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This One Summer

Mariko Tamaki,

Jillian Tamaki

3.69 · Rating details · 62,411 ratings · 6,104 reviews

Every summer, Rose goes with her mom and dad to a lake house in Awago Beach. It's their getaway, their refuge. Rosie's friend Windy is always there, too, like the little sister she never had. But this summer is different. Rose's mom and dad won't stop fighting, and when Rose and Windy seek a distraction from the drama, they find themselves with a whole new set of problems. ...more

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Hardcover, 320 pages

Published May 6th 2014 by First Second

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Feb 20, 2015 Leigh Bardugo rated it it was amazing

I rarely write GR reviews, but I almost didn't pick this up because of some of the reviews I've seen, so I wanted to add my five stars.

This is a quiet book. Much of the action is observed rather than experienced by the protagonists, but the impact it has on them is deeply felt. If you're looking for grand resolutions or "boy did I learn my lesson" closure, you won't find it here. And that's exactly as it should be.

This One Summer beautifully and poignantly captures a particular moment in girlh ...more

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Jul 26, 2015 NReads rated it did not like it

Me the whole time:
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...more

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Jul 18, 2014 Hannah Garden rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

The huge bummer of the graphic novel is that someone labors for ages over their creation and then you sit down with your pint of Chubby Hubby and make mincemeat of the both of them within the hour. I always feel a little awful about it, and this is probably the kind of thing the French have a word for--the sorrow of beauty’s brevity.
Anyway it’s hard to imagine a [French-word-for-the-sorrow-of-beauty’s-brevity] more hollowing than the end of summer. Those last days of August nearly slaughtered me The huge bummer of the graphic novel is that someone labors for ages over their creation and then you sit down with your pint of Chubby Hubby and make mincemeat of the both of them within the hour. I always feel a little awful about it, and this is probably the kind of thing the French have a word for--the sorrow of beauty’s brevity.
Anyway it’s hard to imagine a [French-word-for-the-sorrow-of-beauty’s-brevity] more hollowing than the end of summer. Those last days of August nearly slaughtered me when I was a child--time closing in and thinning out, cooling all your firefly sparks and kicking them under dead leaves. Ugh.
This One Summer is a story, on its face, about the end of one season in the lives of two families. But it is also--subtly, brilliantly, and infinite-refractingly--a story about girlness and womanness, from incipience to crux to decline, and the spaces between those lodestars, and what it is to inhabit them.
The protagonist is Rose, a girl teetering on the cusp between child- and adulthood--on the one side is freedom, where she knows herself and the world and how those two things work together to form her life. On the other is the freakish unknown, where boobs and blood and boys are lurking, waiting to trip her up and malform her. Rose’s summer buddy, Windy, a year and a half younger, is fascinated by Rose, but also a little leery--she watches her for clues about what her own future will hold, both the gains and the losses. Windy is at the lake with her rad hippie mother, and there is as well a wonderful, salty grandmother and even a couple of teenaged girls poured into short-shorts and halter tops. It’s all very maiden, mother, crone in a sly, satisfying way that will make you feel clever for having thought of that.
The plot, in keeping with a long summer daze, is not especially complicated; for all its apparent simplicity, however, this is a story with kind of a lot of heavy stuff going on. Without being too spoilery, the subject of fertility plays a fairly central role, with marital discord setting up a good handful of scenes, a few cameos by our old pal Internalized Misogyny, and even death rearing its seamonster head in a series of dark, disturbing panels late in the book.
A lovely washed-out lavender bluegray scheme keeps the action at a remove, like these are your own memories dimly recalled from hot, bright days long past; it also provides a constant immersion in the melancholy that informs the core of the story--all the things we have to leave behind in order to become the things we’ll be.
If this all sounds a hair downer-y, let me drop on you the knowledge that Windy (who is so true to herself and thoroughly charming as to border on Manic Pixie Dream Summer Buddy territory) krunks at one point in the book, which, if comic book krunking doesn’t make you want to get up on this like yesterday I don’t even know.
It's just a great book, and it will make you feel poignant about the trials of your youth and stoked about the less-gruesome row all the little ladies of the future have to hoe, and then stoked again to be on the other end of the trials, just stoked to be a dame. Like, I meet monthly with an all-female graphic novel book club, in apartments scattered throughout Brooklyn, talking about books and art and life in general over what can only be described as consistently sumptuous snack feasts. The women are all insanely terrific, just smart and genuine and creative and thoughtful in ways you think TV makes up when you are a gloomy child living in some redneck backwater.
We are not very old and this is not at all uncommon--to have all your ladyfriends be straight-up world-changing amazing. It is a good time to be a woman--the tide that has been turning since feminism’s first wave has obviously not washed away all the grody flotsam (there is still heckuva grody flotsam), but a pretty decent beach has been revealed and it is really possible to spend a lot of your time there, face tilted to the sun.

