Böcker av Louisa Onome

"Joy Okafor is overwhelmed. Recently divorced, a life coach whose phone won't stop ringing, and ever the dutiful Nigerian daughter, Joy has planned every aspect of her mother's seventieth birthday weekend on her own. As the Okafors slowly begin to arrive, Mama Mary goes to take a nap. But when the grandkids go to wake her, they find that she isn't sleeping after all. Refusing to believe that her sister is gone-gone, Auntie Nancy declares that she has had a premonition that Mama Mary will rise again like Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday. Desperate to believe that they're about to witness a miracle, the family overhauls their birthday plans to welcome the Nigerian Canadian community, effectively spreading the word that Mama Mary is coming back. But skeptical Joy is struggling with the loss of her mother and not allowing herself to mourn just yet while going through the motions of planning a funeral that her aunt refuses to allow"--

After her parents go on the run, a teenage girl placed in the care of a cousin she barely knows learns to trust and open up in The Melancholy of Summer, a lyrical YA contemporary coming-of-age story by Louisa OnoméDoesn't she see? I can do this on my own.Summer Uzoma is fine. Sure, her parents went on the run after they were accused of committing a crime, leaving her behind. Sure, she's been alternating stays with her friends' families. Sure, she sometimes still secretly visits her old home. And sure, she has trouble talking about any of this. But she's fine. She has her skateboard and her bus pass. She just has to turn eighteen in a few weeks and then she'll really and truly be free.So it's extra annoying when a nosy social worker gets involved. Summer doesn't expect any relative to be able to take her in, so she's very surprised to hear that she'll now be living with her cousin Olu-someone she hasn't seen in years, who's a famous singer in Japan last she heard, and who's not much older than Summer.Life with Olu is awkward for many reasons-not least of all because Olu has her own drama to deal with. But with her cousin and friends' efforts, maybe Summer can learn to trust people enough to let them in again?