Coyote Summer by Laura Koerber
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Coyote Summer is Laura Koerber’s new coming-of-age novel set in Wisconsin. Ben O’Rourke and his classmates are raised in wealth and privilege; they all attend private school with future plans for Ivy League schools and similar career paths as their parents. Ben and his friends go out to a wild party to celebrate graduation, and that’s when his life intersects with Claire from the girl’s private school. When Ben wakes up the next morning, he finds out that Claire was assaulted at the party and no one is talking about what happened. Around the same time, Ben meets Puppy Hill and her unconventional family. This family could not be any more unlike the type of people that Ben has always been surrounded by; the Hill family is salt of the earth and in touch with nature rather than materialism. Ben’s encounter with each of these girls is what ignites his awakening, an awakening that allows Ben to see the world beyond the glamour that has always surrounded his life. This book had some of the same ennui that Holden demonstrated in “Catcher in the Rye,” but Ben grows beyond his wealthy upbringing and becomes more aware of the advantages that come with affluence. Puppy Hill and her family are the beautiful antithesis of materialism and show Ben a purer way of living, lessons he calls upon throughout the remainder of his life.

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