Asian American Literature Fans

By Stephen Hong Sohn

So, I had a really conflicted reading reaction to Erin L. Schneider’s debut novel Summer of Sloane. The titular Sloane is our first person protagonist, and we’ll let B&N provide us with a summary: “Warm Hawaiian sun. Lazy beach days. Flirty texts with her boyfriend back in Seattle. These are the things seventeen-year-old Sloane McIntyre pictured when she imagined the summer she'd be spending at her mom's home in Hawaii with her twin brother, Penn. Instead, after learning an unthinkable secret about her boyfriend, Tyler, and best friend, Mick, all she has is a fractured hand and a completely shattered heart. Once she arrives in Honolulu, though, Sloane hopes that Hawaii might just be the escape she needs. With beach bonfires, old friends, exotic food, and the wonders of a waterproof cast, there's no reason Sloane shouldn't enjoy her summer. And when she meets Finn McAllister, the handsome son of a hotel magnate who doesn't always play by the rules, she knows he's the perfect distraction from everything that's so wrong back home. But it turns out a measly ocean isn't nearly enough to stop all the emails, texts, and voicemails from her ex-boyfriend and ex-best friend, desperate to explain away their betrayal. And as her casual connection with Finn grows deeper, Sloane's carefree summer might not be as easy to come by as she'd hoped. Weighing years of history with Mick and Tyler against their deception, and the delicate possibility of new love, Sloane must decide when to forgive, and when to live for herself.”

This summary is quite comprehensive, but I do have to provide some basic spoilers to fill in a major gap: Sloane’s heartbroken because her best friend Mick ended up sleeping with her boyfriend Tyler. Mick also gets pregnant on top of that and plans on keeping the baby, so Sloane’s trip to Hawaii to connect back with her mother and with her friends that live there really do provide the right kind of escape, for a time. There is a kind of compulsory heterosexuality to this young adult fiction, which can become cloying, especially given the sea change I’ve seen in this genre over the depictions of teenagers from so many different backgrounds, but Schneider’s concluding arc shifts us further away from the many romantic triangles that pop up to meditate upon questions of forgiveness, blame, and guilt.

The other element that’s central for communities here is Sloane’s complicated ethnoracial background, because she definitely identifies as a mixed ethnic individual, even as both she and her twin brother might look phenotypically white. The novel doesn’t tend to explore this angle as much as it could have because of the focus on romance and friendships, which is a bit of a bummer given the ethnic diversity found in Hawaii, so that was another element that I found to be somewhat lackluster. Nevertheless, Schneider is well aware of certain formula elements of the young adult fiction, especially with respect to romance, so there will be much for fans of this genre with respect to core themes and issues.

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Review Author: Stephen Hong Sohn
Review Editor: Leslie J. Fernandez

If you have any questions or want us to consider your book for review, please don’t hesitate to contact us via email!
Prof. Stephen Hong Sohn at ssohnucr@gmail.com
Leslie J. Fernandez, PhD Student in English, at lfern010@ucr.edu