Katrina Leno

Magic passed down through generations. An island where strange things happen. One summer that will become legend. Practical Magic meets Nova Ren Suma’s Imaginary Girls and Laura Ruby’s Bone Gap in this lush, atmospheric novel by acclaimed author Katrina Leno. Georgina Fernweh waits impatiently for the tingle of magic in her fingers—magic that has touched every woman in her family. But with her eighteenth birthday looming at the end of this summer, Georgina fears her gift will never come. Over the course of her last summer on the island—a summer of storms, falling in love, and the mystery behind one rare three-hundred-year-old bird—Georgina will learn the truth about magic, in all its many forms. Praise for Katrina Leno: “Leno’s writing is flawless. Readers of all ages will find themselves swept away.” —VOYA “Charming and sophisticated.” —Kirkus “Crackles with wit, humor, and enormous love.”—Booklist (starred review) “Introduces a fierce new presence.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Summer of Salt

grace richards

i nearly dnf’ed this but i’m glad i didn’t.

Izza

4.5 stars | This book made me really nostalgic for unidentifiable reasons... One of the best books I've read in 2018 so far. I love magical realism, and this story was just so beautifully written with an important message and with diverse sexual representation. 

I took .5 of a star off because I saw a few things coming, but did it really lessen my enjoyment of the book? No. So I might come back and give it the 5 stars it deserves.

Raphaëlle

I thought it’d be a fun and light read - but this turned out to be so much more. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Emelie

Rebecca

This book was very cute. It was slow moving at first, I think if it would have skipped some of the extra descriptions of minor things and went straight to the more exciting stuff I would have been in love with this book. But over all it was a sweet story that I enjoyed in the end. ⁣⁣
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Loved: ⁣⁣
•⁣⁣ The mini mystery within the story. 
•⁣⁣ Theme of acceptance no matter how different you are. 
•⁣⁣ The magic part of the story & I’m totally in love with the cover!
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Disliked:⁣⁣
•⁣⁣ I wished there was less description. 
•⁣⁣ How obvious some things were to the reader but not to the characters. And it should have been obvious to the characters. 
•⁣⁣ I want more, it started getting good then ended. 😭
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🔺Has at least one trigger warning but I don’t want to ruin a big part of the book that it’s tired to. So if you wanna know DM me and I’ll gladly tell you.🔺⁣⁣

emily

i can’t stop thinking about the opening line: “on the island of by-the-sea you could always smell two things: salt and magic.”

i want to tuck this book into my pocket and take it everywhere with me. so, so beautiful / 5 stars

Ella Patterson

dreamy and whimsy and emotional. It captured my interest from the first word and held it to the very end. Totally immersive and surreal, it left me in a floaty headspace for the rest of the day.

mia ¿

this was a perfect beach read. i picked it up because it was compared to radio silence with a bit of magic. while i'm not sure if i agree, i read it at the perfect time so that made it kinda alike to my experience reading radio silence. i read it while at the beach during a very cloudy and foggy week. the weather was just short of storms, and therefore pretty ideal. i honestly just loved this book because the premise felt like something i would've come up with during my "wanting to be a writer" phase. this was obviously executed much better than i ever could, but the premise just felt so comforting because it felt familiar. (this feeling is really hard to put into words) i didn't know too much about this book going in but that was actually good because i wasn't spoiled for anything that happened and i didn't have a chance to predict the way the story would go. the ending was so satisfying and the whole book felt like such a magical story i was kinda in love with it. read this book on a foggy beach somewhere for the full experience and atmosphere!!!

Olivia Mason

"Because there is nothing in a girls history that might negate her right to choose what happens to her body." 
this book -- I went into it expecting a lighthearted, sapphic, magical story, and it turned out to be so much deeper and real. adding this to my list of amazing feminist literature.

Grace O'Callaghan

CW: Rape 

*4.5 ⭐️

Summer of Salt is about the island of By-the-Sea where every summer a rare bird comes and lays her eggs. Many people from across the world come to the island to see this rare and wonderful bird. Georgina, is apart of a long line of women who possess magical abilities. Her sister, Mary, can hover, but she has not discovered her powers yet. We follow Georgina as she tries to deal with being the odd one out in her family, first love, and preparing for the magical bird.

I adored this story so much. Everything about it was so magical. Particularly the island setting. Islands are my favourite places for stories to be set and it did not disappoint. 

Georgina was not my favourite but I still enjoyed her. I liked seeing her struggles with not having magical abilities when both her mother and her sister have some. I also loved seeing her first love blossom with Prue, it was so cute.

Mary was a really interesting character. She seems like a typical party girl but as the story progresses we really see her change. She may not be the best sister but it’s clear she really cares about Georgina.

