Its a life altering book. I've never read anything like it. It was suspense,drama,but also the way to connect with the reader.

As someone who identities as asexual and who has suffered quite recent grief, I knew that it seemed like the right time to read this story and I was so happy that I did. The story touched me in such a specfic way especially regarding grief. There were some many quotes that I wanted to highlight and that I related to so much. I also liked Remi's development throughout the book as it was linear and the relationships she developed through the book. The asexuality was also really well done and I related a lot to it especially the aromatic elements. There were so many bits that I loved and I think it will have a place of my favourites this year!

I will not be giving feedback on this book as I couldn’t really get into it but I think others may enjoy it.

This book was...A Lot of pain and grief. Which i expected. And it was also beautifully written. Which, in that respect, exceeded my expectations.

Read April 2021.

Rumi is struggling to cope following the death of her sister, Lea, in a car accident, the apparent disappearance of her mother and a forced excursion to Hawaii to stay with her aunt for the summer. When she arrives she's grieving, angry with the world - her mother in particular who she feels favoured Lea - and has lost her passion for the music that she shared with her sister, culminating in a final unfinished song.

This was a beautiful story about grief and how it can colour the memories of the lost person. I loved the variety of characters that Rumi met in Hawaii, Kai was adorable! And Mr. Watanabe was a hell of a character! I loved the lack of romantic entaglements, seeing Rumi figure out her identity and being OK with a lack of interest in dating was reallly refreshing and great representation,

I especially loved Rumi's growth as a character, I felt like she really matured and learned to open up. The way she repaired her relationship with her mum was beautiful, they both did wrong, admitted it, learned from it and grew as people.

Akemi has a beautiful, lyrical writing style with brilliant description. The Hawaiian accent in writing took a couple of chapters to get used to but it was in no way extreme, not like the Yorkshire dialect in 'The Secret Garden'.

I am sorry for the inconvenience but I don’t have the time to read this anymore and have lost interest in this genre. In the past year my reading taste has changed a lot and I no longer enjoy YA contemporary unless it's from a few select authors. Because of this I believe that it would benefit your book more if I did not read and review this book as someone who is already disinterested in the genre, and instead let the reviews of people who do like this genre speak for the book instead. Again, I am sorry for the inconvenience.

Unfortunately I had to purchase a new Kindle device and could no longer access this book. I will come back and review if I read this in the future.

a heart breaking story of loss and grief and how even in the worst situation light can be found. i loved the beautiful prose of the book and the way it managed to encapsulate such a strong message while also not feeling like it was too strong.

Thanks to Ink Road for sending me a copy of this book!

Content warnings: death of a sister, grief, depression, violence, aphobia

I’d been meaning to read Starfish for a while but just hadn’t gotten around to it when I contacted Ink Road for a copy of Summer Bird Blue (I have since read it), but all I’d heard was great things and I was really interested to read Summer Bird Blue.

Rumi doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life, but she does know she wants to spend most of her time with her sister, Lea, writing music. Then Lea dies in a big car accident. Rumi’s mother sends her to Hawaii to live with her aunt whilst she deals with her own grief. Rumi spends the summer trying to write the song her and Lea had been working on, whilst working through the grief of losing her sister and being abandoned by her mother.

I’ve mentioned it before, but when I was younger I lost my 2 sisters. I was only 5 & 7 when the deaths happened but of course they’ve had a huge effect on my life. Losing them has caused me to go through serious bouts of depression and I can get triggered by death in the media I consume. However as I knew this book would feature the death of a sister I went in expecting it to resonate with me instead of trigger me, and that was what happened.

I spent a lot of the first half of this novel crying, not full on sobbing, but every so often I would just find tears on my cheeks. There were so many parts that I SERIOUSLY related to, and I found it so incredibly cathartic. I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel about the loss of a sister because they scare me, quite frankly, but Akemi dealt with it in such a sensitive way and she really captured the things you go through when dealing with that loss. I don’t think I’ve read grief written in such an angry way, a lot of the time it’s just sadness. I’m still angry about my sisters. Not at anyone specifically, just angry at the world.I’ve seen a few people say that Rumi isn’t likeable, but let me just say that when you are dealing with such a heavy loss you are not going to be likeable, that’s the point.

