Last summer, Gottie Oppenheimer’s life changed forever. Her grandfather, Grey, passed away and her boyfriend left her. But this summer everything is changing again. She finds herself travelling through wormholes to re-live past memories, even her most heartbreaking moments. Putting her love of maths and physics to critical use, Gottie starts to uncover the exact reason why these flashbacks are happening when new memories start to form along the way.
This novel is very unique but it took me a while to really get into it considering the abstract concept. Even though it was quite confusing, it was still very addictive. Everything was explained very well and you could get the gist of what Gottie was talking about while musing over the complicated parts or even just sit back in awe of them.
The flashbacks helped separate and flatten the story out making it not too complex so that readers didn’t have to trudge through the plot. You start to uncover events at the same time Gottie does which makes you instantly connect with her. I loved the vivid descriptions as it puts the reader into the novel without them having to do much work.
The Square Root of Summer evoked various emotions in me and the characters were very realistic, I found myself rooting for some of them. There must have been a lot of research put into this book and I admire Hapgood for that. It is so idiosyncratic that it really becomes set apart from other YA books.
A firm 4/5 - quite perplexing at first, but is extraordinary once you stick with it.
- Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop