Hurricane Summer has had me twisting and turning about reviewing and how I felt about it. Before I start I just want to say I'm not an own-voices reviewer and a lot of Jamaican reviewers I have seen that has read this book have not liked it....Like at all. Apparently, the word bank has some definitions wrong (I don't know barely any Jamaican patois but its what my Jamaican book friends have said...) I'm going to start with my disappointments from Hurricane Summer and then move on to my appreciations of Hurricane Summer. There's a lot of triggers in Hurricane Summer so beware.

Both of Tilla's parents are supposed to be Jamaican but she can't understand any Jamaican slang, that's cap. I DON'T CARE WHAT ANYONE ELSE SAYS, it doesn't make any sense; none at all. Even talking about it right now has me frustrated. The fact that Tilla makes it seem like she had never been exposed to anything Jamaican made no sense. She would have some Jamaican influence in her life; whether it was her parents speaking, the way they cook, or the community they probably would have had in Canada. The ignorance of Tilla about everything makes no logical sense. Tilla herself was dumb, a dunce. She's 18 and attractive but she's never had male attention before, it doesn't make sense except to the plotline. Every decision she made when it came to interacting with young men around her made no sense... I felt somewhat fetishized with some of the wording throughout the book when came to certain things; it made me feel weird. The relationship with one of the young men was interesting, but at the end, she says she "sacrificed everything for him" when that was not the case. She was just dumb and let things happen to her. There was no healing from the sexual assault and it was brushed under the rug. The family dynamic was interesting. I would have liked it if it was done differently but basically, all the adults on her father's side were evil. In fact, basically everyone on her father's side of the family was evil or twisted in some way except a few of the kids but especially Andre. I'm not sure how Bromfield could balance the 'beauty of Jamaica with the evilness of the family, (I'm saying this sarcastically).'

I would say the conclusion I really did enjoy. The complex father-daughter relationship was the best part of the book for me. The part where Tilla realizes that she cannot be responsible for how her father treats them and she lets that go was so beautiful. The growth from that was good for me. I think it's important to realize that you cannot control how other people treat or feel about you. You can forgive them but you can't change their behaviour. Bromfield's writing by itself was great, the cadence and flow of the story kept it very readable.

This isn't the empowering story it's supposed to be, but the part of acceptance and realization is something I'll take. You could honestly take the Jamaican setting away and some of the patois and this book could be set anywhere.