...more

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Mar 16, 2014 Dave Schaafsma rated it it was amazing

Shelves: gn-ya, gn-women, gn-sex, tweens, ya-fall-2016, ya-gn-sum-2017, ya-summer-2015-class, eng-305-sum-16, best-graphic-lit-ever

7/10/19 Reread with a small group of students focused on coming of age stories. So good.

6/23/17 Reread update, after reading it with my YA Comics/Graphic Novels class this summer. The way all great novels can be, better each time you read it, and it is always a privilege to experience reading with others who also like/love it, especially (for me) people who have never read anything like it before. Most of them have never read graphic novels. So many small details, the mundane, become important. 7/10/19 Reread with a small group of students focused on coming of age stories. So good.

6/23/17 Reread update, after reading it with my YA Comics/Graphic Novels class this summer. The way all great novels can be, better each time you read it, and it is always a privilege to experience reading with others who also like/love it, especially (for me) people who have never read anything like it before. Most of them have never read graphic novels. So many small details, the mundane, become important. Was choked up speaking with the class of the resolution, Alice, the mother, in the water, saving another, saving herself.

9/16/16 Update, Fourth reading: This is better and better every time I read it, and reading it with others always increases my love for it, too. I'd just read this for a summer class in July, but I connected it this fall with Ghost World and Black Hole because they all deal with teen girls' explorations/struggles with becoming sexually active. The class, mostly women, were really engaged with this book. They really seemed to get into the subtleties of the text, the fact that the images carry most of the weight of the story, minimal gestures and facial expressions, and not much talking. An emotional center.

I'll leave the July review intact, but just add here something I don't discuss below in my review, that water--a lake where they go for two weeks every summer--figures in mightily in this story. It's the central image and emotional site of the story. As we know, swimming can be a joyous summer experience, and it can also be dangerous. And we have no real idea through most of the book why it is such an anguished site for Alice, the mother.

July 2016 review: This One Summer is the collaboration of two cousins, Mariko and Jillian Tamaki, who work seamlessly on their story of a summer at a cottage on Lake Huron focused on "woman/girls in peril" as observed by girls "in transition" between tween-age and teen-age, the very cusp of womanhood. More accurately, it is focused on Rose, at 12, who hangs with 10 year old Windy every summer. This summer is different, though, in that 1) Rose's mother is depressed and fighting with her husband; she wants more children, but had a miscarriage; 2) Rose has begun to register an interest in boys, particularly a guy named Dunc (Windy calls him Dud) who seems to be the summer crush for the little resort area, and 3) they watch a lot of horror movies, which, as you know, feature (usually) girls being pursued by dark mysterious (principally male?) forces and sometimes slashed. Dunc also seems to have impregnated one of the local girls, Jenny; Jenny is one of the girls in the area referred to casually by the boys as "sluts," though all of the teens seem to party together.

So this is a book about what it means to be growing up female, an early coming-of-age book. The cusp of it all, after the innocence of so many fun, carefree summers. The (darker) adult world looms for Rose, as she and Windy all summer sift through artifacts of the local teen/grownup life--empties, cigarettes--the detritus of the teen party scene, and they overhear rude/profane conversations about sex. Through this inquiry they come to understand what it means to be a teenaged girl and how boys fit into this scenario. Danger ahead, and yet desire looms, regardless.

