Summer in the Land of Skin

by Jody Gehrman

After several false starts on books that just did not seem that interesting...reading 70 pages here, 50 pages there, I finally picked up the least likely from the trip to the Highland Library SITLOS by Ms. Gehrman.

I was sitting at poolside in Ohio when Joe asks "whats it about". And I said something like this (I was about 70 pages into it) Its about this girl whose father committed suicide and she sits in windows with binoculars and watches people. She them makes up stories about them and sketches their suicides in notebooks and what happens to them on 'the other side'.

Oh.

She goes looking for her fathers business partner, they hand made guitars, who may shed some light on her father who passes when she was 11 and her mother avoids the subject.

I like most the characters and I enjoyed the unfolding of the story. You knew it was going to end well, that she was going to find the link to her Dad and in succeeding ,the link to what is missing in her. Her connection to people, so undeveloped, is kicked into high gear immediately and her life goes from watching people from the safety of her window to dressing in canary yellow go-go boots.

Not much literary value here. A good poolside read and maybe the lightness I needed.