Recent Reads: The Year Without a Summer by Arlene Mark

Source: From the publisher in exchange for an honest review. 

The Year Without a Summer by Arlene Mark

Publisher: SparkPress
Publication Date:  August 16, 2022 

 

Format: Paperback 


Rating:

Goodreads Synopsis:

Explosive volcanic eruptions are cool, really, cool. They inject ash into the stratosphere and deflect the sun’s rays. When eighth grader Jamie Fulton learns that snow fell in June in his hometown because of an eruption on the other side of the world, he’s psyched! He could have snowboarded if he’d lived back in 1815 during the year without a summer. 

 Clara Montalvo, who recently arrived at Jamie’s school after surviving Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, has a different take all this. She is astounded—and disturbed—by Jamie’s frenzied enthusiasm for what she considers an obvious disaster. The teens’ battling arguments cause science class disruption and create academic trouble: Jamie’s headed for a failing grade in science, and may not even graduate from eighth grade; Clara’s scholarship hopes are dashed. And school isn’t the only place where Jamie and Clara are facing hardship: as they quarrel whether natural disasters can be beneficial, their home lives are also unraveling. Uncertainty about Jamie’s wounded brother returning from Afghanistan and Clara’s unreachable father back in Puerto Rico forces the two vulnerable teens to share their worries and sadness. As their focus shifts from natural disasters to personal calamities to man-made climate changes, the teens take surprising steps that astonish them. Ultimately, through hard work and growing empathy for each other, as well as for their classmates’ distress over the climate change affecting their lives, Jamie and Clara empower themselves and the people they touch. 

 Review: 

Interesting book about a teenage boy and girl. While they interact the book is about their separate lives and how they came to clash in class one day but then it spirals deeper in a way.    At least this is what I thought given the synopsis. Really this is a book about fathers though. Two teens that have entirely different relationships and images of their fathers. 

The plot felt disjointed, Clara was on a clear path but Jamie’s was all over. Clara was worried about Puerto Rico and her father and disasters there. She takes it further by assisting and volunteering to help in disasters but really she it looking to get her father home. They weird thing about her story is the interaction with the governor. It would have been a deep and relatable story for some without the element but it made it more fantastical in a book that seemed to be dealing with very really world issues. Clara is passionate and determined and she is going to get her father back home to her family. So it is lucky the governor is on her side. 

Jamie’s story began with him being reprimanded for failing a test. All the thinks about it snowboarding and he needs to buckle down. He has to debate Clara about disasters but then all of this doesn’t seem to matter anymore and they move away from natural disasters to have a commentary about war. Because All that seems to change when his brother returns from the war in Afghanistan with head trauma and an injured leg. The focus moves to the brother and the war and sharing his story and recovery while Jamie panics. The relationship with the father is still mostly dad yelling most the time. I understand that parents can be like like that but his outbursts were weirdly placed in the story and the wife and kids never tell him he is wrong or that he needs to let them learn for themselves… that is how they got into this in the first place ( a son going off to war).   

Overall, this book was about climate change, natural disasters, refugees, politics, war, and families but I feel like it didn’t choose one topic and do it well. It was a good read but it wasn’t as focused as I would have liked for it to be. I am not sure the beginning of the book ties at all to the ending it just seemed weirdly overdone in parts and underdone in others.