Talk of sex is everywhere in This One Summer. Windy asks if Rose has a boyfriend, resents her crush on Dunc. Rose resents her mother's pursuit of more babies, though Rose thinks she would like one herself, maybe, at some point, with Dunc or someone like him. She reads comics and books with romance in them. It begins to quietly consume her and Windy resents it. Windy is not ready for any of these considerations herself. She mostly just wants to swim and dance and dig holes in the sand with Rose.

A lot of people love this for Jillian Tamaki's art especially and I agree. Her art is even more amazing here than on their previous project, Skim, which I also loved. Many people seem to hate this for a lack of narrative, that little happens, but I disagree with that, as so so much happens that summer, multiple interpersonal crises, and so much more that is happening is reflected in the visuals, in the inviting/foreboding lavender/purple/indigo coloration, the deftly subtle facial expression, the spot-on dialogue. It's in my opinion very spare and subtle, very slice-of-life as it gives you the sense of what it may be like for girls in the transition between childhood and teens. Most importantly, it takes advantage of the comics medium. A small gesture, a wince, a tear. Subtle representations in word and image. Not much happens, in a sense, not much gets resolved, but really, everything happens.

The most important things happen in this novel in response to these crises in very small ways--a hug or not, a word expressed or not. A smirk, a small smile. It is great patient and spare storytelling deliberately getting at small moments of summer crush, and pregnant girl dilemma and mom and dad dilemma. And friendship pressures.

This is my third time reading it, and this time I was actually quite moved by it. Maybe it's having a daughter. Maybe it's reading all the literary/visual parallelism, the beauty of that. This book is such a tween book, in a way, and evidence for that is that it was a Caldecott Honor Book (for children!) and such a teen book, too, and evidence for that is that it is also a Printz Honor Book (for teens!), and yay, a graphic novel, a beautiful collaboration between cousins. This is a book maybe designed especially to speak to girls and women, and I love it. And I have to say the men in my class this summer also seemed to especially appreciate it. Yay for all that. ...more

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Feb 23, 2014 Steph Sinclair rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2014-release, macmillan, contemporary, young-adult, 2014-reads, i-own-it, graphic-novel

This One Summer is worth a read for the breathtaking artwork alone. Check it out:

photo IMG_0820_zps4af8707c.jpg

Unfortunately, the story didn’t do much for me. I really liked the idea of a summer of firsts and lessons, but when it was all said and done, I don’t really think the main character learned anything. There’s some slut-shamming done and she never understood why it wasn’t okay to say certain things. Though her friend did correct her a few times, she seemed to just write it off. The book also never felt like it actuall ...more

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Jun 05, 2014 Ariel rated it liked it

This was a tiny bit of a disappointment :(

The thing about graphic novels is that you have TWO giant elements: the writing AND the art.

The art in this book was phenomenal. Absolutely wonderful. I have not a single complaint. There was a giant combination of different types of panels - squares, rectangles, splash pages.. and all of them were gorgeous. And it was all purple! I loved that it was all purple. Very moody and lovely.

The writing/story, however.. meh :( It felt a little boring, and not fo ...more

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Aug 26, 2017 Heather rated it it was ok

Shelves: graphic-novels

Artwork: 5 stars
Plot: 2 stars

The artwork was STUNNING in this book but that's where my love ends. I felt this could have told a bigger story and made a bigger impact but it felt very open ended honestly.
I did resonate with the mother so very much ( you'll know once you read the book)
But I wanted more plot, more depth.

The artwork though? A++++ ...more

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Mar 26, 2016 Nat rated it liked it

Shelves: graphic-novels, diverse-reads

This story follows Rose's yearly summer trip with her mom and dad to a lake house in Awago Beach. It's their getaway, their refuge. Rosie's friend Windy is always there, too, like the little sister she never had. But this summer is different.

