The Summer I Dared by Barbara Delinsky

Title: The Summer I Dared
Author: Barbara Delinsky
Pages: 491
Personal Rating: A or 5/5
Number read this year: 56
Pages Read this Year: 18,232

From the Back of the Book:

"On Big Sawyer island, life is as steady as the routine of the lobstermen who leave with the tide each morning and return with their haul each night. But for forty-year-old New Yorker Julia Bechtel, life and what's important in it, are about to be forever altered when she survives a terrible boat accident en route to the island. Now in the company of her aunt and daughter, Julia finds herself feeling strangley connected to the tragedy's other survivors- Noah, a divorced lobsterman, and Kim, a young woman rendered mute since her rescue- and newly outraged at the state of her marriage to a domineering man. Seeing the world with new eyes, Julia vows to embrace life with all it's joys and uncertanties. And the journey begins on Big Sawyer..."

I am a big Barbara Delinsky fan. I have read some good ones, some great ones, and some bad ones from this author. This one was a good one, not up to par with her "Looking for Peyton's Place" but well written just the same.

I do, however commend her desire to go out of her comfort zone to speak and write about something completely foriegn to her. At the back of the book there is an interview with Barbara and they asked what inspired this book. She was thinking of several tragedies that had occured around the time of the writing of this book, one being the 9-11 attacks on the world trade center and she wanted to feel what survivors of a tragic accident felt, and try to portray that. I believe she did a great job of just this in "The Summer I Dared".