BOOK: The Summer Remains by Seth King

A scar is a mark left on the skin or within the body tissue where a wound has not healed completely. 


At its core The Summer Remains by Seth King is a book about scars -- physical scars and emotional scars, the scars on the surface and below, scars that define us and scars that we live in spite of. And in this book you’ll find a story of summer love.

Summer Martin Johnson is a deeply logical and rational twenty-four-year-old who is running out of time. She has scars -- some were bestowed upon her at birth, some were created by the hands of healers, some were unintentional and other intentional, some were made by those closest to her and some by strangers, and some were of her own making -- but in spite of all her scars, Summer is determined to find love before it’s too late.

Cooper Nichols is a handsome sun-kissed twenty-five-year-old with a shy smile, sparkling eyes and messy brown hair. One night he stumbles across an odd profile on a social media dating app, “Come dislike the world with me” she wrote. Just like that Cooper enters Summer’s life with the swipe of a finger on a ‘four-inch piece of glass and metal’. However, don’t get the wrong idea. Cooper is not a knight in shining armor, he is only a man with scars of his own.

If you take a closer look at all the character in this book you will see that everyone carries their own scars -- some more obvious than others. (I’ll leave it up to you, a fellow reader, to decide what they are.) Beyond that, what struck me about these characters is that they felt like real people. With all their flaws, scars, and baggage I couldn’t help but feel the humanity. Each character, no matter how small, had a unique voice and more importantly had heart. Too often in a book you’ll find supporting characters without personal motivation or worse without feeling. I knew instantly (well… maybe not always instantly, but soon after) who these people were and why they talked, walked and acted the way they did -- even if Summer couldn’t see it herself.

Now let’s get back to the love story and I’m going to attempt to not ruin it for you.

Summer found it hard to believe someone like Cooper could even be interested in her. Sitting in front of her was someone so seemingly perfect, handsome, and strong that she couldn’t get past her own insecurities to imagine it was possible. The truth was, Copper saw beyond her scars. He thought she was beautiful, smart, funny, kind and thoughtful. He wasn’t about to let her push him away because she couldn’t see the truth.

As their affections for each other blossomed, they are able to learn more about each other’s lives and share with one another some of the misfortunes they had experienced. If we're being honest… we all have things in our past that affect the people we are today, but that shouldn't stop us from being loved or accepting love. As these characters find themselves drawn together in the humid summer heat of northern Florida, there love is tested in a profound way. Summer is running out of time and eventually everyone knows it.

Now, I could have said this book is about loss and grief and death and all the things that come with a book about a terminally ill character, but you know what… this book is about more than that! This book should be celebrated! Life is meant to be lived and Summer wasn’t going down without a fight. She was brave and honest enough to say to the universe, I deserve love and I deserve to live all the days of my life without restraint as long as I can. Everyone carries their own scars and we shouldn't discount ourselves because of them.

We all have people in our lives we can’t imagine life without. The one certainty we have in life is that one day it will end. It’s not always fair, it’s not always expected and it’s not always peaceful. We owe it to those who have left us behind to love one another in their stead and hold them in our hearts forever.

Simply put... this book is beautiful. This book is heartbreaking. This book is love.

You will read this book with a heavy heart, as it should be. You will read this book knowing that happily-ever-after is often only found in fairy tales. You will read this book knowing that tears will soon fall. Most importantly, you will leave this book knowing that life is good, life is hard, and you deserve love no matter the outcome and no matter the scars you bare.

Some Favorite Quotes

"...sometimes you just gotta jump, and then make your parachute on the way down." 

"Isn't it weird to think that every random person you see, ever stranger you pass on the street or whatever every single day, is their own person with their own life and problems and hopes and dreams and heartbreaks and defeats and triumphs, none of which have anything to do with you?" 

"Life is supposed to be hard. If your life is too easy, that means you're doing it wrong." 

"... these days I was pretty sure it meant accepting that the concept of adulthood didn't even really exist at all, and that everyone you'd looked up to as a child had just been elegantly faking it" 

"I enjoy reading words that attacked my soul and made me question everything I thought I knew about the world" 

"The truth means nothing if the lie is pretty enough." 

"Our culture forced perfection on you and then told you you weren't prefect enough once you attained it" 

"If eyes were windows into the soul, books were rabbit holes into the imagination." 

"Maybe the whole world is made of love, and we're just supposed to bump into love and feed off love and contribute to love and then break off and drift somewhere else and start all over again." 

"We were soul mates, this boy on the cusp of forever, this girl on the edge of oblivion."

More About This Author and His Books

This is my second Seth King book and what I have found so special about his writing is how quotable it is and that he is never without words. Just when you think you’ve heard enough about one idea he finds a new way to revisit it, describe it and make you experience it again. It never feels forced, it just feels like an amazing extension of the same idea -- a new revelation. Whether he’s writing about characters in love or overtaken by grief, King can finds the words to satisfy the emotion, move passed the obvious and give you more. His books should be read more than once to fully appreciate this aspect of his writing. When I look back at what I've read I find new favorite quotes every time!

Also, I hope in some way The Summer Remains has brought healing to the author and his family. The spirit if his brother lives on in the pages of this book and a little piece of that love is being shared with the world through the story of Summer and Cooper. We are all adrift in this life and the best we can do is continue to “float on”.

Song Dedication

Unlike my last Seth King book experience, I couldn’t come up with a soundtrack for The Summer Remains. Honestly, this book should have a soundtrack full of Saviour songs. So instead I choose to share the song that pops in my head every time I read the words “float on”.

"Float On" by Clones of Clones (Modest Mouse Cover)

If I was true to the spirit of this book, you wouldn't have just read this post. Go read The Summer Remains to find out why! And once you have, let me know your thought on this book in the comment section down below!