about her book

Growing up “out the road” in hyper-masculine Alaska, Summer is not like the others. Sensitive, strange, and suffering from allergies and illnesses, she longs for a place to belong, or another way to be. On a tumultuous high school exchange to Argentina, she acquires the skills to travel alone and study in Latin America. Living with Islanders in Honduras, she experiences a life untouched by the usual trappings of capitalism and begins to question her own Euro-American behaviors and values. In Kingston, Jamaica, she becomes the “catty” of the neighborhood reggae star and immerses into the world of Jamaican Dancehall. There, she joins the movement protesting capitalist imperialism and rejects her upbringing entirely. She moves to Costa Rica and falls in love with a Venezuelan surfer, and together, they start a food business and marry. When the two move to a Venezuelan community in California, the relationship goes from thrilling to terrifying. When will Summer stop shapeshifting for others and embody her true power?

Part memoir, part cultural examination, hers is a story about what can happen when one pursues truth outside the edges of “normality.”