About my memoir

Growing up in Alaska, an eccentric, highly-sensitive empath with undiagnosed autism, Summer feels like she doesn’t fit anywhere. Feeling that there must be other ways to live, she embarks upon a journey throughout Latin America and the Caribbean in search of a place to belong and who she must become. A high school exchange to Argentina under the roof of a patriarchal and controlling family gives her the language skills and confidence to travel alone. Living with Islanders in Honduras during college, she learns the ways of people who were never colonized. In Jamaica, she falls in love with a dancehall reggae rapper and witnesses a different kind of brilliance and “education.” In Costa Rica, she meets an alluring Venezuelan surfer and starts a business with him. When they marry for the visa, and the relationship goes from thrilling to terrifying, Summer must decide when to stop shapeshifting for others and step into her true self.

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