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The Square Root of Summer

Harriet Reuter Hapgood (Goodreads Author)

3.41 · Rating details · 3,123 ratings · 744 reviews

This is what it means to love someone. This is what it means to grieve someone. It's a little bit like a black hole. It's a little bit like infinity.

Gottie H. Oppenheimer is losing time. Literally. When the fabric of the universe around her seaside town begins to fray, she's hurtled through wormholes to her past:

To last summer, when her grandfather Grey died. To the aftern ...more

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Hardcover, 295 pages

Published May 3rd 2016 by Roaring Brook Press

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· 3,123 ratings · 744 reviews

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Sep 23, 2015 Lola rated it liked it

Shelves: time-travel, friends-to-lovers

The big picture, the whole story, is just thousands of tiny stories, like a kaleidoscope.

If I was only allowed to use one word to describe this book, I would qualify it as ‘‘curious.’’ From the start, we’re thrown into the universe of a girl obsessed with space and physics and all the deviations. Gottie lost so much: her mom who died when she was born, her grandfather who had cancer, her boyfriend and even her best friend, Thomas, who moved to Canada!

She never could fill the gap that was crea
The big picture, the whole story, is just thousands of tiny stories, like a kaleidoscope.

If I was only allowed to use one word to describe this book, I would qualify it as ‘‘curious.’’ From the start, we’re thrown into the universe of a girl obsessed with space and physics and all the deviations. Gottie lost so much: her mom who died when she was born, her grandfather who had cancer, her boyfriend and even her best friend, Thomas, who moved to Canada!

She never could fill the gap that was created inside her heart after all she’s lost, constantly feeling the void there. But that’s before her best friend’s parents get divorced and Gottie’s father invites Thomas to stay with them for the whole summer. Seeing Thomas again brings her joy and hope for a beautiful summer ahead of them, but she’s aware of the fact that neither of them bothered to keep contact, ever since they got separated.

It isn’t that clearly explained how and why Gottie first starts leaping through time and space… It just happens. I usually don’t mind magical things happening, but the truth is the author attributes Gottie’s time travels to some complicated and hard to vulgarize physics. Wormholes. Maybe a science geek would feel less confusion when reading this though. As for myself, I couldn’t quite understand it all.

It’s the last day of summer. Except it isn’t, not really. I’m here and I’m not here. This is the first time I’ve been here, but also isn’t. Déjà vu. I’m watching myself, inside myself. It’s a memory, it’s a dream, it’s a wormhole.

BUT, as I said, this book is curious. Even if the whole transportation through time made little sense to me, I liked that for once it’s not all about ‘‘magic.’’ The author really did try to find an explanation, the best she could, and it might not have convinced me, but it remains that the concept can appeal to a lot of sci-fi fans. I also found the pacing fitting, the writing pretty and the atmosphere lively.

There are quite a few characters in this book, and I liked how they each had their role to play – there are no plot holes! Gottie’s father is German so you’ll see him use a couple of uncomplicated words in that language when speaking. I thought it added some charm to the story and it made me think that I may not be taking German classes for nought after all. My favorite secondary character would be Gottie’s dad because of his wacky personality, but I also liked her grandfather whose replies and reactions resemble more the ones of a teenage boy than an elderly person. It keeps him young!

In sum, The Square Root of Summer is intriguing, beautifully-written, charming but very implausible (to me). I would also like to add that the cover is nothing but lovely!
...more

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Jul 20, 2016 Aditi rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: ya, my-reviews, pan-mc, macmillan, friends, science-fiction, contemporary-romance, family

“Yes, and imagine a world where there were no hypothetical situations.”

----Jasper Fforde

Harriet Reuter Hapgood, an English author, pens a heart-touching yet an analytical debut young adult book, The Square Root of Summer that revolves around a teenage girl who has gone through a lot of grief in her life and right when she is suffering from the heart break of last summer, her long time ago ex-friend cum ex-neighbor lands up in her life, with more love life drama, that forces this young lady to ...more

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Mar 11, 2016 Irena marked it as to-read

I need this book in my life.
NOW!!!!!!!!

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May 04, 2016 Dana Kenedy (Dana and the Books) marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: 2016-release, goodreads-first-reads

I just won a copy in a Goodreads giveaway! Can't wait to read it!

