Summer and July

Capturing the urgency and intensity of middle-school friendships, Mosier’s (Echo’s Sister) affecting third novel is a summer romance of sorts, with a golden-haired surfer girl named Summer at its center. The narrator, 12-year-old Michigan mall rat Juillet, channels frustration about her parents’ recent divorce through goth makeup and a collection of phobias. Her overworked ER doctor mother thinks a monthlong trip to California will reinvigorate her daughter, even though she herself spends most of the trip working. Summer is quick to make Juillet her bestie, and the two slowly open up about recent traumas in their respective lives. If Mosier’s take on Santa Monica surf culture reads as over-the-top at times, what he gets right is more important: the thin, confusing line between best buddy and queer crush; the simultaneous need for independence and parental presence; and the ways that adolescent identity is a dance between frustration and buoyancy that can reveal itself in friendship. Ages 8–12. [em]Agent: Wendy Schmalz, Wendy Schmalz Agency. (June) [/em]