This One Summer felt like a great summer read. And even though the plot wasn’t the most exciting, it still kept me flipping page after page. Plus, the friendship and banter between the two main characters added some needed humor to the story.

description

(Windy’s dance ...more

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Jul 25, 2018 Julie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorite-adoption-stories, o-canada, coming-of-age, graphic, in-the-middle, summertime-and-the-living-is-easy

Will it embarrass you if I gush?

Aw, hell, it doesn't matter.

Here I go. I'm going to gush.

I'm going to gush, going to tell you that, as far as graphic novels go, this is best in show.

I didn't only turn the pages of this illustrated story with great enthusiasm, I experienced moments of great reflection here (held my breath a moment or two, too).

This book knocked me out.

The writer/illustrator team of This One Summer, Jillian and Mariko Tamaki, are Canadian cousins who have clearly listened to how p ...more

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Jun 12, 2014 First Second Books marked it as first-second-publications

Possibly my favorite thing about this book is that it is blue.

I mean, I love the plot and the characters and how the problems of growing up are presented and then not easily resolved like tying a bow; I love that there are parents who have their own problems; I love that the dialogue is spare and meaningful and that the art is gorgeous.

This One Summer is a wonderful book.

But I love that Mariko and Jillian made the creative leap to think of this book in another color -- this book was not drawn in ...more

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Jul 05, 2014 Blue rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: graphic-novel, young-adult

Everyone has said it. I concur, the art is superb.

What I don't understand is how people thought nothing happened in the book... Hmmm, I suppose things didn't blow up, and there were no car chases, and true there were no explicit sex scenes. So nothing like that happened, I agree. But a lot of things that may seem insignificant to adults or to anyone other than the few children, teenagers, adults involved in the story happened. A lot happened in their lives. Perhaps people have forgotten how impo ...more

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Oct 16, 2015 Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing

The marriage between the story & the graphics are a beautiful relationship!!!
You couldn't have the graphics without the story, and you couldn't have this story without the graphics.

The story is bittersweet, powerful, charming, and sad.....a coming of age young adult gorgeous graphic......dealing with real issues. Two young girls are dealing with their own set of problems while adults in their lives are also struggling.
Lots of details hidden in the graphics..... truthful expressions built into ...more

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Sep 13, 2018 Kayla Dawn rated it liked it · review of another edition

3,5* - I can see why this is not that popular but I really enjoyed it. The art style is absolutely beautiful and I love the subtle messages this book tries to send.

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May 08, 2018 Sam Quixote rated it it was ok

Two boring teen girls spend their summer hanging out at the beach with their families. Nothing happens for 300 pages and then something does to give the narrative an unearned sense of purpose. This One Summer? This one sucks.

It really is surprising how little happens in this book. Mariko Tamaki writes a convincing portrayal of some teens’ summer holiday experience except is it worth writing when it’s this banal? She has nothing to say about the girls, nothing to say in general, nothing happens ...more

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May 27, 2015 Whitney Atkinson rated it it was amazing

Shelves: graphic-novels, read-in-2015, need-to-reread

I wish there was a clearer evolution of charcter development but this is the first graphic novel ever where i've been able to relate to a character and I adored the art and plot! ...more

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Dec 02, 2014 Sesana rated it it was ok

Shelves: comics

This book is so incredibly, wonderfully beautiful that it almost hurts me to give it two stars. The art is all but perfect, with exactly the right level of detail. The individual characters are drawn as exactly that, individuals, and I never doubted who I was looking at. The expressions are also very clear. Best of all, the art is reproduced in the same lovely, smokey shade of blue as on the cover. If this had been a wordless book, I think I would have been perfectly happy.

But it's not. The bigg ...more

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May 14, 2019 destiny ♡⚔♡ [howling libraries] rated it liked it

Shelves: diverse-reads, z-2019-reads, middle-grade, contemporary, graphic-novels-manga-comics

This is a hard graphic novel to rate for me. There's a lot of poignancy and well-meant subtext surrounding girls discovering what society is like for women and how easy it can be to fall prey to internalized misogyny and tearing each other down, but at the same time, I don't think any of it is addressed clearly enough for the target demographic. If this were a graphic novel geared towards adults or the older YA range, I wouldn't think twice about the fact that nobody really calls Rose out on cal ...more

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Nov 29, 2017 Brooke — brooklynnnnereads rated it really liked it

This was a unique and very different graphic novel but I really, really liked it.