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Mar 14, 2017 Eilonwy rated it really liked it

Shelves: character-driven, deeply-thoughtful, heartbreaking, heartwarming, love-story, science-fiction

Gottie has barely spoken in nearly a year, since her grandfather Grey died unexpectedly. Not that anyone has noticed her silence much. Her brother Ned has gone away to college, along with his best friend, Jason, the boy with whom Gottie had her first love affair just before Grey's death. Her father minds his own business, running the family bookstore while Gottie goes to school and puts her energy into her physics and math homework. Her best friend is in the arts program, and easily dodged. But

Gottie has barely spoken in nearly a year, since her grandfather Grey died unexpectedly. Not that anyone has noticed her silence much. Her brother Ned has gone away to college, along with his best friend, Jason, the boy with whom Gottie had her first love affair just before Grey's death. Her father minds his own business, running the family bookstore while Gottie goes to school and puts her energy into her physics and math homework. Her best friend is in the arts program, and easily dodged. But now that summer has come around, Ned and Jason return home, along with another boy -- Thomas, Gottie's near twin and closest friend until his family moved to Canada five years ago and they lost touch. All the emotions she's been avoiding come crashing together, forming ... cosmic wormholes?

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. Gottie has a strong and interesting voice that kept me reading, and I liked the natural-feeling winding of cosmology into this story. The pacing was very good, as the story is seeded with little mysteries about Gottie's relationships, things she doesn't want to tell/share (she's not the most reliable narrator in some ways), but which the reader knows will have to come to a head and be revealed before everything in Gottie's world can even begin to approach being okay.

This story captures the sense of displacement and unreality of complicated grief accurately and brilliantly. So in that sense, it might have spoken to me more than it would to someone who hasn't been through a similar experience. But despite the grief that underlies the plot, the book is full of peeks of light and hope, and is overall optimistic.

One thing I can't decide is, were the wormholes "real," or just a really good metaphor for how grief can keep pulling a person back in time, or in circles around an event? And does it really matter to this story whether they were real, or not?

The biggest compliment I can give this book is, my Teen Self would have loved it, with its focus on cosmology and time travel and relativity. It would have fed my imagination for the rest of my life. This was a great mix of science fiction with a strong contemporary YA story. ...more

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Mar 20, 2016 Maddie rated it liked it

Shelves: arcs, ukya, stand-alones

The word I'd use to describe this book is confusing. One moment, I thought I understood it and the next minute, I didn't. The romance was good-ish, and I appreciated that Gottie was interested in STEM subjects but the execution was as wibbly as the timeline!

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Oct 20, 2015 Heidi Heilig rated it it was amazing

Time travel and physics and heartbreak and stars.

In THE SQUARE ROOT OF SUMMER, our mathy heroine, Gottie, finds herself jumping back and forth through time in the summer after her grandfather's death. As she unravels the reasons behind her chronological challenges, the secrets of last summer's heartbreaks unfold, as does a wonderful new (old) love story. This novel is beautifully literary, with striking, memorable characters and gorgeous prose. It's winter here but I was drunk on love and summer ...more

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Jun 25, 2015 Neil (or bleed) marked it as to-read

You had me at SQUARE ROOT. And I like PHYSICS! Please be good.

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Dec 12, 2016 Rose rated it really liked it

Shelves: ya-quarterly-challenge-24-2017, stand-alone, sci-fi, romance, contemporary, young-adult, tough-subjects, psychological, coming-of-age, grief

Initial reaction: That was lovely, more than I thought it would turn out to be. There's a huge curve to get into this book, however, and I had issues with how the narrative chose to pace itself. But I ended up enjoying the read.

Full review:

"The Square Root of Summer" is definitely a book that spoke to my science/math-loving/geekish contemporary heart, at the very least in the idea behind the novel. Gottie is a young woman who has a lot of things happening in her life at once: dealing with the d Initial reaction: That was lovely, more than I thought it would turn out to be. There's a huge curve to get into this book, however, and I had issues with how the narrative chose to pace itself. But I ended up enjoying the read.

Full review:

"The Square Root of Summer" is definitely a book that spoke to my science/math-loving/geekish contemporary heart, at the very least in the idea behind the novel. Gottie is a young woman who has a lot of things happening in her life at once: dealing with the death of her grandfather, the changes in her relationship with her "secret" boyfriend, the changes in her relationship with her brother, and the return of a childhood friend who just so happens to be moving into the room that once belonged to her grandfather. At the same time, she realizes that things are becoming weird in her realm in other areas - like the fact that she sees wormholes and can travel to separate spaces of time/alternate realities. I honestly think it was a really cool idea to blend a coming of age, grief, and romantic story with aspects of speculative fiction/physics/science. I haven't quite seen a story like "The Square Root of Summer" in the way that it was presented for theme. It definitely excited me with the notes of time-travel and scientific theory to boot. You could also say that the time jumps and alternate parallels that Gottie experiences are representations of her lines of thinking, emotional distance, and grief over the many changes that she goes through in the course of the book, ultimately culminating with how she comes to terms with it all.

