Summer Bird Blue by Akemi Dawn Bowman
Vastly and powerfully complicated, Summer Bird Blue is an immensely detailed portrayal of grief
Rumi and her sister Lea live for music, and for Rumi, her love for music and for her sister are the two things which she can be sure of. But when Lea dies in a car accident, Rumi is sent off to Hawaii, where she is forced to battle her grief – for Lea, for their music, and for her mother’s apparent abandonment – alone.
Along the way, Rumi meets the two ‘boys next door’: Kai, the teenage surfer, and Mr Watanabe, the cantankerous elderly neighbour with a high-maintenance dog. Slowly, and angrily, Rumi learns that she is not alone – isolated as she may feel without her sister – and that it is okay to be lost, angry or unable to cope, or even to just be yourself. Summer Bird Blue is both vastly and powerfully complicated. In many ways, it is a story of Rumi’s self-reflection on how to cope without her sister, but also of self-acceptance – of her feelings towards romance and sexuality, and of her independent nature and musical ability. Fundamentally, she realises that she does not have to be Lea to be okay.
Summer Bird Blue is an immensely detailed journey of grief. It is raw, angry and heart-wrenching – but like any journey, it is full of lessons, of stumbling-blocks, and of healing. The writing is poignant and fiercely independent, and re-affirms what her debut Starfish has already proven – that Akemi Dawn Bowman is an author of stellar talent, and one to watch in YA days to come.
Ink Road, 26 Mar, £7.99