If I’m completely honest, the plot wasn’t that great. I didn’t care about the bird and everything involving it. I did predict pretty much everything that was a mystery which is why I couldn’t give it five stars, it was still enjoyable though. It’s not really about the bird once you know the full story.

I loved the themes that were discussed in this book. I won’t say to much as it may spoil it, but it was fascinating to see how quickly people were to blame people they’ve known their whole lives.

Overall, a story seemingly about magic and a bird, but a whole lot deeper than that with a subtle f/f romance. I did not like Leno’s other book ‘Everything All At Once’ because of the fantastical element, but I’d recommend this one if that bit bothered you also.

hope

muy bonito Y muy triste mi tipo de libro i guess me ha encantado

loved it. sea, rain, friends is my brand.

Jessica Williamson

4.25

Ya know, this book really didn't turn out as I had expected it to, but I really enjoyed it! This is my second Leno book in the last four or five days and I find that I am very much vibing with her writing style. 

The characters were great. I enjoyed getting to see the twins and their differences and learning about their family as the book progressed. The "birdheads" were a REAL group of characters (like, wacky) and they added some humor to a story that ended up being a lot more heavy than I had expected.

I think we've learned that I really enjoy these stories where it's a smidge of fantasy set in our very grounded reality. It's fun to see these little pockets of weird in everyday life. 

As I said, this book does go into some darker topics about half-way through and I like the way it was handled as far as relation to magics and how it affected them. I think that's what I'm trying to say. It was done well and I liked it. 

cover 4; characters 4; plot 4; pace 5; writing 4; enjoyment 4.

Olivera Mitić

A super clunky writing style trying to tell us how everyone is so QuIrKy and UnIQuE without ever actually showing it. Too many unnecessary details, yet not enough info on the actually important things. A main character that acts dumb so that the author can keep us in the dark. Villainizing men. Mixing genres in a way that just ends up looking like you don't even know where she was going with it in the first place. Just very disappointing, considering the great premise and the loads of hype behind this book.

I can see what Leno was trying to do, but I just can't appreciate the way she did it.

Emily S

So, importantly, while I won’t spoil anything, I will put out there that I think it’s helpful to go into this book with the right expectations.

This is NOT a light, cute, fluffy summer romance. 

This DOES tackle some difficult topics in a heart-wrenching way, and honestly, on this New England island, even over the summer, it rains for most of the book. Oh, and there’s definitely more than a little bit of magic sprinkled in.

Overall, I thought it was good - not quiiite for me just because of the incorrect expectations and the frequent use of profanity (more than I expected for YA), but still enjoyable! Loved the setting and I thought there were some very beautiful parts!

Ruth Parker 

I was trying to explain what I liked so much about this book to my fiancé and found it so hard to tell him exactly what it was that I found so beautiful and magical and breathtakingly amazing about this story. I couldn’t work out where to start. It was just so beautiful and moving and perfect.

libby g

Okay, so, I’m kind of baffled and bewildered and rattled and perplexed, which doesn’t happen often; I’m normally very certain of my stance on things, at least if ‘things’ means whether or not I liked a book. However, through a majority of Summer of Salt I was absolutely torn apart.

At first glance, this novel is a beautiful work of art. From the amazing cover to the delightful prose to the enchanting atmosphere of a unique setting, I fell immediately head over heels and thought this might actually become a new favourite. Of course, as you may be able to tell from the rating, my heart became slowly and painfully ripped in two.

Summary

Summer of Salt follows Georgina, a normal girl with a not-so-normal family who lives on a small, secluded, not-so-normal island where everyone knows everyone and everyone is in love with a not-so-normal bird named Annabella. This novel is about Georgina's and her twin sister Mary's last summer together before going off to university. But a twist involving the island’s beloved and very special bird incites the major conflict and mystery that drives the story forward.

Georgina is a witch, or at least, she’s from a family of witches, or maybe not witches but something of the sort, perhaps a better way to phase it would be “magically inclined”. There we go. Georgina is from a family of women who are magically inclined. Her mother can make potions from teas and her sister can float higher off the ground than your typical run-of-the-mill teenage girl, which isn’t saying much but it is saying that she can float, which is something at least fairly out of the ordinary. But all Georgina can do is drink her mother’s tea, walk up stairs Mary wouldn’t have to, and be too nice to her bitch of a sister (the novel’s wording, not my own (although I am inclined to agree)).