I read this in one sitting which shouldn’t be surprising as it’s a graphic novel but I couldn’t put it down. I think with this one, readers will either love it or hate it. The reason I say this is because as much as there is stuff going on within the story, there isn’t much resolution. I know I am still left with unanswered questions but I still feel content with the way it ended.

I also think that part of me enjoye ...more

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Sep 20, 2019 Eliza rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: comics-and-manga, 3-stars, average, cute-and-or-easy-reads, fiction, library-books, reviewed, young-adult

The ending was so disappointing! Nothing was solved in terms of the mother's depression, Rose's romantic interest, etc. I wish things could have been more developed. This One Summer felt like a story entirely made of fluff, which was fine, I guess. Not all books need to have huge plotlines or twists and turns. So, it wasn't so much that I minded the simplicity; rather, I would have liked some closure towards the end. Otherwise, the story feels unfinished. ...more

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Oct 01, 2019 Kelly (and the Book Boar) rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2019, i-read-banned-books, liburrrrrry-book, becoming-groweds-up, pitcherbooks

Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/

2.5 Stars

Let’s play a little bit of catch-up. I mean, not the type that I actually need to do which are the 40 other books I have yet to review ranging all the way back to the beginning of the year, but the type where I half-ass talk about a graphic novel I read last week for . . . .

Basically, This One Summer is about just that – one summer. The summer in question is the final one where the balance between remaining a kid and beco ...more

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Mar 26, 2014 Wendy Darling rated it liked it

Shelves: illustrated, 2014-publication, read-2014, macmillan, realistic-fiction, young-adult

Great artwork, lovely mood...but I think I just wanted more from this story.

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Mar 08, 2014 Matt rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2014, eye-catching-cover, big-let-down

Garbage.

Half a star for tricking someone into publishing this, and one star for the fantastic five-star artwork. Tragedy to have such great art with this dung heap narrative. Almost no plot, no conflicts, just a sour, artsy-liberal meditation with admittedly well-executed tone and very soft themes you have to really dig to find. Almost, ALMOST nothing really happens.

And the last lines, you ask? "maybe I will have massive boobs. Boobs would be cool." that's the nugget of truth we are left with in ...more

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Jul 09, 2017 Julie Ehlers rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: comics-and-cartoons, young-adult-and-kidlit, free-library

I was a fan of these authors' previous collaboration, Skim, but I had resisted this one because I've generally found First Second's YA comics kind of unsatisfying. I should have known this one would be head and shoulders above the rest. In addition to having beautiful, fabulous artwork, This One Summer reminded me of the 1970s YA novels I'd check out from the library as a kid: slightly risque, with a main character on the cusp of puberty and a best friend who's still on the childish side, encoun ...more

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Jun 13, 2014 Eilonwy rated it really liked it

Shelves: character-driven, heartbreaking, heartwarming, diverse-characters, really-good-voice, not-really-ya, great-illustrations

Three and a half stars, rounded up.

This is a very quiet, subtle story that other reviewers seem to either embrace or find very annoying because "nothing happens."

The Weird: This book is awkwardly unclassifiable. So far as I can tell, it's being promoted as a YA story, but main character Rose is too young for YA, as she seems to be around 12, and her friend Windy is a year and a half younger, so she's about 10. Then, much of the story is actually about adult problems.

I think kids from 11 or s
Three and a half stars, rounded up.

This is a very quiet, subtle story that other reviewers seem to either embrace or find very annoying because "nothing happens."

The Weird: This book is awkwardly unclassifiable. So far as I can tell, it's being promoted as a YA story, but main character Rose is too young for YA, as she seems to be around 12, and her friend Windy is a year and a half younger, so she's about 10. Then, much of the story is actually about adult problems.