Anyway, onto the other parts of the book.

I really liked all the characters, they all had their own individualities and felt distinct from each other. I loved that Rumi found that she could go to her elderly neighbour’s house and just hang out instead of having to deal with the way her aunt seemed to be wanting to counsel her. Each character in a way helped Rumi work through her pain. Mr Watanabe offered her a place of solitude, Kai gave her an environment where she could just chill out and be a teenager, and her aunt gave her the patience she needed to work through her pain.

Whilst Rumi is dealing with the loss of her sister she’s also trying to come to terms with her sexuality and throughout the course of the novel she begins to realise that she is asexual (and likely aromantic as well) and that comes with a whole other bunch of difficulties to add to her plate. I’m not ace, so obviously I can’t speak on whether the representation was accurate but I felt like it was dealt with respectfully.

The way Akemi writes is so rich, I felt like I could imagine the settings perfectly, and it desperately made me want to go to Hawaii. Her style isn’t overly flowery but it also isn’t straight to the point and it was really easy to read.

Honestly, I’m crying writing this review because I’m just thinking about how I felt when I read it. A novel has never made me feel like this one did. Unless you’ve been through a loss like this I don’t think you could understand what it’s like, and I hope you, reader, never have to deal with that pain, but this novel does a very good job of presenting it in a way to show people what it is like. Please, if you can, read this book.

Summer Bird Blue was one of the best representations of grief on the page I've ever read. The first chapter actually killed me, and i didn't think I'd be able to live with Rumi's sadness at the loss of her sister. But, I loved how the journey to recovering, and learning that she can feel happy again, was rough and not always directed forwards. Rumi was difficult and angry, as well as impossibly sad, which made it all the more rewarding when she's finally able to live for herself, rather than her sister.

The Hawaii setting and the people Rumi mets there - shout out to her cranky neighbour that may be entirely responsible for making her a functioning human being with his tough love - were just great. I loved the community feel, and how they all cared about what she was going through, knowing exactly when to give grace and when to fight back.

The writing itself was beautiful and I loved the idea of Rumi and Lea's word association songs. But, probably the thing I loved most was the romance - or lack of it! Rumi is on the ace spectrum and finding this kind of rep is like looking for diamonds in a coal mine. I was so overjoyed to feel so seen through Rumi's experience. I hope the author knows how invaluable that kind of rep is.

This book is so sadddddddddddd 😭😭😭

But like it's also really good!!

Idk what it is about the writing style but it's just SO BEAUTIFUL!!! And it made the story feel even more meaningful.

I'm really struggling to express what I'm feeling about this book because it was just so heartbreakingly beautiful, but I would definitely recommend giving it a read!!

Title: Summer Bird Blue
Author: Akemi Dawn Bowman
Rating: 3.5/5★
( blog review up and coming soon! )

Thank you to the publisher for sending me this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This story at its core is about grief. It’s harsh and filled with raw emotional turmoil. And more importantly its about letting people in and accepting help without it meaning “forgetting” the person we lost.

Not everyone is "nice” or even likeable in this book sometimes but they're complex and it’s a far more realistic view into human beings. I loved how contrasting the sisters were to each other. Their differences mostly bridged by love and music.

One thing I absolutely loved was the exploration of questioning, aromantic, and asexual identities beyond the terminology and labels. Not everyone fits into neat square boxes — it’s actually okay not to be completely sure of your feelings, and this book has that message for all who needs it.

Representation: #OwnVoices for ace rep; biracial Hawaiian-Japanese/white MC; the entire cast consists of PoC. I believe The Hawaiian locals also primarily speak Hawaiian pidgin English, which added an incredible touch to the story, especially after having learned that Akemi Dawn Bowman learned to speak it from her own father.

