Difficult subject matter is delicately treated. I loved the writing. ( )

Jennifer Tseng is wonderful writer with an incredible ability to manipulate the english language. Tragically, this is a terrible novel with an idiodic plot, weak dialogue and a narrator that I would smash in the face with a shovel were she a real person.

Mayumi is a middle-aged woman with virtually no friends, a young daughter who she spoils pointlessly (she's still breastfeeding at the age of four), and an endless well of rationalization for cheating on her husband with a 17-year old boy. This would be tolerable if there was any character development but there isn't; she's the same self-involved, delusional waste of space throughout. And the supporting characters have no depth, not even the teenager she beds or his mother. The only slightly redeeming factor was the island setting, which was fully fleshed and beautifully described. Not nearly enough to justify the existence of 281 pages of purple prose.

I recieved this book through a firstreads giveaway, so thank you to Penguin Books. ( )

I won this book through Goodreads First Reads. I entered because: the description was unlike any book I've read before, it had high ratings, and everyone mentioned the beautiful writing.

I hated the writing. This book was basically Mayumi over-analyzing absolutely everything. Everything went on and on and there was way too much shit in parenthesis (I found it to be VERY distracting) I find the whole thing very hard to believe - everyone knew and was okay with what was going on? Mayumi annoyed me to no end. She was a very childish 41-year-old woman. I was embarrassed by some of her actions and words towards the young man. She was like a prepubescent girl with her first crush not a married, grown-up woman with a four-year-old child to take care of.

The two women needed some sense slapped into them. ( )

I'm still not quire sure what I think of this. The writing was lovely but a bit neurasthenic, especially since the subject was passion and sexual reawakening. Much as I'm utterly played on the whole cliché of the lonely middle-aged librarian, I did like what she did with the library setting and the generally literary aura—it wasn't overly precious or book-fetishy. And the descriptions of the physical word were good and atmospheric. But the general tone was so limpid it was hard to get a head of steam up for the book itself. Still, there was something solemn and thoughtful about it that got me thinking... I'll have to ponder this one some more. ( )

The sea in this novel embraces an island – so much could be said about the symbolism of the pairing. Suffice to say that it is an exquisite study in obsession and impermanence. There is so much wisdom here – about relationships, about silence, about passion. It’s one of those books that is going to strike people in different ways depending on their own life experience. It captures the poignancy of the movie _The Summer of ‘42_ (1971) perfectly. ( )