A review by myahlee
Hurricane Summer by Asha Bromfield

challenging emotional reflective
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character

5.0

This is a powerful atmospheric coming of age story about family turmoil and self discovery.  You can tell Bromfield bled her heart and soul into this beautiful novel. The message within its pages are healing, redemptive, and empowering.

Spending her summer in Jamaica, she’s looking forward to reconnecting and strengthen her father-daughter bond. That became short lived when he takes her and her sister to stay at the family homestead with aunts, uncles and cousins. The trip didn’t go as plan.

“What we go through ... it meant fi serve us ... and if it cyan serve us, it can at least change us. Mek us betta people. Stronger people. Yuh cyan' fraid of a likkle rain and breeze.”

🌀🌺🌧️🏝️

This is more than a coming of age story. It's about coming into yourself and healing. It's about freeing yourself from people's expectations, especially your family's. A love letter to all of us that tells us we are worthy.

The scenery of Jamaica was vivid and descriptive. The character development was incredible, she really brought them to life. She made SURE 90% of the characters were WELL unlikeable and absolutely terrible! 😂 They literally made up their minds of who she was before she even arrived. 

“There will be no fair trial. They have decided that just by being from foreign, I am spoiled and spoon-fed. I am bad, and I need to be punished. The princess will be put in her place.”

The way she was treated by her people was utterly disgusting. The hate she received from Aunt Herma and cousin Diana will have you LIVID! Her cousin Andre was damn near the only family that treated her with respect, truly a saint. His story is heartbreaking as well … I adore how Tilla and Andre pour love and encouragement into one another. 

"Your skin is dark and magical. And every time you get darker, it's just proof that the sun is wrapping itself around you. Hugging you. Tight. Every ray of sun that darkens your skin is proof that you're soaking up all of God's light."

This book explore first love, relationship, and lust showing she not knowing how to navigate that because she isnt give the first love she suppose to get; her dad … It was evident that young Tilla, idolised her father and held him in high regard despite the fact that he wasn’t consistently present in their lives. She battled with the feeling of longing and wanting love for him that she kinda lose herself in the process. You could tell she really wanted that bond with her dad.
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I did find myself frustrated with Tilla a BUNCH of times with her choices and how she would let people treat her to the point where, I had to pause reading to control my annoyance lol. She didn’t speak up for herself and let people trash her but, however, I had to remember her deep craving for her dad's love and attention. She didn’t want to upset him and his family. Her decisions were naive and silly, but she just wanted to feel loved. Also, there was a tons of big life experiences and trauma that was happening that I felt like could had been talk on more. I wouldn’t mind 100-200 pages to really dig deep into her emotions and the situation.

I can see a lot of people connecting and seeing themselves in this story. The author did an amazing job incorporating so many elements into this book. I highly recommend.

⚠️ TW: colorism, classism
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