However, I wasn't completely sold on how this novel chose to execute the story. While the narrative has beautiful turns of writing and showcases excellent character detail, the actual execution of the novel isn't paced well for what it chooses to show - a slow burn that never quite matches up to its ambitious aim. It took me a much longer time to get through this book than I felt I should've had. The issue for me wasn't just the science portions of the story. You can make science and physics concepts fun and easy to understand in a narrative, and it wasn't that I didn't understand the aim for function as it was that I didn't understand the means, if that makes sense. (i.e. For the longest time I wondered exactly what these loopholes were and why they were there, but the story took its fair time working up to that point, never fully giving anything but vague musings of Gottie's experiences.) While Gottie kept getting lost in her musings as to why she was going through what she went through, there were turns of the narrative that felt weighed down by the dissemination of these factors in addition to the jumping timelines. I have no doubt that's why this narrative may end up losing many a reader despite the appeal of the story.

The thing that I took away from the story the most was Gottie's grieving process, which I thought was beautifully done through the narrative. Whether it was dealing the loss of her grandfather and other people in her life, the personal relationships that were made and broken in spells by her actions or inactions, everything Gottie did was vivid to me. Gottie was a dimensional character that I could identify with - if not for her decisions, most certainly with her grief and coming to terms. The characters were complicated and complex in their interactions through the novel. It helped that the audiobook had a wonderful narrator to boot (I ended up switching from the physical narrative to audio - you may lose the cute graphics the print version offers, but the performance Katy Sobey gives is wonderful).

I wish that the narrative had been smoother for translation, because it's a beautiful story - just bogged down more than it really should've been. A good read, but cumbersome in its execution.

Overall score: 3.5/5 stars. ...more

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May 10, 2016 Keertana added it

Rating: DNF

I read more than half of The Square Root of Summer before declaring that I was fed up. Perhaps surprisingly, I actually really enjoyed this novel. Hapgood's debut is beautifully written, this small village coming alive with her prose as Gottie, our protagonist, struggles to breath with the sorrow sitting on her heart. Whether it be her grief over her grandfather's recent death, not even a year ago, or it be the ache she feels at remembering Jason, her first love who kept her a secret Rating: DNF

I read more than half of The Square Root of Summer before declaring that I was fed up. Perhaps surprisingly, I actually really enjoyed this novel. Hapgood's debut is beautifully written, this small village coming alive with her prose as Gottie, our protagonist, struggles to breath with the sorrow sitting on her heart. Whether it be her grief over her grandfather's recent death, not even a year ago, or it be the ache she feels at remembering Jason, her first love who kept her a secret and discarded her just as easily, Gottie is lost. Thomas, her childhood best friend, is moving back and Gottie is left feeling the absence of everything in her life--her lack of a mother, her lack of a grandfather, her lack of a boyfriend, her lack of a best friend. Thus, when she begins to see wormholes and loses hours of time to falling back through her own memories, she finally has a mystery she can solve. Or can she?

I think the most difficult aspect of this book is the science-fiction elements. I want to make one thing very clear, though: I am a math major and this book isn't "for" math people. I've seen a lot of readers dismiss this because the physics goes over their heads (it did for me too!) and the math was just too hard. Well, here's the thing: you don't need to understand any of the science behind this. Gottie is a genius, gifted with natural talent when it comes to understanding physics and astrophysics. But while she theorizes and attempts to figure out why her flashbacks cause her to fall back in time and lose hours of time in her present-day, we merely need to follow along for the journey. And this is difficult. It's difficult because we want answers and we're confused while Gottie is grieving and is more willing to accept what is happening to her, not to mention dive headfirst into these wormholes.

But, it's also exhausting. I just wanted to read Gottie's story. I wanted her to grow and leave Jason behind. I wanted her to fall in love with Thomas. I wanted her to make new friends. I wanted her to re-patch her relationship with her brother. I wanted her grief to ease. And all of these things do happen, but they happen alongside a whole dose of crazy where Gottie will fall into a wormhole part way through a conversation only to find out a few chapters later that in addition to the wormholes (which are basically just flashbacks) there are also multiple timelines of alternate universes and they, too, are converging. It was just too much. The science-fiction elements interrupt an otherwise intriguing story and I wish Hapgood had simply written a contemporary novel about a girl with a passion for physics who used that to help her cope with her grief.

