Book Review: INVINCIBLE SUMMER BY ALICE ADAMS

Inseparable throughout University, four friends graduate into an exhilarating world on the brink of the shiny new millennium.  
Eager to shrug off the hardships of her childhood, Eva breaks away to work in the City.
Benedict stays behind to complete is PhD in Physics and pine for Eva, while siblings Sylvie and Lucien seek a more bohemian life of art, travel and adventure.
As their twenties give way to their thirties, the four friends find their paths diverging as they struggle to navigate broken hearts and thwarted dreams.  With every summer that passes, they try to remain as close as they once were - but this is far from easy.  
Who knows where any of us will be in twenty summers time?
The highs and lows of adulthood, about life's stubborn refusal to turn out as expected, and the way that friendship, love and laughter can give us the strength to make it through.


Published:  2 June 2016
Publisher:  Picador

Four Friends - Two Decades - Twenty Summers

We first meet the four friends when they're just finishing their first years exams at Bristol University in the summer of 1995. The main protagonist is Eva, struggling to make ends meet and has a weekend supermarket job.  Sylvie doing a History of Art course, of whom they all agreed that it was impossible to imagine her being anything other than a great success as an artist, her brother Lucien, sardonic, unpredictable and prone to sleeping around.  Then Benedict, from a wealthy family background who dreams of working at CERN in Switzerland as a Physicist.

We follow them through the summers as they go their separate ways, keeping in touch, meeting up occasionally, reflecting on life's ups and downs.  

Each chapter moves the story on another year as Eva's high flying job takes her around the world, Lucien continues partying, Benedict's working hard, and Sylvie's confidence slowly ebbs away as she tries to find work as an artist.  Their friendship is tested several times over the summers but always they come back to each other because they care.

An enjoyable and engaging read, I cared about the characters, even selfish Lucien.  It's poignant and moving, funny and witty, sad and frustrating .... but never boring .... just like real life!

About the Author

Alice Adams studied philosophy in Bristol and creative writing in Manchester and now lives in London, though escapes into the wilderness as often as possible. She has done a variety of jobs from waitressing to a stint as an analyst in the City. Invincible Summer is her first novel.

#InvincibleSummer

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