Review

If I had stopped reading Summer of Salt around the halfway point, it may very well have gotten four stars. Unfortunately, I did read past the halfway point, in fact, I made it to the end. Now, let me tell you why the first half was so amazing. First, the prose. Oh! The beautiful prose! A strong and youthful voice that sounded both authentic and ethereal all at once. Second, the setting, a gorgeous and mysterious island filled with bizarre weather and an interesting past. Third, the characters. From the family of witches that own an inn to the group of “birdheads” that visit the inn every summer to study the island’s one tourist trap, who also happens to be my fourth and final pro: Annabella. The strange bird that holds this novel together and my favourite thing about Summer of Salt. There honestly isn’t that much that I can say about Annabella without giving too much away, but the story behind her is brilliant and I fell in love with her.

Another thing I really enjoyed, which is kind of just a side note because it’s pretty minor, is the epigraph at the beginning of the novel: an excerpt from Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe. This poem is amazing and if the only thing you get out of reading this review is the idea to go and read this, I’m happy. I 100% recommend reading this poem. And it fit pretty well with the theme and tone of the novel which was good so that it didn’t seem just plopped there for no reason.

This is where I get critical...

One problem that I had with Summer of Salt through the entirety of the novel was the prose’s inclination to evolve and devlove. The writing goes from being great and enchanting to something I can only describe as fanfiction-y. This mostly came through when Leno was describing certain scenery or characters. I, personally, don’t need to know the colour of every curtain or the type of shoes everyone is wearing. I understand a few details, like the colour of their hair or something like that, or if it’s somehow important to the plot, but most of it in this book was unnecessary and distracting. Fortunately, this doesn’t happen too-too often but it’s quite jarring when it does.

The worst perpetrator of this ‘fanfiction-y’ issue is the character of Vira, Georgina’s best friend. I’m not sure how many of you are aware of the infamous fanfiction masterpiece My Immortal but knowing of it is both a blessing and a curse. It was written by perhaps the greatest literary genius of our generation* and follows a main character called Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way. Before I go on too long of a tangent (because I have read this entire bloody fanfiction and could talk about it for much longer than I care to admit and would also like to preserve both our santies), I just need to get something troubling off my chest. Vira reminds me of Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way and this is a problem. I can only read so many “black” and “lace” and other edgy decor/style buzzwords before wanting to literally stab out my eyes.

I also had a few issues with the relationships between characters as well as the characters themselves. The relationships felt kind of flat even though they were such a huge part of the story. Mary and Georgina's was so one sided that it kind of ruined the entire purpose of bringing out the theme of sisterhood and friendship. Georgina and her love interest was also incredibly drab. It was poorly constructed and extremely poorly paced, particularly as it was weaving through the main narrative arc of the novel. At the beginning I was excited to see where the relationship would go (because who doesn’t love lesbians?) but toward the end it was more of a distraction, something I wanted out of the way so that I could get on with the mystery. It’s great that there was a LGBT main character but this ended up being more like bells and whistles than anything else.

Mary’s main trait is “bitch” and this really bothered me. Not only does it create a one dimensional character (and an unlikeable one at that) but it took away from the moral of the story (which I will come back to in a moment). Just to quickly catch you up, the moral of the story is female empowerment and at the end of the novel Mary becomes the dominant conduit through which this theme is expressed. However, because her character is flat and unpleasant this moral was presented in a way that was flat and unpleasant and ultimately became flat and unpleasant.

Spoiler talk

The rest of my review depends on me spoiling the book for you. So if you don’t want spoilers or don’t want to hear any more negativity I’d suggest stopping here. You have been warned.

I’m going to start by explaining what happens at the end of the book, just so we’re all on the same page (pun intended). Annabella is killed by a guy named Peter (the entire book is based on finding out who did this), Mary is raped by Peter, Georgina finds out that her magical power is being able to control the weather with her emotions, and Mary turns into a bird and disappears and starts a family and I don’t even know anymore guys, honestly.

A major problem that I had with this book was the way that rape was dealt with, from both a literary and a moral standpoint. A lot of things in this novel, not just in the case of Peter but in other smaller instances as well, occurred just to move the plot along. These occurrences either didn’t match up with how the characters had been developed or were simply unrealistic. Particularly with Peter’s character, his motivation was ridiculous and his reasoning for his actions was completely forced: “she deserved it because she had already had sex with so many people”.  Nothing had developed his character to think in this way and in such a tight knit community with literally zero crime (this is concretely established in the novel), this doesn’t come off as a powerful feminist moment, it comes off as cliche and unrealistic in a way that I found actually damaging to the point the author was trying to make.

The moral of this story is so obvious that it took away from the overall message. I think a more realistic and subtle approach would have been much more effective. As well, we as a society have heard exactly what Leno is trying to say over and over and over again that in order for it to have any substance, the messaging has to be unique in some way and also realistic (I know I’ve already said this so many times but I cannot stress enough how fucking baffled I was when this twist was revealed).