Anyway, I didn't finish this. I grew tired of having to constantly read through new theories and deal with Gottie when I just wanted to be there with her, dealing with her life and not her head. I'm not sure who I would recommend this for. Perhaps readers who don't need answers quickly, who are patient, and who can ignore a lot of jargon they don't understand. I definitely plan on picking up whatever Hapgood writes next--I just hope it's more accessible and rewarding than this debut. ...more

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May 16, 2016 Blair rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2016-release, kids-and-young-adult, feelgood, first-novels, sff

As I'm only an occasional, and very picky, reader of YA and children's books, I feel they have to work extra hard to impress me. Unlike so many others, The Square Root of Summer not only impressed me, but surpassed any and all expectations I could have had: it's not just a decent YA novel, it's a fantastic concept and a warm, heartfelt story that works well for any audience. I also liked the way it sidestepped so many of the paths I'd expect a book like this to go down: main character Gottie is ...more

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Mar 01, 2015 Stacey (prettybooks) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

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

I adore the cover for The Square Root of Summer – we have a huge poster of it in our flat! And in The Square Root of Summer, Harriet does an excellent job of combining time travel, science and romance (complete with little diagrams because physics = difficult).

It's been a year since Gottie's life changed; when her grandfather died and the boy she fell in love with stopped being the boy she fell in love with (aka the boy I dislike intensely). But it's a new summer, involving the return of her for ...more

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Jul 22, 2015 Jen (The Starry-Eyed Revue) rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2016, contemporary, magic-time-travel, tough-subject, aliens-sci-fi, arcs

An ARC of this title was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This review can also be found at The Starry-Eyed Revue.

So, I thought I was getting a book about time travel, and what I got was a thoughtful story about grief and loss and friendship. I'm not complaining. Some of my favorite books deal with these subjects. I just wish there were some way to prepare other readers for this book...and to make them stick with it when the going gets tough because it's totally worth i An ARC of this title was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This review can also be found at The Starry-Eyed Revue.

So, I thought I was getting a book about time travel, and what I got was a thoughtful story about grief and loss and friendship. I'm not complaining. Some of my favorite books deal with these subjects. I just wish there were some way to prepare other readers for this book...and to make them stick with it when the going gets tough because it's totally worth it in the end.

At around page 18, I was stuck and didn't know if I'd make it any further. Gottie is a whiz at physics and math and she thinks she's traveling through wormholes to the past, and that's all well and good because I love me some time travel. However, the detail with which Gottie explains black holes and wormholes and how one might travel through them is exhausting and thoroughly confusing. And I say that as someone who aced physics in high school. BUT, as I discovered by reading on, you really don't need to understand the science or math behind the phenomenon, only that this is what Gottie believes is happening to her.

Gottie has been grieving the death of her beloved grandfather for the last year or so. And to make matters worse, right after his passing, her first (and secret) love broke if off with her. She is heart-broken twice over and has shut herself off from the world.

Until the return of her best friend. Things are rough between them at first, with Gottie still feeling the sting of Thomas' betrayal when he moved away five years ago and never wrote to her, but they move past it and something sweet develops between them. For a time, it's almost as if those five years never happened.

The characters in this book are all kinds of quirky. As in, not a single one of them seems to conform to society's norms. And that's okay. It's just another thing that I could have let bother me in the beginning, if I hadn't kept reading to determine why everyone -- at least in Gottie's family -- was so kooky. To some extent, it's a coping mechanism, just as Gottie's fixation on the wormholes is her way of dealing with her loss.

I was really able to empathize with Gottie. I lost my grandmother when I was around the same age, and I always felt close to her. My gran was just about as zany and out of this world as Grey...and she also died of cancer. The constant reminders of my own loss made this a difficult read at times, but it was also a cathartic experience. You don't realize how much you bottle up, how much you keep inside, until it's all spilling out.

This was such a weird little book. For most, it will mean reading out of your comfort zone, either because of the science-y aspect or the tough subject matter. But the payoff -- even if you don't totally understand it at first -- makes the journey more than worthwhile.

GIF it to me straight:

...more

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Sep 14, 2015 Tiff at Mostly YA Lit rated it liked it

Shelves: contemps, ya, romance, debut-author, pub-raincoast, pub-macmillan, sci-fi

Review originally posted on Mostly YA Lit:
Square Root Summer Blog Tour banner

Hi guys, today I'm excited to be part of the Canadian Blog Tour for The Square Root of Summer by Harriet Reuter Hapgood. This is a really unusual young adult novel, chock full of science and heartbreak, but with beautiful and quirky writing. Read on for a short Q&A with Harriet (about Dawson's Creek, because Harriet did her Ph.D on it!), and then my review!

interview banner mostly ya lit
Who is your favorite Dawson's Creek character and why?
Harriet Reuter Hapgood: Jen Lindley. With

...more

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Jan 27, 2016 Alexa rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-in-2016, friends-with-arcs

4.25-4.5 stars. What an excellent read! I don't profess to be any more knowledgeable about space and time, and how physics is used to theorize about it, but I loved how that was incorporated into it. It's clever! I also just found Gottie was easy to relate to, and her narration easy to fall into it. Really enjoyed it!

