Book Review: A Summer Lasts Forever

Reviewed by Grace Okubo

A thoughtful coming-of-age story about love, family, and finding the courage to be yourself

In A Summer Lasts Forever, we meet two teenagers from slightly different worlds but caught in very similar situations. Ginny is an insecure sixteen-year-old navigating the typical challenges teenage girls face: crushes on boys, the desire to be popular, worries about her body and public image, social status, and a strained relationship with her mother that leaves her feeling invisible. Her dad, by contrast, is reasonable and dependable. He is the one parent she can count on to stand up for her when her mom lashes out.

At school, Ginny feels isolated from her peers, a loneliness made worse by her mother’s dismissive attitude, which reduces her concerns to trivialities. Her friend group is part of the problem too; they don’t fully accept themselves, and each longs to belong among the popular crowd. Ginny, observant and sensitive, has already mastered the art of hiding parts of herself from her parents. She knows the family holiday in Bennington is meant to advance her father’s career and, somehow, heal her mother as well. She can sense tension simmering between her parents, but initially can’t quite understand its cause.

Then there’s Sam, eighteen, already resigned to the life laid out for him. He longs to be an artist, but with a father stubbornly clinging to tradition and determined to keep him in line, Sam has given up the fight. His father is a bully, using violence, tantrums, and financial control to get his way—a battle Sam knows he can’t win. So he bottles up his emotions and stays quiet, the only way he knows to manage an often volatile home, especially when the conflict between his parents turns ugly. When Ginny arrives in town, she becomes a bright distraction, a spark that rekindles his fading hope of one day escaping the drudgery of running a store and finally pursuing life as an artist.

Ginny and Sam meet casually at Sam’s family store. The story follows how they navigate their complicated family lives, explore their attraction to each other, and search for ways to become who they want to be despite resistance from a parent—Ginny with her mom, and Sam with his dad. Ginny is determined to enjoy a summer that’s unfolding very differently from how she imagined, while Sam is fighting to give his art a chance, hoping to prove to his father that he can make a living as an artist.

After their first meeting, Sam and Ginny develop an undefined relationship—undefined because Ginny believes something special is happening between them, while Sam accepts, even encourages, her attention, all the while holding on to Megan, the girlfriend he sees as his guaranteed escape from the life he feels condemned to at his father’s store.

Set in the early 2000s, shortly after 9/11, the book succeeds in capturing the internal struggles many teenagers face—fears, doubts, hopes, and the things that excite or frustrate them—struggles that remain relevant today. It also subtly highlights the sacrifices women make for their families and how they either rise or falter in response to these challenges. We see Ginny’s mother, Jane, often lashing out at her, while Sam’s mother boldly stands up to his father for the sake of her children.

What I particularly appreciated is how the story allows us to witness two women grappling with the very contemporary issue of financial autonomy, all through the eyes of their teenage children. The teenagers themselves are too young to fully grasp the weight of what their mothers are going through; their focus remaining firmly on their own lives. By the end, both Ginny and Sam must learn how to make choices they believe serve them best, and in the process, there is pain—a pain that’s so familiar to so many of us growing up.

I did long for sharper contrasts between Ginny and Sam’s personalities. Since the story is told through alternating first-person accounts, it can sometimes feel like there is little difference to how they think or react.

Thoughtful and well written with just the right amount of nuance, A Summer Lasts Forever centers on the unfolding romance between Ginny and Sam but also places great emphasis on choices and decision-making. The story brought me back to the way I thought and read as a teenager, which makes me confident that its intended audience will resonate deeply with both the characters and storyline.

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