And just another thing I had an issue with was Mary’s ending. Like, she became a bird at the end of the book which is great, that’s good fun, I’m okay with that. However, she also suddenly isn’t a bitch anymore, she’s completely matured, she cares about doing what is right, she no longer needs her family, and she is responsible enough to literally raise children. What the fuck? One situation, even such a powerful and horrific situation as rape, doesn’t completely change the complete make up of a person’s personality. It might alter them a bit, make them look at life differently, but they don’t become a completely different person altogether, in the case of Mary in Summer of Salt.

Conclusion

I haven’t read anything else by Katrina Leno but I could have sworn that this was a debut. But, after looking her up, she appears to have three other published novels which I found surprising.

This book began as a beautiful coming of age story following two magical sisters and their last summer together before leaving home and turned into a feminist agenda that was forcefully shoved down my esophagus. Good lord.



*Please, for the love of God and all that is Holy, sense the sarcasm in this sentence. I could not live with myself if anyone thought I was being serious.

Emily

I so totally predicted every twist in this book, but it was still so totally perfect.

On the island of By-the-Sea you could always smell two things: salt and magic. 

This story was so addicting for no good reason, and touched on many important topics. There is also a great amount of LGBTQ+ rep in this book, and it features a f/f romance, while that is not the main focus though. 

This book is mystical and makes me wish I could live on a remote island as a part of a family of magical women. 

I don't want to say too much about the plot because I don't want to ruin anything, but it was incredibly engaging throughout 100% of the book.

Also the characters were all super interesting, and I was constantly eager to get to know more about each and every one of them.

Lastly, the tone of this book, and the writing style really just clicked for me. I found myself laughing out loud or feeling intense emotion seamlessly as I read this book, which is something that I sometimes struggle with, but this writing style allowed me to instantly emotionally connect with the story.

If there is one reason that you should read this book, it would be to find out the context of this line (one of my personal favorites):

A symbiotic ice cream relationship in a graveyard. One could do worse.

(view spoiler)[ Okay, can we just take a moment here to appreciate the incredible acceptance practiced by the people on this island?

His defense- she deserved it because she had already had sex with so many people- made the judge, the Honorable Eleanora Avery, laugh the fuck out loud.   (hide spoiler)]

Alexis 

** spoiler alert **
           4.5/5 stars 

*triggers- mentions of rape*

This was surprisingly beautiful. It has all the signs of a great magical realism book. while it did take me about 20-50 pages to actually get into the book however once i did i couldn't stop reading. This was beautiful. I loved seeing the relationship between the two sisters. It was an easy, great summer read despite some of the content that brought more of a real but darker subject matter. I still felt like this was very well done, and completely enjoyed my time reading. Even though the book was relatively short i felt like it didn't need to be any longer than it was, and the author did a great job wrapping everything up within the pages.

Emily C Peterson

Marija M

On the island of By-the-Sea
you could always smell 
two things:
salt and magic.



I loved this magical, atmospheric novel which, to my surprise, covered an important topic. It could be triggering for some, but it is also a spoiler so I'll put the TW as a spoiler: (view spoiler)[ rape  (hide spoiler)]

Ariel Himboi

When I first started reading this book I ultimately thought this would be a full five stars. It really was for the first hundred or so pages. Except towards the middle things started to make very little sense. Obvious climax points were shown not told and I found myself bored with the fact that this story had become a cliche. It had an original idea but I thought it played with the wrong tropes and inevitably chose the wrong way to go. IMO. 

I liked the mystery and the magic of this small island and the two sisters with different motivations. I liked the overall tone of the story, the romance that was quirky and made its way into my heart. I was okay with the pace of the story but I can say that the ending was a letdown. There were themes of feminism that were thrown in, that I suppose to me felt a little painted for a show. I did not feel the impact of these author's choices but was instead told them and for that I was disappointed. Some things are not written well for the writing. 

I forgot all hell about this book after I decided to DNF it almost ten pages before the wicked end. It was the scene before our main character leaves the island. I was already feeling a little off-center towards the end but this was the tipping point. The story was good, I liked the characters but the mystery and scenes involving the rape of a character felt all out of kilter. I was more than a little upset with where the story went. I was not upset at the events of this story, but at the thought that the author felt the need to add these bits to make the story move further or be more interesting or bold. I felt like it was a show. Of course, I don't think anyone, not even the author is using these things for show, but that is how it appeared to me in writing.

Overall it was a very good book from the beginning but that the middle half and end were very disappointing and I lost all interest in finishing it... even the last few pages. I have heard so many good things about this book but unfortunately, it wasn't for me. Maybe it'll be for you.

Summer of Salt

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