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Mar 04, 2016 Bee (Heart Full of Books) rated it liked it

Shelves: review-books, standalones

This book was written in a really interesting way but it was oh so confusing! The timeline jumps around a lot and even by the end I don't think I really understood what was happening. I did love the drawings and diagrams, though - it was reminiscent of the extra media in Everything Everything!

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Dec 01, 2015 Sarah rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2015, 2016-debut-author, british-author, for-review-read, signed, books-i-own-print

The Square Root of Summer is a fabulous debut from Harriet Reuter Hapgood, it's a story about first love, friendships, family, grief and heartbreak and how a death in the family can have such an incredibly huge impact on every aspect of your life.

Last summer Gottie's life was pretty perfect, she was falling in love for the first time, her family was all together and she had a great set of friends but it all fell apart when her grandfather died. With the rock of the family gone her grandfather's The Square Root of Summer is a fabulous debut from Harriet Reuter Hapgood, it's a story about first love, friendships, family, grief and heartbreak and how a death in the family can have such an incredibly huge impact on every aspect of your life.

Last summer Gottie's life was pretty perfect, she was falling in love for the first time, her family was all together and she had a great set of friends but it all fell apart when her grandfather died. With the rock of the family gone her grandfather's death left Gottie, her father and her brother all devastated and while they were struggling to deal with their own grief they lost their connection to each other. If that wasn't bad enough the boy she was in love with walked out of her life at the same time and Gottie was left completely adrift. Now, a year on, Gottie is still struggling to cope, she misses her grandfather but she also misses her friends and what's left of her family because she's been so busy just trying to get through each day that she's pushed everyone away.

This story is beautiful, I loved the way it looks at grief and how it really shows the effect that it had on the entire family. Gottie's grandfather Grey is a huge part of the story even though he's no longer with them and I loved the words of wisdom that Gottie would remember every time she thought of him. I also really enjoyed the relationship Gottie had with her brother, even though he's slightly older than her they've always been close and him leaving to start university just made everything that much harder for Gottie to deal with. All of the friendships and relationships in this book just felt so real, Grey's death didn't just effect their family but had a wider impact because he was such a focal point for everyone he came into contact with. Gottie's best friend Sof has tried so hard to be a good friend but she was upset too and she's tired of being pushed away and ignored, it was heartbreaking to see how far apart the girls were but I loved seeing them rebuild their friendship.

Most of the story has a very contemporary coming of age feel to it but Gottie is a bit of a science geek and she sees the world in terms of numbers and physics equations which I really loved about her. Throughout the story we see regular flashbacks where Gottie feels like she keeps being pulled into wormholes and sucked back in time to the previous summer. It's up to the reader to decide whether she really has found a way to time travel or whether it's her way of coping with the memories that she is so desperately trying to avoid. I loved the ambiguity of it and the way Gottie tries so hard to explain what is happening to her in scientific terms when in reality it's just her brain's way of trying to process everything that happened.

I feel like I could rave on about this book for ages but I don't want to give away the entire plot so I'll stop here. I will say if you're looking for a quintessentially British story set in a sleepy Norfolk village in the height of summer then The Square Root of Summer is perfect. It's a heart warming and funny story about coping with death and finding a way to move forward and I loved every minute of it. ...more

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Jan 21, 2016 Alice-Elizabeth (marriedtobooks) rated it liked it

Final star rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars!

I would like to thank the publishers Pan Macmillian and the author Harriet Reuter Hapgood for sending me a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

The Square Root of Summer is set in the seaside town of Holksea and follows the experiences and life of student Gottie who experiences some bereavement after her grandfather Grey passes away. The story takes place the summer after Grey's death in which Gottie looks back at the guy Jason who she fell in l ...more

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Feb 23, 2016 Robin Stevens rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is a book that I fell in love with when it was still a first draft. I couldn't wait to reread its finished version, and am delighted to report that it's even more thoughtful, clever and sweep-you-off-your-feet romantic this time around. Harriet's prose is incredible, and the story she's telling is bittersweet and absolutely wonderful. Honestly, I think this is a classic in the making.

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Mar 10, 2016 Cody added it

Such a fun book you guys, a great blend of real and alternative worlds/times. I actually learned some physics from this book, I never thought I'd see the day I would say that hahaha. *Review to come*

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May 04, 2016 Lily rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2016, contemporary, romance, young-adult

*** I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review ***

I have to admit, I am more than a little impressed. I really, really enjoyed this book. A lot more than I expected too, being someone who isn’t usually the biggest fan of the young adult contemporary or romance genres.

However, there is something altogether compelling about a contemporary that weaves a science fiction element into the story telling. And WOW, the story telling in this book is just beaut *** I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review ***

I have to admit, I am more than a little impressed. I really, really enjoyed this book. A lot more than I expected too, being someone who isn’t usually the biggest fan of the young adult contemporary or romance genres.

However, there is something altogether compelling about a contemporary that weaves a science fiction element into the story telling. And WOW, the story telling in this book is just beautiful. The author has managed to craft something incredibly powerful and poignant, but also unique and intriguing. The Square Root of Summer is such a heartfelt and honest exploration of what it means to love and what it means to lose, in all the many and varied forms – from friendships to relationships to family – that love comes. This is a book that, at its core, is about dealing with grief, examining the ways in which heartbreak fractures and changes us into a different person, reshaping from the ashes an individual that is completely different to the one that came before. This is a book about first times and new beginnings, growing up and changing, holding onto and losing little pieces of yourself and finding new versions in the choices that you make. This is a book about constellations of plastic stars and an entire universe of memories that can fit into a time capsule.

Intrigued yet?

Honestly, if you are a fan of young adult contemporaries then I strongly suggest you add this to your TBR. This is one of those books that will stick with you well past the last page; honest and raw and emotional but also uplifting and filled with hope. The Square Root of Summer has this beautifully tranquil quality to the writing – all summer holidays and nostalgia, first kisses and friendship, skinny dipping and sea salt, dusty bookshelves and honeysuckle – making this an easy book to devour in a single sitting.

There is something incredibly atmospheric about this story that just draws you into the world, creating this quiet but commanding place in which the author allows you contemplate the underlying ideas that really gives this book its strength and resonance. The story flows effortlessly, making it compulsively readable, and the characterisation is very well done. Gottie is a truly touching protagonist, feisty and smart but also vulnerable and flawed. I even adored the romance, which was altogether sweet and touching.

While I am the first to admit that the physics and mathematical elements of this story may not be to everyone’s tastes, I found them really interesting and intriguing. The time travel component really elevated the story to another level, deftly shaping it into something much bolder than it would have been otherwise. The brilliance of this story definitely comes from the way the author masterfully weaves these massive universal concepts into the writing, a powerful backdrop upon which to explore the deepest and most poignant parts of the human experience. My only fear is that some readers may feel too confused by the complexity of this topic, which I think may be a very polarising element to this story, and this could detract from the overall reading experience (wormholes are a decidedly confusing concept, after all, and I have long since left physics and maths behind so there was definite potential for this to be a disaster for me).

There were a few odd gender things that I wish had been addressed in a different way (view spoiler) but I was able to overlook these for the most part.

On the whole the beautifully vivid writing, clever concept and exquisite complexity of this novel will definitely keep you turning the page. I have little doubt that this book will appeal to fans of contemporary works by the likes of Sarah Dessen, as well as readers who enjoyed books like We are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson or Yellow by Megan Jacobson.

4.5 brilliant stars ...more

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May 12, 2016 Sinead rated it really liked it

Shelves: cute, romantic, sad, young-adult, favourite-heroines, romance, heart-breaking, contemporary, funny

3.5 stars!

This book made me so, so confused. Which is making writing this review very difficult. Because this book was well written but so confusing! I can’t even tell if I liked it or not. It was just… so maths-y. Just physics and wormholes and equations and time jumps… And coming from someone who despised maths with a passion in school, it’s hard to enjoy a book that had that much maths in it.

So what’s the story? Seventeen-year-old Gottie has spent the entire school year living in a shroud of 3.5 stars!

This book made me so, so confused. Which is making writing this review very difficult. Because this book was well written but so confusing! I can’t even tell if I liked it or not. It was just… so maths-y. Just physics and wormholes and equations and time jumps… And coming from someone who despised maths with a passion in school, it’s hard to enjoy a book that had that much maths in it.

So what’s the story? Seventeen-year-old Gottie has spent the entire school year living in a shroud of mourning. The end of the previous summer brought the death of her grandfather Grey, who practically raised her after her mother died. Jason, her first love, left for college shortly after the funeral without a word of goodbye, along with her brother. Alone with her grieving father, Gottie retreated inside herself, refusing to communicate with anyone. Now, with the start of another summer holiday, her brother and Jason are back, and the best friend who disappeared from her life five years ago has suddenly returned. That best friend, Thomas, and Gottie were inseparable when they were twelve but five years of non-contact means Gottie doesn’t know how to feel about his returning. And with the one year anniversary of her grandfather’s death approaching, and the reappearance of so many important people in her life, Gottie starts retreating into her mind, and physics, suddenly reliving important moments of her past.

