Summer

Gabriela

Summer

-Edith Wharton

When I first started reading Summer I was looking for a typical love story, and I was glad that it didn't sort of turn out that way. In the beginning I was just waiting for something to happen, it was a little boring. However, as I read on the book grew more and more interesting. If I could ask the author a few questions I would ask him why did he want that ending? All of a sudden the happy couple is the two people who hated each other throughout the whole story, and he never mentioned what happened to Charity and Lucius' baby. Also, Why was the book called Summer? Other than the season this book took place in, did it have anything to do with the characters, or the plot?

The main character is Charity Royall, she was 'brought down from the mountain' by Mr. Royall, and he has been her guardian and rival ever since. In the story Charity meets a young man, Lucius Harney, who she falls madly in love with. He ends up leaving promising her he will come back and marry her, right before she finds out he is the father to the baby in her womb. However Charity finds out that Lucius is engaged and is about to marry another women so without telling him the truth she tells him to marry her, and she escapes to the mountain where she always thought she belonged. Mr.Royall came for her the next morning after her mother's death, and took her to the city so they could be wed, despite how much she thought she hated him she saw all the good he brought her. Charity learned that true love, could be where she never thought to ever look. She learned that the mountain was no place for her, and she knows why he mother didn't want her to live up there. I learned that in order to find true love you need to know someone who will always secure you and be around, not someone who will have another women on the side, and promise to end it for you. Also never get pregnant with a man you're not married to first, to save all the awkwardness from your new husband.

The theme of this story is true love, and summer romance. In my life there is no true love, being that I'm only fourteen, but I know about summer romances. You get close to one or a few people and forget about the ones who you already are close to. Then when the summer is over, you find yourself back with the people you loved before the summer started, and the people you loved for those long months are gone, and never again back in your life. Being a girl, I have read numerous books about true love, which is why I knew I'd enjoy reading this novel. Summer, reminds me of a novel I read called Summer Boys, because one girl finds herself with another guy, and ends up going back to her best guy friend who she had known for many years. They're not exactly the same, but they remind me of one another.

“Their eyes met, and something rose in his that she had never there: a look that made her feel ashamed and yet secure.”

“ I guess your good, too,” she sad, shyly and quickly. He smiled without answering, and they went out of the room together and dropped down to the hall in the glittering lift.” Page 229.

I picked this quote to be the most important quote in this novel because it was the only time you read Mr. Royall and Charity truly enjoying each other's company. Now Charity is Mrs. Royall, Mr. Royall isn't drunk and mad, Lucius Harney isn't on Mrs. Royall's mind, and they are having a conversation at the dinner table. It wrapped up the love story no one was expecting to end that way. I loved how Charity opened up to him, even though Mr. Royall could act like such a jerk to her at times, but