fascinating to read her take on ghosts being connected to water and how that changed when the water was polluted, and I absolutely cannot wait to read more of her work.
Moderate: Death
Minor: Biphobia