Book Review: The Square Root of Summer by Harriet Reuter Hapgood

About the Book:

Title: The Square Root of Summer

Author: Harriet Reuter Hapgood 

ISBN 13: 9781626723733

No. of Pages: 295

Publisher: PAN MACMILLAN

COPY: Review Copy.

Price: 350 INR

This is what it means to love someone. This is what it means to grieve someone. It's a little bit like a black hole. It's a little bit like infinity.

Gottie H. Oppenheimer is losing time. Literally. When the fabric of the universe around her seaside town begins to fray, she's hurtled through wormholes to her past:

To last summer, when her grandfather Grey died. To the afternoon she fell in love with Jason, who wouldn't even hold her hand at the funeral. To the day her best friend Thomas moved away and left her behind with a scar on her hand and a black hole in her memory.

Although Grey is still gone, Jason and Thomas are back, and Gottie's past, present, and future are about to collide—and someone's heart is about to be broken.

With time travel, quantum physics, and sweeping romance, The Square Root of Summer is an exponentially enthralling story about love, loss, and trying to figure it all out, from stunning debut YA voice, Harriet Reuter Hapgood.

Review

The book is a YA romance & Science-Fiction book which has certain patches of romance. Totally recommended to people who love space, black holes, time travel and everything astronomy related and of course the mathematical equations that made you love mathematics.

The book starts when nearly a year has passed since the death of Gottie’s Grandfather Grey has passed away and Jason the boy she fell in love with has stopped being there for her. She keeps blaming herself and the depression that she has drowned into. As she passes out at certain occasion without any factors other than those “Wormholes”.  But this summer her best friend, Thomas is coming back from Canada to spend the summer with her after being away for five years without ever being in contact this whole time. Throughout the summer Gottie is dragged by and sucked into the wormholes that allow her to go back in the past and relive the moments and those time travel moments make her fear that she’ll never come back in the present.  But every time Gottie finds out a way out of the wormhole she grieves the death of Grey. Her journey of the discovery of how she is sucked into the wormholes is described as the void created in her heart due to the loss of the people around her. The void completes the loop when Jason breaks up with her. Gottie is supposed to write an essay given by her physics teacher and submit it at the beginning of next term. She connects the dots of all the events over the past year and the summer this year and that’s a big discovery as explained by her teacher.

The book throws a light on the relationship that Gottie shares with her Grandfather Grey & how he has shaped her to be the person that she is. Thus she is in depression when he passes away.  Won’t we all feel the same way when someone close to our heart leaves us forever and we can’t image what our life will become without them being with us?

Gottie on the other hand is a character that is witty, flawed vulnerable, wounded and hilarious at all times. Every other character in the book has justified their roles thoroughly.

The illustrations of physics in the book are very good correctly explained to people who have no connection with physics at all. The book is creatively written, well researched in terms of physics and mathematics. I loved the book as I have always been a curious person when it comes to anything related to space and black holes and astronomical sciences and being an engineer helped me understand physics way better.

Rating: 4.5/5*

(Note: I was sent a review copy of this book in exchange for honest review. This review is my opinion on the book which may differ from your take on it)