The Summer I Dared

Rating:
Summary: I WANTED to like it...
Review: This book sounded so promising - I'm a sucker for any book about Maine fishermen. But I was put off by the preachy tone - the author slams us over the head with "Julia's independence." I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar, etc, etc. It would have been a more appealing book if she'd toned the rhetoric down just a bit. Also, the fact that she ever got involved with someone as distasteful as her husband was unconvincing, some more background might have helped.


Rating:
Summary: Life in a lobster village
Review: This is a story that is completely believable. From the moment I met Julia Bechtel and Noah Prine, I could actually visualize them as real people. Although this is a fictitious story, it made me believe I could see newspaper headlines of the boating accident.

Julia comes to Big Sawyer Island for a two week vacation but before the ferry can deliver her to the island and her aunt, there is a boating accident which kills all aboard except Julia and Noah. Big Sawyer is a lobstering island and all the residents pull together to rescue the victims.

Julia reviews her life. Her husband, Monty, her daughter, Molly and her aunt, Zoey and her parents, as well as Noah Prine are all people she thinks about. 20 years with Monty has been less than fulfilling and the accident causes Julia to re-evaluate what she wants out of life. She was spared when others weren't. The big question that bothers her as well as Noah is WHY they were spared. What are they to do now with their lives? Go on as before or made changes? And there is the question of what happened all those years ago between her mother and her aunt? Then, Molly shows up to comfort her mother but Julia knows there is something more than comfort on Molly's mind. Julia has to decide how she will go forward with her life.

Being good with a camera, Julia begins taking pictures of life on Big Sawyer. The newspaper prints them and Julie finds this rewarding. But in the printing of these pictures comes another problem. What is happening on Big Sawyer? Why was Artie's boat even near the ferry to cause the accident in the first place?

THE SUMMER I DARED tells about the changes in the lives of the islander's after such an accident and each word Ms. Delinksky writes is something I could see actually happening. There are twists and turns that happen in lives that have been affected by the accident and realistic every day problems that are just that, REAL. This is a well written story and one that I didn't want to stop listening to until every word had been spoken.

Rating:
Summary: An enriching novel of one woman's search for herself
Review: When Julia Bechtel decides to take a vacation to spend a few weeks with her Aunt Zoe and take a photography class on the island of Big Sawyer, just off the coast of Maine, she has no idea that a simple two-week getaway will endanger her very life.

As she travels to the island on a ferry, a tragic accident claims several lives and traumatizes wife and mother Julia, lobsterman Noah Prine and twenty-one year old Kimmie Colella, forcing them to examine their lives and the reasons why they, and not the others, were spared from death.

Julia, Noah and Kimmie each handle their trauma in different ways. While Noah is dealing with the loss of his father in the accident and seeking to strengthen ties with his estranged teenage son, Kimmie opts to recoil from any and all communication. The accident has left her mute and isolated from her family and friends, as well as her fellow survivors.

Julia finds herself examining her life and relationships and asking herself for the first time in her forty years exactly what's in it for her. Up to this point she has been dutiful and obedient, a good wife, daughter and mother who is always concerned first with the welfare of others. The accident brings about a transformation in her that is extremely disconcerting to her family members but gratifying to readers, who find themselves rooting for her independence as she begins to show more backbone and self-preservation.

Before long, Julia is confronting family secrets from long ago, standing up to her daughter and her mother, and examining a relationship with her husband that has been less than satisfying for years. She is also getting to know her father and her aunt in new ways.

While some of her family is angered and upset by the changes taking place in Julia, Noah, her fellow survivor, is the one person who understands exactly what she's experiencing and is there for her. Julia finds a friend in this stranger when those closest to her seem to be concerned only with how her behavior affects them.

As Julia and Noah explore the growing attraction between them, they're also exploring a couple of outsiders to the area and their possible connection to what may or may not have been an accident. The mystery of these strangers in town, the tension between Noah and Julia, and Julia's evolving relationships with her loved ones, all make for good reading.

THE SUMMER I DARED is an enriching novel of one woman's search for herself when that self has been submerged in caring for others during her entire adult life, a concept that many women will be able to relate to. It's easy to find yourself drawn into the story and rooting for Julia to find happiness and freedom from the oppression of her family and their expectations.

Barbara Delinsky has penned over seventy novels since writing and selling her first in 1980. She hails from a Boston, Massachusetts suburb, and her love of the northeast is evident as several of her books are set in those states. Also apparent in her writing is her training in Psychology and Sociology, in which she holds a B.A. and an M.A., respectively. Delinsky is able to examine the complicated relationships between others in an easy and effortless way that draws her readers in and makes them care about her cast of characters.

--- Reviewed by Amie Taylor