- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Constable (Jan 1969)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0094530300
- ISBN-13: 978-0094530300
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,020,886 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
An excellent rites of passage teenage novel, written by the late Ed McCain (his first novel) under the name Evan Hunter. Intense and dispassionate - would recommend
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
13 reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Cruel Summer
9 Mar 2006
Format:Paperback
I've read this book a few times and I'll probably revisit it again; it's a favorite.
"Last Summer" is the story of three teenage friends - Sandy, David, and Peter (the narrator) - who spend summer vacation on an island. Regularly slipping away from their parents, they create a little mischief throughout the summer - stealing beer from their homes, drinking, going topless (Sandy), bogusly filling-out a dating questionaire, etc. Their little circle is tight, until they "adopt" a sensitive and awkward freckle-faced girl named Rhoda.
The symbolism in the book is easy to see - just the way I like it. (What's the point of symbolism if nobody understands it?) The novel is divided into two parts: the first half is called "The Gull" and the second half is called "Rhoda." That makes it all the easier to understand the symbolism - the seagull and Rhoda are the same; both are wounded animals, both are adopted by the threesome, nurtured back to strength, and then cruelly betrayed, destroyed, and abandoned. Read the book with this in mind, and you'll see what I mean.
This novel is very real. Kids can be cruel, especially when trying to conform to the attitudes of their friends. This is the story of a "last summer" of innocemce - if not for all four characters, then at least for Rhoda.
There was a sequel called "Come Winter" which I borrowed from the library once and never finished. Maybe I'll have to give that one another try. In any case, I think I'll read "Last Summer" again. You should read it, too. (And check out the film starring a young Barbara Hershey, a young Bruce Davison, and a pre-Waltons Richard Thomas.)
"Last Summer" is the story of three teenage friends - Sandy, David, and Peter (the narrator) - who spend summer vacation on an island. Regularly slipping away from their parents, they create a little mischief throughout the summer - stealing beer from their homes, drinking, going topless (Sandy), bogusly filling-out a dating questionaire, etc. Their little circle is tight, until they "adopt" a sensitive and awkward freckle-faced girl named Rhoda.
The symbolism in the book is easy to see - just the way I like it. (What's the point of symbolism if nobody understands it?) The novel is divided into two parts: the first half is called "The Gull" and the second half is called "Rhoda." That makes it all the easier to understand the symbolism - the seagull and Rhoda are the same; both are wounded animals, both are adopted by the threesome, nurtured back to strength, and then cruelly betrayed, destroyed, and abandoned. Read the book with this in mind, and you'll see what I mean.
This novel is very real. Kids can be cruel, especially when trying to conform to the attitudes of their friends. This is the story of a "last summer" of innocemce - if not for all four characters, then at least for Rhoda.
There was a sequel called "Come Winter" which I borrowed from the library once and never finished. Maybe I'll have to give that one another try. In any case, I think I'll read "Last Summer" again. You should read it, too. (And check out the film starring a young Barbara Hershey, a young Bruce Davison, and a pre-Waltons Richard Thomas.)
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
spare and haunting
15 Jun 2003
Format:Paperback
Told in the sparest of prose, this dark coming of age novel recounts the loss of innocence of three teens on a posh summer resort island in the sixties. pulling away from the lighter activities of thier peers, the three create a private world fraught with social isolation and not so subtle sexual undertones. when a less sophisticated, kinder girl lonely for acceptence tries to penetrate the trio's barriers, tensions escalate with disturbing outcomes. the novel is brief but brutal, evoking the less idyllic flipside of the love generation. while it's detached and spartan prose may make it difficult for some to get involved in, Last Summer is makes for an interesting, ruthless glimpse into the perils of adolesence and the corrosive nature of peer pressure.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Best coming of age novel
4 July 2000
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Evan Hunter's Last Summer is one of the most under-rated novels of all time. It captures a period and the personalities of three teens like no other. the characters are very real, and this is no sugar-coated nostalgia. The feelings are raw and real, told from the perspective of one of the teens described. A movie version came close to doing the novel justice. Somebody please put this back into print!
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