A Summer to Die

A BOOK REVIEW OF LOIS LOWRY’S A SUMMER TO DIE

“All things must come to an end so while life is still there, live the best of it.”

That is one thing that I have realized after reading Lois Lowry’s first novel, A Summer to Die. Lowry is an American author of children’s literature but some of her books interests young adults as well. Her trilogy for The Giver, Gathering Blue, and The Messenger is one of my personal favorites.
As an author, she has her own way of embedding controversial subjects into her stories for children. She can freely tackle issues of racism and murder with the use of her wordplay and by weaving beautiful stories. And for this, she got both praise and criticism. But I for one am a big fan of her. She is creative and open-minded. She can tell us lessons through her creative form of writing and she can make us realize complex matters with the use of her simple words and children stories. She is pretty much comparable to the great Walt Disney. 
A Summer to Die is a chronicles a year in the lives of sisters Meg and Molly Chalmers. The younger, Meg Chalmers, is the protagonist and the narrator in the story. Molly is pretty much perfect. With the perfect face, body, and hair, Meg is very jealous of her. Their father is a writer and a professor. And since their dad has a big book to finish, they had to move to the country so that their father can have solitary confinement. Here, the sisters share a room and meet lots of interesting characters.
Like most sisters do, Meg and Molly usually quarrel over the simplest of things but they soon get over it and meet the owner of the house they are renting who lives in a smaller house in the same property, Will Banks. Banks is already old yet he became a very good friend of the two sisters. He learns about photography with Meg and teaches the two sisters about wildflowers and even compares the two to the flowers.
A few months after starting to live in the country Molly starts to become very irritable and starts to have frequent nosebleeds. She was later on diagnosed with leukemia. She started having treatments after this and seems to recover slightly.
Later on, a couple arrives to add to the bunch and they are Ben Brady and the pregnant Maria Abbott. The townspeople seemed to have a misconception about the two—that they are not married and are drug addicts. It will be later on known by Meg that the reason why Maria has not changed her last name is that she believes that she became known with that name and that she has to carry it with her forever. The couple are very deep people and has a very nice, although different, insight about life.
In the end, Molly died but Ben and Maria later on had their child born. Banks improved himself with photography and even had an exhibit. Here, he declared his masterpiece being the picture of Meg. Banks was able to capture the beauty of the insecure sister. The book is simply fantastic.
A Summer to Die is a very heart-warming book. It tells us a multitude about the lessons of life. And although it is mainly about how we should value life, Lowry was able to embed other values as well in the stories of the lives of the other characters.
This being her first novel, she got me amazed and I would have to give this book 3 stars out of 5. The book is heart-wrenching, yes. It will get you emotionally attached, yes. The only problem is that it lacks consistency. At the first part of the book, you would really get hooked. The weaving of the words were exceptionally good, she accurately described the characters and the setting around them, and the matching of words were very great. But when it comes to the latter part, it would seem like it was being rushed and the first thought that came to my mind when I finished reading it was, “Wow, ang ganda nung book kaso bitin. Parang, minadali.”
I am a big fan of Lois Lowry and I really like this book. That was the only flaw I’ve noticed. And still, I think that A Summer to Die is really a must-read. It will make you realize things that you haven’t realized before. Also, it will really make you value our life even more. It is a truly exceptional story, the type that only Lois Lowry could tell.

Venus Dimaculangan Banaag
IV – Sir Isaac Newton