A review by areadingstan
Summer by Ali Smith

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

‘We’re all walking the line now, the line between one era and another.’

Summer brings us new characters who are living through 2020, a time I’m sure we all look back on in a kind of disbelief and separation now. Smith continues to focus on the themes that ran through the three previous novels: Brexit, activism, and immigration. And the most important one - human connection - is still not lost even with the characters living in the pandemic landscape. 
 
We are blessed with the return of old characters too, see them mix with new ones and witness a coming together of everything that has led up to this finale. I was practically squealing with joy when I read the familiar names and descriptions of characters I already knew, since I knew that Smith never followed the same people through this series, it was always new stars in a similar show. 
 
Which brings me to Sacha. Only a teenager, but vocal in her political views, Sacha reminds me of Spring’s Florence and Winter’s Iris, and I feel it is not a coincidence that Smith chooses to centralise the characters that are prepared to take action to help those who are struggling because of political decisions that have been made. Sacha writes letters to Hero, a detained asylum seeker, during the COVID-19 lockdown, and the sprinkling of these letters throughout the novel remind us of the different ways we can find connection, and how much we rely on it. 
 
Summer doesn’t only reflect on the recent past, but also harks further back as we are told about the imprisonment of German immigrants in the UK during WWII, which parallels the current detention system. We are also taken back to a summer performance of The Winter’s Tale (incidentally my favourite Shakespeare play) starring Sacha’s mother Grace. She meets a man named John and they spend what sounds like a perfect summer afternoon together, and that’s all it is - a memory. 
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