**You can see this full review and more at Book Briefs: http://bookbriefs.net**The Square Root of Summer was an unexpected book. I am not sure why it was so unexpected because the summary certainly alludes to some kind of time jumping/shifting, but I was thinking it was more in a metaphorical sense. Like she was visiting memories in her head as a way to deal with loss, but she was really jumping back into points from her past. It was a surprising twist, and when I started reading about it, I just decided to go with it. I am not 100% sure how or why it started happening, but I was down for the journey. The other aspects of the book were as I expected, beautifully haunting and sometimes sorrowful. This is a book that deals with the loss of a loved one, and as you can tell from my interview above, I have been dealing with that as well. It is something that everyone handles differently. I loved seeing Gotti's emotional journey.

I think Harriet Reuter Hapgood did an excellent job capturing emotions and pushing them off the page and straight into your heart. When the mood strikes me, I love a good- sad read. And the mood certainly struck me while I was reading The Square Root of Summer. This book tugged on my heart strings. It is all at once a book that deals with love and loss...two very strong emotions. It is a beautifully done young adult novel. I wouldn't call this a fast paced novel by any means, but then again I don't think of grief or loss as face paced. I think those are slow and lingering emotions and I felt that pour over into the dialogue and tempo of The Square Root of Summer.

There were parts of The Square Root of Summer where I was definitely confused. There are a lot of moving parts, and at times it felt like the characters and events were all over the place, but if you just hang in there, the overall picture starts to become clearer as you read. And I think The Square Root of Summer is a book worth reading.

This review was originally posted on Book Briefs