I think kids from 11 or so up could appreciate this book, but I also think it's a story adults relate to and "get" much better than kids are likely to. This isn't a story for kids so much as it's a story about being a kid, and how adults don't tell you things so you're stuck trying to figure those things out by eavesdropping or putting together what little they say in front of you, and how not knowing what's going on can be far more anxious-making than being told, even when what the grownups are hiding is sad or upsetting.

The Good: I really enjoyed this book. It's a graphic novel, so it was a very quick read, and the pictures are gorgeous, all done in a lovely purple-blue ink that perfectly reflects the bittersweet mood of the whole story.

For all that the book is so short, it covers a huge amount of emotional ground. Rose says she and Windy, both only children, are like sisters as they've spent this summer vacation together every year since Rose was five. But this year, the difference in their ages is showing a little. Meanwhile, Rose's parents are barely speaking to each other. Rose tells us they tried to have another baby the year before, but it didn't work, and Rose is fretting that maybe she's not enough for them. Rose develops a crush on Duncan, a teenage boy who works at the convenience store, and struggles with her reaction to learning that he's impregnated his girlfriend. I found the unwanted-baby versus the wanted-but-never-gotten-baby storylines deeply poignant, and they eventually intersect in a surprising way.

Since this is a slice-of-life story, it just ... ends, with Rose's family driving away from Awago Beach, just as it opened with the family driving in. Nothing is really resolved; life just goes on. And yet, I personally found it satisfying, even as it made me cry.

So I definitely recommend this book if you're in the mood for something different and evocative with lovely pictures and few but deeply expressive words. It's deceptively simple, with a really complex undercurrent that I'm still processing. ...more

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May 09, 2017 Carlos De Eguiluz rated it liked it

3.5

Bastante rápida de leer. Trescientas veinte páginas y un arte bastante bonito.
La lección de que la interpretación de las cosas varía según el espectador.
Un verano real, sin locas fantasías y amores fugaces.
Estoy satisfecho.
Recomendable.

"—It feels good. Floating. It feels like flying."

"—We couldn't figure out what to bring you so we brought cupcakes and wine. And Balloons."

"—I'm a zombie. I have these crazy toughts. Like, I wish. I wish I was a little kid. So I could just scream and be mad. ...more

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May 08, 2014 Liviania rated it really liked it

Cousins Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki brilliantly capture the liminal time between being a teenager and being a child in their new graphic novel, THIS ONE SUMMER. Rose and Windy are friends who hang out every summer when their families visit Awago Beach. They like swimming and buying candy and renting R-rated videos, which they can get away with since the teenage clerk doesn't really care.

They're at the age where they're starting to clue into things like sex jokes, but don't really understand Cousins Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki brilliantly capture the liminal time between being a teenager and being a child in their new graphic novel, THIS ONE SUMMER. Rose and Windy are friends who hang out every summer when their families visit Awago Beach. They like swimming and buying candy and renting R-rated videos, which they can get away with since the teenage clerk doesn't really care.

They're at the age where they're starting to clue into things like sex jokes, but don't really understand them. Their hormones are starting to go a bit wild, causing both crushes and anger. They're still kids, but their actions are starting to carry deeper consequences.

Although Rose and Windy are young, THIS ONE SUMMER is best enjoyed by a reader who is at least slightly older. The real treat is putting together what Rose and Windy notice into the whole story. Some is gathered through Mariko's script, and other clues are only in Jillian's art, such as Rose's mom's defensive, hunched in body language.

There are some genuinely disturbing moments, of the mundanely disturbing type. A family friend violates Rose's mom's boundaries, and Rose doesn't get it because she just wants her mom to have fun and her mom is refusing to. She doesn't understand her mom's motives and isn't old enough to suss them out. Meanwhile, Rose also shows that she's picked up a real misogynistic streak from the teenage boys hanging around the corner store, which drives a wedge between her and Windy. It's painfully real, that difficultly of growing into being a teenage girl while being taught to hate those other girls who aren't like you.

There's a beautiful, and beautifully complicated thread of family running through THIS ONE SUMMER. Rose and Windy are like sisters. Rose's parents tried for another child, but didn't have one. Windy is adopted. A local teenage girl is pregnant, and only has a few people offering her any support. The relationships are as complicated as enjoying a swim on the beautiful beach is easy, and Rose and Windy are caught between those worlds.