Yet despite the amount of maths and wormholes and reliving the past, this book also had cakes, and tea, and fun, well-rounded characters. It’s set in England, which is always a nice aesthetic change from American settings, or fantasy settings. The characters are German and use German phrases and foods. Always a nice change! Our main characters are human, aka not perfect. They're selfish, and rude, and don’t always say the right thing. But that just made them that much more relatable. Gottie is only seventeen; she’s not supposed to have all of life’s answers, despite how great she is at maths. Her brother was in a band which is cool, her best friend Thomas bakes and because of this I fell in love instantly. And Gottie is falling out of a friendship with another girl, which is not something that happens a lot in YA, at least for me. The main character nearly always has a best friend that she can rely on, and seeing Gottie attempt to mend this friendship but know that that awkwardness will never really clear was quite refreshing.

Despite this, however, it was still quite confusing. All the maths made question marks appear constantly around my head! Hells, if you enjoy maths and understand it, then read this and explain it to me, because I certainly don’t get it. This book also featured dealing with grief, and I would’ve liked more scenes with the grandfather so we could get a better feel of his character and so I could grieve along with the characters.

All in all, this book is both good and bad, thus the 3.5 stars when I normally don’t do halves. I really liked the characters, and the way the author dealt with death was really well done. I just think if the maths element was better explained so I wasn’t as confused, it would’ve brought the rating up to a solid four. ...more

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Apr 02, 2016 Vilma Iris rated it really liked it

A clever and compelling story of love, loss and resilience.

When seventeen year old math savant Gottie H. Oppenheimer starts losing time, she never imagined she’d be traveling through wormholes back and forth between her past to re-live her most heartbreaking moments. Time jerks between past and present as she’s sucked into the true dark matter of her life.

I believe in love on a Big Bang scale.

Over the past several years, she’d lost her mother, her best friend, her heart and just in the past ye ...more

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Aug 22, 2015 Lauren James rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: stem-female-characters, ukya, time-travel

A physics time travel love story! Ever since I heard about this I’ve been dying to read it, so I was very lucky to get my hands on an early copy.

Gottie is going through a lot of heartbreak, from the death of the grandfather who raised her, to her kind-of boyfriend refusing to acknowledge their relationship and moving on without her. Over the course of a summer, she struggles to deal with this while trying to force herself to enjoy the kind of fun holiday she had last year. She fails miserably, A physics time travel love story! Ever since I heard about this I’ve been dying to read it, so I was very lucky to get my hands on an early copy.

Gottie is going through a lot of heartbreak, from the death of the grandfather who raised her, to her kind-of boyfriend refusing to acknowledge their relationship and moving on without her. Over the course of a summer, she struggles to deal with this while trying to force herself to enjoy the kind of fun holiday she had last year. She fails miserably, even with the presence of old childhood friend and newly grown up hottie Thomas (BEST. LOVE. INTEREST. EVER.

On top of what is already an excellent contemporary YA storyline, Gottie keeps seeing snapshots of her past through wormholes. The time travel element is a great literary device to learn more about the distinctive and unique character (Gottie has one of the best voices I’ve read in YA) and it has a satisfyingly timey wimey ending for the sci fi fans reading.

It’s so great to see a lady scientist in YA, but I did have some issues with her mathematical ability, as someone who studied Physics to Masters level. It was a bit unrealistic to me - being good at maths =/= memorising pi to 100 digits, or being able to do superhuman mental arithmetic in your head. This is obviously something that most people won’t be bothered by, but it does worry me that teenagers reading will compare themselves to Gottie and think they aren’t clever enough to study maths or physics at uni, when in reality they could!Teenagers: you can and should study maths, it’s great. And there’s barely any mental arithmetic involved.

I loved, loved, loved all of the wormhole science though - and the gossip about scientists like Schrödinger - who one of my lecturers once described as having 'a lot of wives, most of them not his own' - had me giggling a lot It’s a fresh and unique type of contemporary YA that’s exactly my kind of thing.

I’m still thinking about Gottie and Thomas and Grey and Ned days later. The whole book is a joy to read, like Jandy Nelson meets The Accident Season. Highly recommended! ...more

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Jan 16, 2016 Eri rated it really liked it

Shelves: contemporary

A tad messy but altogether a very enjoyable contemporary read. It's got a hefty dose of physics and relativity talk in it, so I'm not sure it's quite the book for everyone, especially those who don't enjoy sci-fi technical talk, but it did have a very sweet romance and poignant themes of grief and heartbreak.

