Review by Booklist Review
Summer, a washed-up country singer-songwriter, returns to Tumbleweed, Oklahoma, in the summer of 1997 after being abandoned by her band and her manager. She encounters Levi, who had known her when they were teens, before her life took its downward turn. When they started kindergarten, four girls decided they were destined to be best friends because of their names: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Snow. They are the Four Seasons, and after graduating from high school in 1977 they plan to attend Florida State University together and pledge as sorority sisters. But first, they are going to have the best summer of their lives. Until a graduation prank nixes their European vacation, and they end up as counselors at Camp Tumbleweed in Oklahoma, where their dreams diverge. The summer soon becomes grim when three girls are murdered at a Girl Scout camp nearby. Best-selling, Christy-winning Hauck presents a powerful inspirational tale of friendship that touches on two horrific real crimes of the 1970s and charts a rocky path to redemption and love.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The feel-good latest from Hauck (You'll Be Mine) follows four former best friends who find their way back to one another. Snow, Summer, Spring, and Autumn have been friends since kindergarten, when they met and dubbed their clique "the Seasons." The summer before college, the four fill the nearby university swimming pool with car wash soap as a prank and are sent to Camp Tumbleweed to serve as counselors to complete a community service sentence. Meanwhile, each girl is caught at a tenuous personal crossroads: Summer struggles to find her place in a family that's falling apart, Spring's hiding a pregnancy, Autumn contends with debilitating anxiety, and Snow navigates the emotional aftermath of her older brother's death. At the end of the summer, the four have a friendship-ending fight that lays bare the secrets they've been keeping. When Summer ends up back in Tumbleweed 20 years later, a friend calls the other three to return and mend things, though forgiving one another proves harder than anticipated--and will require some faith. While the four protagonists don't always feel equally developed (Summer comes across most vividly), Hauck's exploration of friendship, second chances, and faith is tender and often emotionally nuanced. It's an undeniable heartwarmer. (June)
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Review by Library Journal Review
"The Four Seasons" have been best friends their whole lives--each girl named after a different season and brought together by fate. The summer of 1977 was supposed to be their best yet, with a planned European vacation, until an impulsive prank (filling the university pool with car-wash soap) earns them a punishment of community service at a rundown Oklahoma summer camp. In the face of multiple tragedies, including a gruesome murder at a nearby Girl Scout camp, each comes of age carrying secrets. Looking back, these four creative women can still trace many of their failures and insecurities to that fateful summer. Told from the perspectives of the four teenage girls in 1977 and the same women full of regrets 20 years later, Hauck's (The Fifth Avenue Story Society) latest brings her trademark mystical encounters with the divine to a convoluted storyline. VERDICT Themes about the endurance of friendship and the ability to come home give readers plenty to think about, and those nostalgic for childhood summers will enjoy this novel.
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