Unfortunately I am very disappointed by this book. I expected it to be a 5* read after Bowman's last book, but this fell short. I found Rumi to be thoroughly unlikeable and there was little to no character redemption, and all of the secondary characters felt flat. There wasn't nearly enough going on except for Rumi's thoughts and exposition, which wasn't interesting enough to sustain the book

This is a book about loss, grief, pain and trying to find your place in the world. It was excruciatingly authentic and raw and I am so grateful to have a book show the dark and unpleasant complexities of death and mourning. In the same vein, the main character, Rumi, was angry, rude and jealous but it is for these reasons that she felt human and real. Watching her struggle with herself and with others was heartbreaking but also inspiring when she began to let others in and let herself move on. In addition to this, the aro/ace representation was superbly done. It was never treated as something to fix or change, it was just something to be accepted.

Summer Bird Blue will rip your heart out of your chest but it will also heal the wound, in such a beautiful and tender way that you'll be glad you picked it up.

This was beautiful. Summer Bird Blue is an emotional yet heartwarming contemporary novel about a girl trying to find her way back to music in the aftermath of her sister's death. Sent to Hawaii by her mother and alone in the grieving process, Rumi's journey intertwines past memories with her present, leading her to a friendship with the cheerful Kai and the grumpy and still grieving elderly neighbour Mr Watanabe, who unknowingly help her navigate her loss.

The intense experience of losing someone is difficult to process, but Akemi Dawn Bowman writes it faultlessly. Rumi struggles to find meaning and purpose in life after losing Lea, but over the course of the novel, she learns to heal through the very thing that brought them together: music.

The Aromantic Asexual representation in this book is wonderful, with Rumi slowly learning to understand her identity throughout the course of the story. What felt so important about this story was that even though Rumi doesn't experience romantic or sexual love, there is so much love in her heart. For her friends. For her sister. For music. This book tears apart every negative stereotype about people on the ace spectrum, whilst also exploring the struggle that is coming to terms with that identity. Alice Oseman writes a perfect review regarding this. We need more stories like this. Young people need to feel validated by seeing themselves on the page.

Another powerful and poignant story by Akemi Dawn Bowman. Like her debut novel, Starfish, Summer Bird Blue is about looking to the future with hope, even when the present feels bleak.


Diversity note: Rumi is multiracial (Japanese, Hawaiian, and white) and Aromantic Asexual

Warnings: car accident, death, grief, loss

I really wanted to love this book and I've been highly anticipating it for ages. Sadly, I found it quite repetitive and slow. It wasn't as unique as I thought it would be and somewhere between the writing and the story, I couldn't connect to this book. Not for me!

Well, that was a surprise, I'd seen so many four or five star reviews for this book that even after my indifference towards Starfish I thought it was worth giving a go. But nope, not a fan unfortunately! I was also so excited that the main character was described as asexual and questioning being on the aromantic spectrum, but to me the rep wasn't good enough.

The first 100 pages were dull to say the least, there was a huge lack of direction and the MC was repeating herself constantly. I do admit I can never connect with books about grief, a story about a character with a terminal illness will tear me apart due to personal experience. But a story beginning with grief, always leaves me feeling like I've missed something. We all grieve differently and maybe the way I've read about in books is just too different to myself, who knows?!

Once the first 100 pages were over the story finally picked up, we began to read about Rumi questioning her sexuality and the fact that she didn't feel crushes and wasn't attracted to anyone. Now I was excited to finally read about a relatable asexual character, but then the stereotypes crept in. Rumi was described as having a cold personality, especially in comparison to her flirty & excitable younger sister. Rumi often remarked that she knew she was also harder to love than her sister, and that her 'cold' personality obviously meant she was exactly like her father who walked out on the family. Asexual people aren't incapable of affection or love, but that's the impression this book gave me which really annoyed me.

At times there were some decent and relatable parts such as the discussion of not having crushes, and an interesting first date! But these scenes were few and far between. My dislike of Rumi was also a reason I didn't connect with the story, she was such an angry and jealous character, even as a young girl she was so spiteful towards her younger sister, I just couldn't like her in any way.

The song writing, the elderly neighbour Mr Watanabe and his dog Poi and the beautiful Hawaiian setting were the only positive elements to this story. The side characters were interesting but we learnt so little about them as the story was focused on Remi's inner thoughts and her grief. I would have loved to see a relationship develop between Remi and her Aunt, but Remi either shouted at her or his herself in her room so there was no opportunity for a bond to grow.