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Apr 29, 2016 Patricia Crowther rated it really liked it

"I know how to be without you. But life is so much more interesting with."

I couldn't put this down today, it intrigued me from the very first line and throughout. I loved the characters and the whole concept. I'll admit I probably didn't fully understand all the physics stuff but that really didn't matter. It was a great little read. I really enjoyed it. Perfect for a lazy Sunday!

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Oct 07, 2017 Joshee Kun (조수아) rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, physically-owned, romance

I love physics, but this book was too confusing. Smarter people would understand it better. XD RTC

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Nov 23, 2015 c, rated it really liked it

Shelves: ya-lit, dystopia-sci-fi, ya-contemporary, favourites, review-copies, 4-stars, just-read-it, im-dead-and-dying, f-lgbt-side, science-girls-and-arty-boys

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

This is what it means to love someone. This is what it means to grieve someone. It's a little bit like a black hole. It's a little bit like infinity.

Galley provided by publisher.

Rep: wlw side character

The Square Root of Summer has been on my to-read list since last November, and was one of my anticipated reads for this year. The synopsis intrigued me, especially the promise of time travel mixed with a YA contemporary, and the book itself did not disappoint.

The book follows the story of Gottie Oppenheimer, a year on from the death of her grandfather. She's just getting over his death, and the subsequent break-up between her and her secret boyfriend, who just so happens to be one of her brother's best friends, when her dad tells her that their ex-neighbour, and her best friend until 5 years before when he moved to Canada, is coming to stay with them. Gottie hasn't talked to Thomas since he left, even though they were best friends and inseparable, even though they made a blood pact the day before he moved away.

Thomas coming back seemingly coincides with the fraying of the spacetime fabric resulting in the creation of wormholes that Gottie keeps slipping through into her past, and into memories she doesn't want to relive. While Gottie tries to figure out what is going on, and how these wormholes are being created, she has to navigate through all the relationships in her life, from dealing with Thomas' return and Jason ignoring what they had together, and her other best friend, Sof's desire to start hanging out again.

One of the major things I loved about this book, was the subversion of the "girls are good at art and boys at science" trope. Gottie was amazing at physics and maths, but terrible at art, while her brother Ned, was the artist. I will happily read any book that includes this.

Another great thing was that the physics that was used to describe how the wormholes formed was all correct (and complete with diagrams to explain it) and not simplistic or explained vaguely (as in some books I might mention). It was all solid physics (if a bit tenuous because there's no way of proving it and it's all theoretical but that's just an issue I have with theoretical physics in general).

This book reminded me a lot of I'll Give You The Sun which was one of the best books I read last year, and high up on my all-time favourites list. I would definitely recommend this book to everyone who liked that. Actually, I think I would recommend this book to anyone because it was so good I read it in one morning and I already want a reread. ...more

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Jun 05, 2016 Grace (LovingDemBooks) Z. marked it as to-read

Buy this book HERE on Amazon or buy this book HERE on BookDepository with FREE WORLDWIDE SHIPPING

WATCH 'The Whisper Challenge' and a quick Q&A with author Harriet Reuter Hapgood here

I have yet to read this book. Full review to come.

My rating system: (I do use half stars.)
5 - I do not use the 5 star. Not because a book might not be worthy, but because a book is never perfect.
4 - I loved it! There weren't too many flaws, and I had no trouble getting through it. (A 4 star rating is ...more

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Feb 07, 2018 Møstʌfy̍ rated it did not like it

Shelves: dnf

Dnf on page 52

Don't like the writing style. Can't continue. What a pity this awesome cover is used for this book!

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About Harriet Reuter Hapgood

Harriet Reuter Hapgood

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Harriet Reuter Hapgood is the author of THE SQUARE ROOT OF SUMMER and HOW TO BE LUMINOUS. Her first-ever professional writing credit was for Just Seventeen magazine, and she's been YA-obsessed ever since. She likes burritos, cats, Gwyneth Paltrow and young adult fiction, which she plans to write more of, though she's also considering a PhD in Dawson’s Creek. Her surname is Reuter Hapgood, not Hapg ...more

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“And as he looks at me, I suddenly get it. This isn't the Big Bang. It's just summer. But it's still love. It's still something.” — 9 likes

“But I like sleepy. I like nothing-ever-happens. I buy the same chocolate bar from the same shop every day, next to our village pond with its minimalist duck population of three, and then I check the Holksea village newsletter with no news in it. It’s comforting. I can wrap my whole life up in a blanket.” — 8 likes

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