Invincible Summer

Gr 10 Up—Invincible Summer follows Chase McGill and his family across four summers at their beach house. Summer is everything to Chase and his older brother, Noah. The family is all together: arguing parents; preteen sister, Claudia; younger, deaf brother Gideon. Noah has already started yearly romantic trysts with neighbor Melinda, and Chase expects to someday end up with her sister. As the summers go by, a baby is born, the parents split up, Noah slips away by himself, Gideon starts to embrace sign language, and Chase begins a sexual relationship with Melinda despite her ongoing physical relationship with Noah. It's clear that the author cares deeply about her characters, and she gives their lines density and, frequently, a heavy nostalgic feeling. Teens will welcome the unfiltered dialogue that includes a moderate amount of curse words. Chase is a sympathetic protagonist who, like many teens, is on a quest for connection and understanding. Sometimes his overanalyzing comes off as a little pretentious, most notably in the Albert Camus-quoting contest he takes part in with Noah and Melinda. Readers will likely glaze over at certain plot elements, but they'll ultimately embrace Moskowitz's introspective characters and the dramatic situations in which they find themselves.—Emily Chornomaz, Camden County Library System, Camden, NJ