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Mar 29, 2010

karen rated it:

this book is touted as "edith wharton's most erotic book". the introduction blabs on and on about its eroticism, and how scandalous it is. so i have devised a little drinking game. i invite you - i entreat you - to prepare a shot glass with your favorite scotch or whiskey, and do a shot every time you start feeling a little hot from all the sexy good times. i pretty much guarantee that shot glass will be untouched by the end of your readings. this book is not erotic, even in the broade More...

49 comments like (36 people liked it)

Aug 22, 2011

Dale rated it:

Wharton - one of my top top favorites - calls this short novel the "hot Ethan Frome" and that's exactly right: it's very similar to EF, and very different from most of her novels, in many ways. And yet - you see glimmers of what become hallmarks for her, for example, her adoptive father and his ways echo or foreshadow Mr. Rosedale, and the internal monologue and subtle and slow change in perception of these men, by each heroine, glimmer with the other. I've always thought of Ethan Fr More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 07, 2011

Amanda rated it:

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0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 23, 2010

Wanda rated it:

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0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 08, 2011

Pikachu rated it:

I found Charity Royall a very obnoxious character, personally. She was selfish, arrogant, and greedy. I hated her self-righteous attitude in the beginning, and her over-entitled attitude in her adoptive father's house (even if he was a total creeper, yech). I hated the way she treated Lucius in the beginning, and her defensive, spiteful attitude after he TRIED TO HELP her! And then when he sort of breaks up with her at one point, she stalks him. What a bitch!

The story itself was pret More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 01, 2007

Karen rated it:

This is a book about a girl's sexual awakening and the pure pleasure she derives from it. Of course, there are consequences involved, especially since this is a poor girl near the bottom of the social ladder in a small western New England town.

Summer is very different from The House of Mirth or The Age of Innocence where sex was either avoided, unfulfilled or occured offstage. This book deals with both sexuality and class distinction and touches on incest as well. While these topics More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 05, 2012

Alex rated it:

I was told this book was dirty, and ...well, to be fair, I was told it was dirty "for Wharton," which I suppose is true as far as it goes, but still: oblique references to illicit trysts aren't exactly begging for the fap when you fade out after they hold hands. Remind me this though: next time I'm sitting next to a leathery woman from Lowell on the bus and she's all "Hey, what are YOU reading?" and I say "Edith Wharton" and she mishears me and thinks I said "I More...

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Oct 15, 2011

Corinne E. rated it:

Charity Royall is a beautiful, limited, petulant, and yearning young woman trapped in the New England town of North Dormer, Massachusetts, and literally expiring from boredom. She is the orphaned ward of an elderly lawyer in town who manages to squash plans for her to receive a formal education. That lack of education, coupled with boredom, sets the stage for the sexual tragedy that occurs one summer when she meets the visiting young architect, Lucius Harney. Charity falls in love and gets pregn More...

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Sep 02, 2011

Jenny rated it:

I loved this book so much more than I thought I would! It has all of the compelling romance and drama that one would expect from a short novella about the sexual coming-of-age of a young woman in a small New England town and, admittedly, that's what kept me turning the pages. However, Wharton is no writer of silly, frivolous romances. The story of Charity Royall is also one of complex class structures, gender limitations, the discovery of one's identity, and missed opportunities.

Chari More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 16, 2011

Greenland rated it:

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Jan 25, 2011

Hyo rated it:

I expect a happy ending or at least somewhat "feminist" ending (like Charity left the town to be independent) but the novel betrayes me although I enjoy the story of a lille girl with temper and self-absolved pride. Why did the author entitle this book as "Summer"?

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A girl came out of lawyer Royall’s house, at the end of the one street of North Dormer, and stood on More...

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Jul 29, 2010

Sera rated it:

I really enjoy reading Edith Wharton novels. Similar to her others, she focuses on class differences as one of the themes in this book. However, unlike the others, instead of focusing on the upper echelons of society and who's in and who's out, she looks at the middle to low classes in this one. Interestingly, what happens to the characters in this story and how they act is so much more scandalous than anything that happened in The Age of Innocence. I wonder if Wharton's treatment of the cha More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 19, 2010

Judy rated it:

This is one of Wharton's least-known novels, similar in some respects to Ethan Frome. While it was supposedly one of Wharton's own favorites, I didn't like it nearly as much as her short stories in Roman Fever. "Summer" is about the unexpected love affair between a young woman named Charity, who had been adopted from rough poverty as a young child and taken into the home of a married couple, and a handsome artist whose urban background and superior education would make them an unlikely More...

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May 03, 2009

Colleen rated it:

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Mar 03, 2011

Tracy rated it:

3.5 stars. I agree with my mom, it is a compelling story of summer love.

The book club is reading Edith Wharton this month, and I happened to pick up a collection of novellas and short stories instead of getting just Ethan Frome. Yay for unexpected books from the library!

Why the 3.5 stars for a book I liked? It's an old story, so I think it didn't move me as much as a modern tale of the same situation might have. I liked it all the way through, and I would recommend it to More...

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Aug 23, 2011

Carrie rated it:

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Oct 26, 2010

Destinee rated it:

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Jan 22, 2009

Jaime rated it:

The first thing that struck me when I finished this book was how times have changed. This was considered extremely provocative when it was published, yet Charity and Harney are only described kissing a few times, and are never described doing anything else. Charity strikes me as a very unhappy young woman, and even ungrateful. She lives with her much older (and yes, imperfect) guardian, and treats him with nothing but scorn throughout the entire story, even though he took her in and cared for More...

