This novel for adults is like the others short (144 pages) – and when I’m captured by “The Summer” and disappear into the wondrous story, then I forget to breathe. […] In her three books Elin Persson writes poetic and unusually attentively about things that are rarely portrayed in fiction otherwise. […] But I will never forget them: Jelena and Lea. And I’m moved by Lea’s longing.
– Västerbottens-Kuriren

Some scenes are unpleasant in their portrayal of teenage limitlessness and questionable consent, here Persson  shows her strength as an author.
– Dagens Nyheter

Elin Persson writes delicately about the abysses that can open up on the road towards becoming an adult.
– Vi läser

Elin Persson‘s The Summer is her first novel for adults and it it published by Wahlström & Wistrand.

”I often think about the row of townhouses. Of Jelena’s hands. Of the wall-to-wall carpet outside of her room, which was soft and pressed up between the toes. Jelena’s room was to the left, mine to the right. In the middle, a blue bathroom, an abyss. Jelena called the color hooker-blue.”

The book is about Lea and Jelena. And a summer that changed everything. When Lea’s dad meets Zofia she gets a sister. Lea is drawn to the indomitable and independent Jelena – she is everything that Lea isn’t. Upstairs in the townhouse a claustrophobic world emerges, where boundaries and bodies are explored and violated. All while the eyes of grown-ups are turned elsewhere and the summer outside only continues.