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Summer Bird Blue, by Akemi Dawn Bowman, follows high schooler Rumi Seto as she navigates life after the death of her sister.

What I liked:

• I have quite possibly never related to an MC in a YA contemporary novel as much as I relate to Rumi. So many of Rumi’s thought processes and behaviors mirror my own, perhaps more so than any real person I’ve met. Our interests and backgrounds are very different, but the way Rumi approaches and analyzes human interactions, as well as her own actions in the moment, is very much me. It’s unusual for me to come across YA or MG novels with characters that actually remind me of me, but in this instance, I wonder if my younger self would have made significantly different life choices if I had read Summer Bird Blue when I was Rumi’s age. The road not taken and all that…
• Kai, and specifically what Kai represents, is so interesting to me. I grew up in a not-very-Asian part of the Bay Area and can think of very few instances when my peers actively included Asian guys in the definition of who qualifies as attractive. Looking back, I realize I unconsciously kept many of these thoughts to myself, sensing on some level that it would be pointless to articulate them to the people around me. Admittedly, in Summer Bird Blue, Kai is very much situated in Hawaii, and I’m not sure if my teen self would have considered someone like him just as out of reach for this reason as anything else, but I wonder if seeing a character like him on the page would have encouraged me to be more outspoken about the possibility of attractive Asian guys. It’s reassuring to look around at pop culture now and see groups like BTS bringing a more global perspective to definitions of beauty and trendiness in the US, as I hope this means there are fewer Asian kids growing up with the same social limitations I experienced.

What I learned:

• Funny story, I picked Summer Bird Blue out of my TBR after going on my very first trip to Hawaii (an enjoyable but also strange experience, given my knowledge of Asian settler colonialism), simply because I vaguely remembered it had a Hawaii setting. I actually think recently being in Hawaii contributed to my enjoyment of the book, because I was able to picture many of the settings based on my own experiences. Even the pidgin and speech patterns in the book felt familiar, most likely because I had a conversation about language in Hawaii with the friend I visited in Honolulu, which prompted me to pay much closer attention to how the locals spoke when I was out and about. This is not to say I have any deep knowledge of Hawaii, as I have never lived there, nor do I have any family connection to it that I know of, but the link between my trip and reading Summer Bird Blue definitely made me consider how my experiences of other books, set in places I have never been to, might significantly change if I actually visited those places.
• One of my favorite aspects of Summer Bird Blue, which I did not realize until I was mentally reviewing the book in preparation for this post, is the predominance of people of color in all the main roles. I have a feeling part of the immense sense of comfort I felt while reading this book came from the same place as the comfort I felt in Oahu, which in hindsight was largely due to the presence of people of color everywhere. I had never seen so many Asians outside of Asia, much less so many Japanese people outside Japan, and it was exceedingly strange to realize I could walk around and not attract second looks based on non-Asians’ perception of my race or ethnicity. That said, as mentioned above, I’m not entirely sure I should feel comfortable in Hawaii, since Japanese people play such a significant role in the ongoing settler colonial state.

Questions I had:

• Does Bowman have any plans to return to Rumi’s story? Although Summer Bird Blue stands very well on its own, I imagine I’m not the only reader wondering what Rumi does after high school and whether she really never sees Kai again. Additionally, as someone who is slowly starting to wonder if I’m on the ace spectrum somewhere, I would be interested to know how Rumi’s sexual identity evolves as she becomes an adult.
• I did a quick search after reading Summer Bird Blue and found an article that indicates Bowman’s father is from Hawaii, though seemingly not Native Hawaiian. What is Bowman’s personal connection to Hawaii? Specifically, has she ever lived there? If not, what prompted her to set a novel in Hawaii?
• How did Native Hawaiian readers react to Summer Bird Blue? Do they feel Hawaii and Hawaiian culture is portrayed respectfully? How do they feel about Bowman’s choice of Rumi’s personal background, particularly that she is Hawaiian via her mother?
• What prompted Bowman to write a story centered so deeply on grief and death? Is this aspect of the book based on Bowman’s personal experiences? Did Bowman envision a particular audience for this book?
• How does Bowman situate herself and her work in the existing body of nikkei literature? From Bowman’s perspective, what does it mean to be ‘nikkei author’ in today’s literary landscape?

Follow-up:

• As is likely true of many who have been in the online POC book community for the past several years, I remember what happened when certain readers responded to Akemi Dawn Bowman’s debut, Starfish. Even now, I’m still not entirely sure whose “side,” if any, I’m on, but the incident made me deeply consider how authors and readers impact each other, for better or worse. Starfish has stayed buried in my TBR for years, due to my complicated feelings about what happened, but based on how much I enjoyed Summer Bird Blue, I think I am now willing to give Starfish a try.