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Last Summer

Last Summer

Regular price $ 85.00 MXN
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Jane Patterson Always Felt Lucky To Work From Home In Yorktide, Maine, Next Door To Her Best Friend, Frannie Giroux, And Her Daughter Rosie's Inseparable Friend Meg. But In The Girls' Freshman Year Of High School, Rosie Suffers An Emotional Breakdown Due To Bullying. Blaming Both Meg And Frannie, Jane Tries To Help Rosie Heal While Dealing With Her Own Guilt And Anger.

Author : Holly Chamberlin

Publisher : Kensington

Published Year : 2012

Format : Paperback, 336 pages

Language : English

Dimensions : 5.50 (w) x 8.20 (h) x 1.00 (d)

ISBN : 0758235089

ISBN13 : 9780758235084


Overview :

Holly Chamberlin, bestselling author of The Family Beach House and Summer Friends, weaves a powerful and heartfelt story of the bond between mothers and daughters, and the resilience of true friendship…

The town of Yorktide, close to Maine’s beautiful beaches and the city of Portland, seems like the perfect place to raise a family. For Jane Patterson, there’s another advantage: her best friend, Frannie Giroux, lives next door, and their teenaged daughters, Rosie and Meg, are inseparable. But in the girls’ freshman year of high school, everything changes.

Jane always felt lucky that she was able to work from home, to be there to nurture and protect Rosie. But has she been too protective? Rosie—quiet, shy, and also very pretty—attracts the sneers and slights of a clique of older girls. Over time, the bullying worsens. When Meg betrays their friendship, fearful that she too will be targeted, Rosie suffers an emotional breakdown.

Blaming both Meg and Frannie, Jane tries to help Rosie heal while dealing with her own guilt and anger. In the months that follow, each struggles with the ideas of forgiveness and compassion, of knowing when a friendship has been shattered beyond repair—and when hope can be salvaged, one small moment at a time…

Praise for the novels of Holly Chamberlin

“Nostalgia over real-life friendships lost and regained pulls readers into the story.” –USA Today on Summer Friends

”An honest, forceful novel about love, family, and sacrifice.” --Booklist on One Week in December

“It does the trick as a beach book and provides a touristy taste of Maine’s seasonal attractions.” --Publishers Weekly on The Family Beach House

A letter from Holly Chamberlin

Inspiration for LAST SUMMER

Young people committing suicide because they were the target of bullying and simply couldn't stand the awful emotional pain any longer is rampant in the news. You would have to have been living in a cave, or have a heart made of stone not to be aware of these stories and be appalled by them, so it was an easy decision to write a book with one of the main characters suffers at the hands of bullies. The timing seemed right, and I hoped I could tell a story that might move and inspire readers.

What was challenging though was creating a unique story for a character and building a world of family, friends, and community around her. That's where I found inspiration in bits of my own personal experience. Rosie, our bullied teen, is in some ways an exaggeration of my own shy and very conscientious young self, though the particulars of her story are her own. Yes, I was bullied, but the circumstances of my bullying were far different, and less severe, than those Rosie endured. To portray her close friendship with Meg, her next-door neighbor and classmate, I drew upon memories of close friendships with my girlhood pals, people I met in first grade with who I grew into young adulthood. As for the relationship between the girls' mothers, Jane and Frannie, I drew upon the various friendships I've developed throughout my adult years, as well as on observations about friendships between women in my social network.

That said, LAST SUMMER took on a life of its own as it came about. I think a writer is always surprised to some extent by the independent spirit of the book they are writing. For all a writer's careful planning, at some point a story will surprise if not shock them.

I've already heard from several readers who found the book both true to life and ultimately uplifting, including a teacher who told me she thought LAST SUMMER should be recommended reading in her school. Another reader told me the book helped him to understand his own experiences being bullied as a child. These responses to the story have been more than gratifying, and I hope many other readers will find Rosie's journey inspiring. Not every bullying episode needs to in tragedy and the more people are aware of this frightening trend, I believe the more happy endings there are in store.

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