I was captured by every aspect of The Myth of Perpetual Summer. This novel spans from the Civil Rights Era, to the 1970s, and beyond.
Tallulah James, is a child of constant emotional upheaval due to a Bi-Polar father and emotionally absent mother. She somehow finds a way to navigate through this turbulent time in her life.
The close relationship with her older brother, Griff, is sweet and trusting, and her motherly ways with her younger siblings is heartbreaking. Tallulah’s childhood is lost as she takes over her mother’s role while she’s on one of her many “protest marches.” She later learns it’s simply an escape from home and the family life her mother seems to despise.
Even when her mother is home, she’s negligent. Tallulah never loses hope that someday her mother would “see” her. She longs for typical parents like her friends have. Ones who are there when they come home from school, attend their games, take an interest in their goals, and lavishes love and attention on their children.
This dual time period novel seamlessly depicts Tallulah’s life from childhood to adult, from heartbreak to recovery, from pulling away from one life and creating another. Then being pulled right back into what she ran away from the moment she was old enough to do so.
I empathized with her through every choice she made, both good and bad. She learned from mistakes, and carried on. The lives of her siblings, and how each were affected by their upbringing are vastly varied. This shows how one can make their own future despite their past.
5 stars
ARC copy received from Net Galley. All opinions are my own.
