Rumi Seto spends a lot of time worrying she doesn’t have the answers to everything. What to eat, where to go, whom to love. But there is one thing she is absolutely sure of—she wants to spend the rest of her life writing music with her younger sister, Lea.
Then Lea dies in a car accident, and her mother sends her away to live with her aunt in Hawaii while she deals with her own grief. Now thousands of miles from home, Rumi struggles to navigate the loss of her sister, being abandoned by her mother, and the absence of music in her life. With the help of the “boys next door”—a teenage surfer named Kai, who smiles too much and doesn’t take anything seriously, and an eighty-year-old named George Watanabe, who succumbed to his own grief years ago—Rumi attempts to find her way back to her music, to write the song she and Lea never had the chance to finish.
Aching, powerful, and unflinchingly honest, Summer Bird Blue explores big truths about insurmountable grief, unconditional love, and how to forgive even when it feels impossible.
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“Achingly beautiful and exquisitely crafted…An emotionally raw and utterly honest story…Akemi Dawn Bowman’s writing is lyrical and full of life. I was riveted from the first page.”
— Samira Ahmed, New York Times bestselling author
“Convincing local details and dialogue, masterful writing, and an emotionally cathartic climax make this book shine. A strikingly moving book about teenage grief.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)“Will leave readers breathless.”
— Booklist (starred review)Be the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Akemi Dawn Bowman is a critically-acclaimed author who writes across genres. She has written four stand-alone novels, as well as the Generation Misfits series. Her novels have received multiple accolades and award nominations, and her debut novel, Starfish, was a William C. Morris Award finalist. She has a BA degree in social sciences from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and currently lives in Scotland. Visit Akemi online at AkemiDawnBowman.com, or on Instagram @AkemiDawnBowman.
Em Eldridge is a professional narrator and an ACX Audible Approved producer who has narrated over twenty-five books, earning an Earphones Award from AudioFile magazine and a Voice Arts Award. She is also an award-winning filmmaker/screenwriter and accomplished classical singer and violinist.