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It does not store any personal data.Hi, Moneysaver readers. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. “But underneath the boring, there’s this whole other world.” In this heartfelt story, we come to see the complex lives beneath the wide-open landscape. “It’s so boring here all the time,” Lou tells King. The story has a nuanced spectrum of male characters, from Lou’s abusive ex-boyfriend Wyatt, to Dom, who has a busy and slightly secretive dating life with other men, to Maurice, who loves the farm, but also his ex-wife in the city, to King, whose gentleness eventually helps Lou confront her fears that she’s broken because of her asexuality.įerguson doesn’t sugarcoat the racism of the Canadian (and American) prairies, but offers Lou and her friends ways to respond, from their care for each other to overt acts to punish the town’s most blatant offenders. They contrast loudly, wake us up, as spring announces itself with what seem like impossible buds on trees.” The opening flavor, Red, offers both flavor and poetic meditation on the season: “When the season opens at the Michif Creamery, we start with reds. Lou’s Uncle Dom, who forages for wild ingredients, invents his own flavors, inspired by the landscape and named simply by color. As her father her delivers increasingly angry letters, Lou must also figure out what to do with her tentative feelings for King.įerguson’s debut young-adult novel holds many delights, beginning with the ice cream recipes that open each chapter. Then Lou’s mother takes off to spend the summer selling beadwork at powwows, and her uncles fail to tell her that her birth father has been released from prison. In her last summer before college, she just wants to work out at the pool and spend days at her uncles’ ice cream shack with her two best friends, King, son of a Jamaican immigrant dad, and Florence, who plots her return to Ireland to see her girlfriend. But for many years she passed as white, escaping some of the community’s most blatant racism. Many in town know her dark history, the white father who raped her Indigenous mother and was eventually sent to prison. Like an unexpected tart note swirling through a creamy, cold treat, “The Summer of Bitter and Sweet” layers the harsh truths and deep connections that thread through a Canadian prairie town.įor Metis teen Lou, who lives with her uncles and mom on a dairy farm in a mostly white community, identity is a complicated question. The Summer of Bitter and Sweet By Jen Ferguson
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