Before talking about This One Summer‘s story, I think it’s obvious from the cover alone that the art is what stands out. This isn’t a full-colored graphic novel, nor is it rendered only in black and white. It’s done entirely in blue ink on a cream, rather than stark white, background.
The choices made in color and art set a tone that’s both nostalgic and present. This book feels like it’s happening in the moment, but it also feels slightly removed, slightly different because it’s in a moment between the comforts of the past and the changes coming in the future.
Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki are the cousin team behind This One Summer, a graphic novel that could easily be categorized on the more literary end of graphic novels, if such a designation exists (I think it does). Every summer, Rose and her parents go to a lake house they own on Awago Beach. It’s an opportunity for all of them to unwind after a long, hard year.
Every year, Rose looks forward to the trip, as it’s an opportunity to spend every waking moment doing exactly what it is she wants to do. She loves reuniting with Windy, a girl who is a little younger than her but who seems almost like the little sister that Rose never had. Both girls are young — Rose barely a teenager and Windy even younger than her — but it’s because of their being on the young end of the spectrum that the story unfolds as being about what it means to transition from a place of innocence and naivety to one of knowing that the world isn’t all summer vacations at the beach house.
The relationship between Windy and Rose was easily the most interesting element of the story for me. Rose is much more mature than Windy is, but Windy is much more adventurous. Rose is definitely more self-conscious than Windy is, who has no shame nor reason to be shamed for how she chooses to dress, how she chooses to dance, and how she chooses to express herself. She’s not worried about the impression she leaves; Rose, on the other hand, is definitely more aware of how other people perceive her and is more tucked in because of that.
From the start of the vacation, things aren’t great at Rose’s place. Her mom and dad are constantly fighting. Rose seeks a lot of solace in spending time with Windy to get away from it. The two of them, being on the cusp of huge changes, find themselves intrigued by those who live in Awago Beach year-round and who have lives that look so different than the ones they’re used to.
It’s interesting to see the lives of the year round residents contrasted against the girls there for the summer. One of the biggest emerging themes in the story is that of sexuality — both Windy and Rose are on the verge of discovering their own sexuality, and Windy in particular finds herself fascinated with other people’s choices when it comes to expressing their desire (she mentions, as seen in the page on the right, that her aunt is a lesbian, and this is a theme that comes up more than once in the story). The summer is representative of the girls discovering what it is that the year round teens have found to be both exciting and hugely complicated and troublesome: sex.
Roe and Windy are at the point where it’s easiest to make judgments and comments about sex than to really understand the complexity of it. Girls can be put into categories — slutty or not — without much thought as to what that sort of labeling may mean nor how those labels became so easy to use. They’re not aware of how much they’ve picked up and absorbed from the world around them, and they’re unaware of their own voices or points of view.
What’s “in the moment” for Rose and Windy is the reality of the year round teens. They’re on the verge of discovery, and it’s exciting. Their curiosity is piqued and they pursue it, to the point of meddling perhaps a little too much into the lives of the teens who they don’t know. Those teens, on the other hand, are well into their adolescence and are grappling now not with the excitement nor point of discovery; they’re working through the consequences of the decisions they’ve made.
I haven’t touched too much on the story of Rose’s family, but it parallels the changes going on in Rose’s life well. The dynamics of their family are shifting because Rose’s mother is facing serious questions about what she’s doing with her own life and what is to come for her. Rather than adulthood being depicted as an endpoint in This One Summer, it’s instead a continuum that’s regularly shifting. While adolescence is a tumultuous period of time, so, too, is adulthood. Even when everything seems like it’s stable and people have everything figured out, that’s not the truth. There are always hurdles that pop up, and there are changes which pop up that are positive and that are terrifying, even for the most “together” adults.
At times, the book felt a little too conscious of what it was doing. Perhaps because I’m reading it as an adult who gets what strings are being pulled — this is a book about having one’s illusions and beliefs and security rattled and shattered — I didn’t feel like Rose nor Windy got to do enough of the doing in the story, as much as the story did more of the doing for them. Fortunately, because I enjoyed the story and the art especially, this didn’t kill the book for me. I saw the hand, but I was able to ignore it enough to still enjoy.
This One Summer is about growing up and about all of the variations of “growing up” exist. It’s about being on the verge of discovery and having the safety and comfort of childhood rattled by the reality of a world beyond the bubble. It’s about coming to understand that what you thought you knew and understood aren’t the things you might actually know or understand. This is a book that has appeal for teen readers, but I think this is a graphic novel that adult readers might walk away from with more, simply because there’s a level of appreciating that moment teens may or may not have yet experienced.
Review copy received from the publisher. This One Summer is available now.