THIS ONE SUMMER is a lovely slice of life novel that perfectly captures the wonders of summer and a transitional time of life. ...more

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Feb 17, 2018 Antoinette rated it really liked it

This is my first graphic novel! I decided to read this book for Freedom to Read Week as this book has been banned in certain states in the U.S. Some libraries in Florida as well as a school in Minnesota have banned it because of some profane language. This book is marketed for 12-18 yr old.
We meet Rose and Windy, both pre teens, who always reconnect at the cottage over summer. This is a different summer though- it is not happy go lucky as per their usual. Rose's parents are fighting; things are ...more

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May 03, 2014 Stacey (prettybooks) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: young-adult-fiction, read-in-my-twenties

This One Summer was the third book I picked up for my (unofficial) summer reads challenge. I spontaneously bought it a few months ago while paying a visit to Foyles, Charing Cross Road. I love the large graphic novel section in the shop and I bought This One Summer along with Through the Woods – and I'm happy to say that I really enjoyed both!

I was expecting a cute and fluffy, picture perfect story about two girls and their summer friendship together in a beautiful beach cottage, enjoying th This One Summer was the third book I picked up for my (unofficial) summer reads challenge. I spontaneously bought it a few months ago while paying a visit to Foyles, Charing Cross Road. I love the large graphic novel section in the shop and I bought This One Summer along with Through the Woods – and I'm happy to say that I really enjoyed both!

I was expecting a cute and fluffy, picture perfect story about two girls and their summer friendship together in a beautiful beach cottage, enjoying the sun, sea and sand, but This One Summer was much grittier and intense.

This One Summer is about the sort of friendship that's not day-to-day – Rose and her younger friend Windy only see each other every summer. Naturally, they have grown apart over the year and are no longer interested in the things they enjoyed the summer before. Windy wants to dance, drink pop and build forts while Rose wants to talk about her summer crush and watch grisly horror films, but the two girls are determined to stay friends. Rose is also dealing with family drama and Awago Beach is no longer her refuge from life. In This One Summer, there's talk of sexuality, sex, miscarriage, adoption, body image, misogyny and sexism, and depression, even if fleetingly. It's a tough summer for Rose and This One Summer is a beautiful and evocative coming-of-age story about two girls growing up.

I adore graphic novels because they only take an hour or so to read, but the stunning artwork in This One Summer means that you feel like you've spent the summer with the girls and gone through what they have. Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki – two Canadian cousins – make the perfect author/illustrator partnership. Jillian Tamaki's artwork is gorgeous. Many of the spreads are utterly beautiful and the way the artwork transitions between scenes is wonderful. I could almost hear the sea at Awago Beach; the traffic outside my window was transformed.

Join Rose and Windy on an unforgettable trip and discover how one summer can change everything. There aren't many young adult contemporary graphic novels out there, but This One Summer shows that there should be.

I also reviewed this book over on Pretty Books.
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Apr 24, 2015 Ferdy rated it it was ok

Shelves: graphic-novel, contemporary, die-heroine-die, heroine-is-a-cow, sexist-shit, douchery-afoot, ugh, awful-hypocritical-heroine

Spoilers

I would have liked this more if the main character (Rose) hadn't been an absolute cow who did nothing but slut-shame girls she didn't even know. And when she wasn't doing that she was being bitchy and judgemental about her depressed mum. Unsurprisingly, when it came to the guys around her, she was all about worshipping them and excusing all their douchey behaviour. I was expecting a summery sort of read about two teenage girls growing up and whatnot. Instead I got a female hating, selfis ...more

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Nov 12, 2017 Manybooks rated it it was ok

Shelves: vacation, families, did-not-bother-finishing, graphic-novels, childrens-literature, book-reviews

