YA fiction
"What should be arrogance turns to fear, and my hands begin to tremble with uncertainty, with the realization that I was found by Child Protective Services and I may be in trouble. I'm sitting in a social worker's office. Gardenia is a social worker. I am almost eighteen. These sort of things don't go well for girls like me."
Summer, protagonist of Louisa Onome's The Melancholy Of Summer, has a major problem. Her parents are on television news regularly, but not for anything good. The police are after them for running some kind of scam. Summer has no clue where they are. They abandoned her.
Summer camped out in her old house but quickly burned through the money she could get her hands on. She's been couch surfing at the homes of her best friends. She's sure she'll somehow be fine when turning 18 gets her legal freedom.
But, as Gardenia tells her rules are rules. Seventeen-year-olds must be in the custody of someone else. She locates a cousin, Olu, and arranges for Summer to live with her.
Only Olu may not be exactly guardian material. At 20, she's barely legal age herself. Her career is on shaky ground. The amount of wine she consumes indicates that she may be dealing with demons 😈 of her own.
The time after high school is, even under the best circumstances, a period of rapid transition. Summer's besties are about to start colleges far from home.
So what can the future hold for an about to turn 18-year-old with no plans and a fear that she isn't enough to keep those she leaves from abandoning her?
On a purrrsonal note, so far my summer has been anything but melancholy. Yesterday Eugene and I had a road trip. We started off with breakfast at Governors. I had scrumptious blueberry 🥞 s and home fries. Then we drove around stopping at yard sales and finding some really good stuff. Eugene wanted individual pizzas 🍕 for supper. The IGA we stopped at was out of pre-made shells. So I said I'd conduct a low stakes science experiment. (Jules)
They came home with lots of new stuff. (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to Eugene.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway
Sent from my U.S.Cellular© Smartphone
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