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Aug 22, 2011

Jenny rated it:

I loved this book so much more than I thought I would! It has all of the compelling romance and drama that one would expect from a short novella about the sexual coming-of-age of a young woman in a small New England town and, admittedly, that's what kept me turning the pages. However, Wharton is no writer of silly, frivolous romances. The story of Charity Royall is also one of complex class structures, gender limitations, the discovery of one's identity, and missed opportunities.

Chari More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 24, 2010

Tressa rated it:

Believe it or not, I consider this to be a page-turner of a novel because I couldn't wait to pick it up to see what was happening in Charity's life.

Charity was brought from the mountains as a little girl and raised by a middle-class couple named Royall. She falls in love with a wealthy young man named Lucius Harney, who seduces her into an affair. Charity lives a confused life, never really fitting in because she came from destitution, is living a comfortable life as a Royall, and sa More...

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Sep 08, 2009

Paula rated it:

Seemed appropriate to read this over Labor Day weekend, the last true summer weekend. However, this book seemed dark and a bit oppressive - it was hard to recall the 'summer' atmostphere other than by mentions of extreme heat.

I had a hard time relating to Charity Royall, or even seeing her as a character with whom I could empathize. She seemed merely stubborn, overly proud, and then, unfortunately, naive.

Not to give away the ending, but her marriage at the end seems mor More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 15, 2008

Genevieve rated it:

I just finished this as a book on tape, during my journeys back and forth between Rochester and Syracuse. Just like The House of Mirth (the only other Wharton I've read, if I recall), Wharton really catches the various subtle ways, as James Brown sang so well, "it's a man's world." The old double-standard of women running the risk of pregnancy by acting on their sexual desires for men and the men seemingly suffering no consequences...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 11, 2011

Lisa added it

I love the Berkshires, but the hills probably were confining and dark in the days before television and wide-spread ownership of cars. North Dormer is claustrophobic. Even though I read this a long time ago, I still remember the miserably boring life Charity has, alone in the house with her guardian against whom she locks her door and in the old, neglected library. A job in a library seems ideal to me, but as pictured in "Summer," it is dark and depressing. Charity's summer fling i More...

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Jan 19, 2010

Dayna rated it:

Unbelievably awful novel. It failed horribly as a book about sexual awakening - more like a sexual hit and run. I understand why this book took Wharton only six weeks to write. It was worse than a bad romance novel. I was both confused and angry over the main character who was depicted on the one hand as holding power over her adoptive father, the kind of power that seems only possible for someone with a strong will, yet she was also depicted by Wharton as unintelligent, naive and ignorant. More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 06, 2010

Jukka added it

Summer - Edith Wharton
This book is a forgotten great, from an author who seems to be moving toward the same. Highly recommended.

Rather than writing directly about this book, i will write of my experience of re-reading it again nearly thirty years later. Mild spoilers to follow.

I can recall quite specifically when i read this book, i was living in Northborough (not North Dormer), Massachusetts in a one room apartment, really a converted garage, on the bank of the Ass More...

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Sep 03, 2011

Mr. Woodnal rated it:

Having read this so soon after Henry James's Daisy Miller, as well as Wharton's own Ethan Frome, my reading suffered a bit from nineteenth-century-female-oppression fatigue. I found the story of Charity Royall, an orphaned girl coming of age in a time and place where no one could answer her questions of blossoming post-adolescence, fairly interesting, but a bit too similar to some of the other pieces I've read recently to really enjoy it immensely. Charity's state of loss as a young woman with More...

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Sep 03, 2011

Johnny rated it:

Having read this so soon after Henry James's Daisy Miller, as well as Wharton's own Ethan Frome, my reading suffered a bit from nineteenth-century-female-oppression fatigue. I found the story of Charity Royall, an orphaned girl coming of age in a time and place where no one could answer her questions of blossoming post-adolescence, fairly interesting, but a bit too similar to some of the other pieces I've read recently to really enjoy it immensely. Charity's state of loss as a young woman with More...

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Sep 26, 2011

Amanda rated it:

WRITING STYLE: 5
PLOT: 4
PROTAGONIST: 5
CAPTURED MY INTEREST: 5
ENDING: 1
OVERALL: 4

To start I should say that I love Wharton. I love her writing style. I love that I never know whether she's going to kill my favorite character or let them live happily ever after.

I think one of my favorite parts of this book is the prose. It is absolutely beautiful. I was able to easily envision the vistas which Wharton creates. Her asides of the countryside and the natu More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jun 25, 2010

Shannon rated it:

Sometimes when I reread parts of The Mill on the Floss, I wonder what Maggie Tulliver would have done if the flood never happened. By the end of that novel it feels so impossible for her to move forward, but of course in reality people keep living through impossible situations all the time. It almost feels like George Eliot can't bear that fate for Maggie. It's too heartbreaking to think of what might have come next for her.

Summer has been keeping me awake at night for the past we More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Aug 17, 2011

Kornela rated it:

Oh, Edith Wharton. Mistress of gloom. Bearer of despair. Woman without any remorse for the characters she creates. Summer, once again a book with a misleading title (see also Wharton's book, The House of Mirth as another example), isn't as dark and gloomy as some of her other work, but it certainly isn't a picnic in the park during summertime either. Set in the Berkshires, it tells that story of Charity Royall, a young girl who is not quite a lady, due to lack of education and connections. More...

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