So yes, I have definitely never been all that much a fan of graphic novels (or perhaps more to the point, I have never been all that much a fan of most graphic novels, for there are actually a very select few comic book series, such as Asterix and Obelix and even some of the later Tintin books that I have indeed rather enjoyed), and I really only decided to download and read Mariko and Jillian Tamaki's This One Summer because it won a 2015 Caldecott Honour designation and we were n fact reading So yes, I have definitely never been all that much a fan of graphic novels (or perhaps more to the point, I have never been all that much a fan of most graphic novels, for there are actually a very select few comic book series, such as Asterix and Obelix and even some of the later Tintin books that I have indeed rather enjoyed), and I really only decided to download and read Mariko and Jillian Tamaki's This One Summer because it won a 2015 Caldecott Honour designation and we were n fact reading and discussing Caldecott Medal and Caldecott Honour books in the Children's Literature Group (and I guess I was also at least somewhat curious about the setting of This One Summer, seeing that it takes place in Canada, at a family cottage during summer vacation). However, I simply do not in any way really like This One Summer enough to continue reading, as aside from my above mentioned antipathy towards graphic novels in general (to graphic novels as a genre in and of itself) and while the featured illustrations are indeed expressive and impressive, the completely black and white colour schemes but especially the minute and tiny font size of the printed words, of the featured text, have been and right from the onset a bit of an aggravating thorn in my side (since I really do despise having to squint in order to read, especially if I am already wearing my reading glasses).

But that all being said, I probably would have continued reading and perhaps even at least mildly enjoyed This One Summer (even with some grinding of my teeth and tension headaches due to eyestrain at having to read the tiny words, whilst also not really all that much enjoying the gloomy black and white colours of the pictures) if especially how the main characters (but namely Rose) are depicted, are presented and described were more to my liking and more personally acceptable (and in particular, the words that tend to come out of Rose's and other characters' mouths). Now I am by no means a prude, but the rather massive barrage of so-called four letter words within the text of This One Summer feels (at least to and for me) both annoyingly frustrating and really quite gratuitous in nature. And no, I would actually NOT in any way ever label or consider This One Summer as an inappropriate and to be censored offering, I have just personally been less than impressed with the authors'/illustrators' choice of words and frankly and firmly believe that the same thematics presented in This One Summer could and should be described with a bit less of a reliance on curse words, constant name calling and verbal nastiness, with somewhat more subtlety (but the lack thereof might, I do realise, also be part and parcel of This One Summer being a graphic novel and as such another of my pet peeves with the entire genre, for I most certainly have not enjoyed the overuse of the f-word, of sexually explicit language and especially Rose calling another girl a slut simply because of a rumour that she is pregnant, and the fact that Rose has a crush on the teenaged "heartthrob" who supposedly got the girl pregnant is no excuse for this kind of constant trash talking, which I guess might be realistic but that does not mean I have to like how the authors constantly hit us over the head with this).

And perhaps I might consider trying to reread This One Summer sometime in the future (when I will hopefully have a bit more reading time to meticulously read more slowly and critically, with a notepad at hand), but at present, the storyline (the scenarios presented, how the characters act and react) is simply too dragging and tedious to spend more of my precious reading time on and with This One Summer (as I do have a huge and actually also ever increasing load of to-read tomes that are begging to be perused, and graphic novels just do not usually seem to make the cut for me, as I have, as mentioned above, also not really all that much aesthetically enjoyed the back and white cartoon style of the expressive but ridiculously gloomy and just not at all to my personal aesthetics illustrations). ...more

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About Mariko Tamaki

Mariko Tamaki

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Mariko Tamaki is a Toronto writer, playwright, activist and performer. She works and performs with fat activists Pretty Porky and Pissed Off and the theatre troupe TOA, whose recent play, A vs. B, was staged at the 2004 Rhubarb Festival at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. Her well-received novel, Cover Me (McGilligan Books) was followed by a short fiction collection, True Lies: The Book of Bad Advice ...more

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“I guess if Dunc and I got married.....we would live in an apartment first. With regular jobs. Then. Then we would get good jobs.
And.
And he would go to medical school.
Um.
And I would take time off to have one.
Perfect. Baby.” — 1 likes

“Don't worry about any of this stuff, okay?
It's all just adult junk that doesn't mean anything.” — 1 likes

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