The Summer I Wasn’t Me

The Summer I Wasn’t Me

Jessica Verdi

2014, Sourcebooks Fire

9781402277887

 

Fiction

 

thesummeriwasn't

 

Reading Level: HL730L

 

Interest Age: 13-17

 

Annotation: When Lexi’s mom finds out that she likes girls, she sends her to a camp intended to change her.

 

Plot Summary: After Lexi’s mom reads her journal and finds out about her feelings toward other girls, she sends Lexi to a camp designed to help her stop being gay. Lexi is determined to make her mom happy by changing, but she realizes after a time that she can’t change who she is, and she becomes more focused on getting through camp safely.

 

Critical Evaluation: There are some really good things about this book. I think the setting is an important thing to write about. These kinds of camps are incredibly damaging, and I think the book does a good job of portraying that. However, there are also things that I thought were not covered well enough. The sexual abuse by the camp director is not necessarily something that I thought should have been removed from the book, but I don’t think it was fully explored. It might leave some readers with a lot of questions and even misconceptions. The boys he abused likely experienced a lot of trauma, and that wasn’t really addressed. The exorcism scene was very disturbing, but it feels like Matthew gets over the emotional trauma pretty quickly even though he is left with physical injuries. Carolyn was kind of a flat character, and her reason for being at the camp didn’t seem realistic to me at all. Lexi was a pretty strong character, but some of her friends were also a little flat, though I felt that Carolyn was the worst. I think this book is important, but it’s not the best book on the subject. Luckily, there are other options for readers looking for portrayals of religious oppression of gay people.

 

Author Biographical Information: Jessica Verdi is an author of young adult novels about identity, family, acceptance, and love. Jess received her MFA in Writing for Children from The New School and is a Senior Editor at a “big five” romance novel publisher. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her partner Paul and dogs Billie and Gloria. (source: Jessicaverdi.com)

 

Ties to Curriculum Units: none

 

Booktalking Ideas:

  • Talk about Lexi’s journey to acceptance

 

 

Challenge Issues: LGBTQ themes, violence, profanity, sexual themes

 

Challenge Defenses:

  • Mention awards the item has won or been nominated for
  • State the library’s collection development policy
  • Reference the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights
  • Provide rationale for the item being in the collection
  • As a last resort, offer the patron a “Request for Reconsideration” form

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