This One Summer by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki



Rose Wallace has been going with her family to their rented cabin at Awago Beach “Ever since…like…forever.” She anticipates this summer will be much like all the others spent swimming, biking and hanging out with her younger friend Windy. But this is the summer that Rose discovers the cheap thrill of horror movies, the ache of an unrequited crush and the weight of adult secrets. She longs to flirt with the gangly teenage clerk at the corner store who rents her and Windy The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but she’s too shy. She wants to shake her withdrawn mother out of her unrelenting sadness over an unspoken tragedy that happened last summer, but she’s too scared. She yearns to understand why she and Windy are growing apart, why the shabby town of Awago is so different from the rental houses by the beach, and why all the girls in horror movies seem to be so, well, stupid. She wants to know why this one summer is the summer when everything that used to be simple suddenly became complicated. This wistful, character driven GN, inked in a cool blue palatte, perfectly captures that transitional moment between chewing gum and trying cigarettes. Rose and Windy are both polar opposites and kindred spirits, clashing as Rose leans into adolescence and Windy leans back into childhood, but coming back together when the confusing world of parents and slasher movies becomes too much. This One Summer should be number one on your summer reading list.

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