"Nothing ever really goes away--it just changes into something else. Something beautiful." Something like mermaid tears, they turn into sea glass and we find them on beaches; something like Matt, Sam, Frankie, and Anna. Matt, the beautiful memory; Sam, the beautiful vacation; Frankie, the beautiful mermaid that is strong and sensitive; Anna, the holder of secrets and the mermaid tears she has collected throughout the years. Sarah Ockler's Twenty Boy Summer inhaled my being and twisted it all around, giving me a respect for those who have lost, for they have had the power to stay here and they did not need, nor want, pity to do that.
"Anna from New Yawk," a girl, a friend, a daughter, a secret-keeper, someone to hold you when you can not hold yourself up. She held Frankie, a mermaid of colors and wishes, for so long while she wept for Matt, her deceased brother. Anna said, "Weeping is not the same thing as crying, It takes your whole body to weep, and when it`s over, you feel like you don`t have any bones left to hold you up." She was right. She was there to hold Frankie, but she did not show Frankie that she needed to be held as well. Matt was her First Love and as far as she knew, he was also her last. From her birthday, where they first kissed, to the last night of the "before," where it ended. It did not end with a "goodbye" or a "we should just be friends," it ended with the sound of metal on metal colliding with asphault, grass, dirt, and a pole. A pole that Matt's car wrapped around. A pole that split Frankie's left eyebrow into two pieces. The pole that ended Matt's life. The pole that ended Anna's love's life. She said that, "When he died, I saw-- nothing. There was nothing left to see." She said that, "My eyes were closed and his mouth tasted like marzipan flowers and clove cigarettes, and in ten seconds the whole of my life was wrapped up in that one kiss, that one wish, that one secret that would forever divide my life into two parts." It was so hard for Anna to cope. One year later she goes on vacation. The vacation that he had been going on his whole life, every summer. The vacation that brought her the jars of seaglass, the postcards and stories. California. Where she and Frankie made a bet, that bet was called Twenty Boy Summer. They, together, would find twenty boys. Anna only found one, though and he called her "Anna from New Yawk." His name was Sam. He was the one to hold her. He comforted her when she needed it, at least for the three weeks they had together. He asked her what was wrong when she was so used to thinking, "I'm fine, thanks for not asking," but she was not fine. She was not okay or happy. All she knew is that Sam had walked into her life and began to help her put back the pieces. He made her think, "I accept the hard reality that I maybe might possibly be just the slightest tiniest littlest bit kinda sorta interested in him." That scared her, but she liked it.
California, a beautiful place where three weeks are spent. A place that helps put back the pieces. When Anna and Frankie went to California, Anna was not Modest Anna, Scared Anna, or Broken Anna. She was Crazy Anna. She was the Anna that tempted Frankie, rather than the other way around. It changed Frankie into a softer version of the Frankie from before instead of the Broadway-worthy mermaid from after. They met boys, they fought and they broke-down. They got closer, they spread further apart than ever before. California changed the scenery, brought back memories, and changed personalities. California definitely did not erase the past.
Sarah's style could not have made this book more realistic. It was already such a tear-jerker. If any other person had wrote this book it would not be nearly as good. The tears of joy and the tears of happiness brought it all together so seamlessly that it was almost like a movie that I stared in as Anna. She narrated it with such a emotional point of view that it is just perfect. I do not know any other way to describe it.
Read this amazing book. It will swallow your world with you in it, then it will spit you back out. "It breaks your heart and puts it back together again," spoken by Jo Knowels. Those are true words of wisdom. Read this book and you will truly know what Anna means when she says that weeping takes your whole body.
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