Review of Sophistries of Summer Days

[Brett Linette]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Sophistries of Summer Days" by Jenny Lofters.]

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3 out of 4 stars

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Sophistries of Summer Days by Jenny Lofters is a novel about letting go of who you were to find who you are.

Cherrimina starts to sit under her favorite coconut tree when a city girl invades the site. Not wanting to intrude, she leaves the scene and returns home. It isn't until the city girl approaches her at a dance that she permits herself to talk to her. Just when Cherrimina gets to know the girl, she does something that makes Cherrimina question whether she knows her at all. Can we know a person who doesn't know themselves? Do we have to know someone to love them?

This story is loaded with more characters than anyone could keep track of. You'd think the abundance of characters would make it hard for any of them to stand out from the crowd. Trust me when I say that all of the characters have unique personalities. Even the extras leave a lasting impression. There's this one character whose only role in the story is to stand behind the cash register and put money into it. I kid you not when I say that she is one of the best characters in the entire book. Her character is more developed than the protagonist of the last book I read. Mind you, she's only in the story for five seconds. That's how talented the author is. She's so talented that she can detail a character in five seconds.

As detailed as the scenery gets, it's not very animated. What I mean when I say this is that the author doesn't make a point to have the characters engage with the things in the background; things are kind of just there on display. It makes the world around the characters feel more decorative than tangible. While Cherrimina lists every vegetable in the garden, she doesn't do anything with any of them. She just goes on to list more things. Why do we need a list of her family's light resources? It doesn't help that these lists tend to be exhaustive.

What's really exhaustive is the dialogue. There are times when a character will go on about something for pages. It isn't until the middle of the story that these "speeches" (for lack of a better word) become interesting; it's in the middle of the story that we know the characters well enough to take interest in what they have to say. Once I got to know the characters, I was hanging on their every word. As intriguing as every sentence came to be, one sentence that will never sit well with me is the one about the sun darkening a girl's skin so much so that she could easily pass for a man. I don't know whether this is racist or sexist. It's probably both.

All things considered, I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. It's a rich story. Along with the racism and sexism, I almost deducted a star for transphobia; when the protagonist meets a couple whose genders aren't visibly obvious, she's confused in a way that feels transphobic. Because she goes on to say something that contrasts what she said before, I want to think that she never meant what I thought she did. I'd recommend this book to those who always wanted to live on an island but never got the chance to. Here's your chance.

There's not a single error in this book. While some of the dialogue is misspelled, it's for the purpose of mimicking accents.

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Sophistries of Summer Days
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[Mbenma Esther 080]

Forgetting the past and focusing on days ahead is a good way of approaching life. Thanks for the review

[Nwadinso Michael]

From the review, the character development of this book is quite outstanding. Cherrimina is a young girl and her encounter with the city girl changes a lot of thing. I would love to read this book. Thanks for your review.

[Aisha Yakub]

For such a great number of characters, the author must have moved mountains to properly develop and bring out the uniqueness in all of them. Thank you for the review.