I am disappointed that I didn't enjoy this novel or connect with the main character at all, I'll probably be giving ant future books by this author a miss.

I received this title from NetGalley through Ink Road Books prior to it's release in exchange for my honest review.
Summer Bird Blue was published on the 4th of April, unfortunately I was unable to get this review out until now.

My overall rating for this book is that it deserves a strong 4/5 stars. I found it both heart breaking and heart warming. For the majority of my reading experience I was completely wrapped up in the story. In my opinion there are only two downfalls to this book, and even then they are minor and did not affect my general enjoyment.

To be clear, this review may contain thoughts and opinions that talk about spoiler-ish material. I will do my best to keep it spoiler free.

Rumi is the protagonist of the story. She spends her time writing and playing music with her younger sister, Lea. In the beginning of the story they are involved in a serious car accident that results in her younger sister dying. After the accident Lea is sent to Hawaii to stay with her Aunt Ani and is left feeling betrayed by her mother. This is where she meets and develops friendships with her Aunt's neighbours - Kai and Mr. Watanabe - who attempt to help her come to terms with everything that has happened.

3.5 stars

When Rumi's sister dies in a car accident and her mother sends her to Hawaii to stay with her aunt, Rumi is left feeling abandoned and unwanted.
Rumi's sister, Lea, was her best friend, her song co-writer, and her entire world. Surrounded by strangers and struggling with her grief and guilt, will Rumi be able to make friends and move on?
Can Rumi forgive her mother and herself?

Summer Bird Blue is an emotional, heart-wrenching read.
I thought Rumi was a good protagonist. I liked that she wasn't perfect - she could be rude and fought with Lea, but she loved her with all her heart. I felt so sorry for Rumi for all she had been through.
I liked a lot of the characters in this book and at times I wished that I could be at Hawaii with them, even if just to give Rumi a hug.
My favourite part of the book has to be Rumi's relationship with her aunt's neighbour, Mr. Watanabe. But I also loved Rumi's characterisation and how well the author explained Rumi's thoughts and how grief affected her.
The plot was interesting and held my attention. I liked that there was asexual representation.
This was an emotional, heart-felt read that had me in tears at times.

Overall this was an enjoyable read that I would recommend.

I don't read that much YA contemporary fiction, so this was a wee step out of my comfort zone, but I'm so glad I took the step.

This novel is simply incredible. The diverse representation is so important, the main character Rumi is mixed race; white and Hawaiian/Japanese, and the novel is set in Hawaii with a group of characters who are natives to Hawaii. Rumi is also questioning/exploring her sexuality, and is exploring identifying (albeit loosely) as asexual. This is one of only a handful of YA novels I know of that feature asexuality, but don't try to "cure" it or have the character have a relationship with another character, instead letting Rumi explore and question as much as she wants, and have the other characters fully accept her.

The novel's main theme is bereavement, Rumi is dealing with the loss of her sister and best friend during this novel. A word of warning: this novel is pretty heavy, the way the author writes about grief is incredible, but if you weren't in a great place mentally while reading it, it could be quite affecting, so please bare this in mind when deciding whether to pick the book up or not.

But the novel itself is brilliant. It is full of so much feeling and heart and grief and how Rumi comes to terms with her feelings, and how to keep your identity after heartbreak and allow yourself to consider personal growth. Bowman writes everything with so much depth and heart, it's a novel that is well worth reading.

The rest of the characters are very well-developed and written too. Kai is such a likeable guy, he is a source of light and humour in the novel, which beautifully contrasts with Rumi and how she is feeling, and stops the novel from being too dark to read in its entirety. He does make Rumi seem even more unlikeable, but I enjoyed this element to her character. I didn't like her, but I did sympathise with her, and although I disagreed with a lot of her decisions, I could understand why she acted the way she did.

Overall I really enjoyed this novel. Even though it was a heavy, emotional read which dealt with some serious and emotional issues, I highly recommend it!