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First Summer

by Ekin Oklap

A summer of friendship and first love

Regular price $23.08 USD
Regular price $38.47 USD Sale price $23.08 USD
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AlbakiReads Editorial

A summer of friendship and first love

Over one summer at the threshold of adulthood, a teenage narrator finds an unexpected connection with Clara, the new neighbor across the street. Their days together—talking and reading in the garden—are intertwined with the fictional journeys of Nadia, a space explorer from a childhood book series the girls both cherish. That parallel gives the novel two ways of approaching the feelings taking shape: through a new relationship in the everyday world and through shared imaginative adventures. Friendship, loneliness, adolescence, and the first possibility of love anchor this coming-of-age story.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • For readers interested in coming-of-age fiction about friendship and first love.
  • For those drawn to stories that pair adolescent experience with imaginative adventures from a fictional book series.

Themes

Friendship and lonelinessAdolescence and adulthoodFirst loveShared imagination

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

"For readers who loved Call Me By Your Name." --Dua Lipa's Service95

A dreamy debut novel about the summer love that changes two girls at the edge of adulthood.

"In the heat and the green haze that seemed to surround us both like a physical presence, I felt intensely awake."

One afternoon at the start of summer, a teenage girl watches a new girl move in across the street. In Clara, she recognizes the same loneliness that she feels herself, but finds tenderness and laughter, too. Over hot, languid days spent talking and reading side by side in the garden, the narrator is awakened to the possibility of a true connection with another human being, free of the self-consciousness she feels with others.

Meanwhile, in a distant fictional galaxy, Nadia the space explorer--the protagonist of a childhood book series beloved by both girls--traverses the known universe with her companion Rosa. Their imagined adventures make sense of new and powerful feelings.

First Summer captures the innocence and agony of adolescence and the exquisite promise of love on the cusp of adulthood: a moment where fantasy is still vivid in the mind, even as adulthood looms. This story of the first summer of love echoes throughout the characters' lives and will change them forever.
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