Just for the Summer

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-9

Chapters 10-21

Chapters 22-34

Chapter 35-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Book Club Questions

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Themes

Always Choose Empathy

Content Warning: This section mentions undiagnosed mental health, anxiety, PTSD, narcissistic tendencies, and past child neglect.

Throughout the events of the novel, Emma and Justin are confronted with instances in which they must choose between exercising empathy or anger. Emma has long since decided that she’ll always choose empathy. Her childhood with Amber and her career as a nurse have given her a well-rounded perspective on the wide array of experiences and circumstances individuals endure. Her knowledge prevents her from making assumptions based on limited information.

Emma speaks about this perspective with many people throughout the novel, including Justin, Sarah, and Maddy. When others question her kindness and forgiveness toward Amber, Emma answers that she doesn’t “know what it was like to be [Amber]. A single mom at eighteen, no money, no family. She struggled. She still struggles. But she loves [Emma] and she never doubted that for a second no matter what [Amber] did” (90). By practicing empathy for her mother, Emma is able to reframe the pain and neglect she suffered as a child as the unfortunate outcomes of her mother’s best efforts rather than as deliberate harm or lack of care. By doing so, Emma believes she can put her traumatic childhood experiences behind her and lead a happier life.

In contrast, due to his mother’s recent legal problems, Justin struggles with feeling anything other than anger. While he admires Emma’s ability to choose empathy over anger and wishes he could do the same and “go on with [his] life and not hold a grudge against” his mother (95), he doesn’t believe he can forgive her for derailing his life so severely. At one point, Justin even admits that “anger was all [he] had” (124). It is clear at this point in the novel that his inability to let go of his anger is not only causing him prolonged unhappiness but also straining his relationships with his mother, his best friend, and his siblings. Justin’s prolonged suffering illustrates the problems with anger as a response to adversity.

With Emma’s help, Justin is eventually able to choose empathy. This change in perspective allows him to make the most of his last few weeks with his mother and siblings together before she is imprisoned. On the grimmer side of this shift is his guilt. When he reframes his situation in a more empathetic light, Justin “start[s] to wonder if he failed [his mom]. If [he] hadn’t felt like someone safe that she could be honest with and lean on. [He] hadn’t met her where she was” (157). While this shift in perspective brings on more negative feelings, they stem not from the change but from his remorse for his initial anger. If Justin had chosen empathy from the start rather than becoming closed off and resentful, he might have taken notice of the struggles his mother faced not just during the sentencing period but before her embezzling. Nevertheless, empathy enables Justin to preserve and begin to repair his relationship with his mother. Similarly, the evolution of Emma’s relationship with her mother demonstrates the nuances of holding empathy for others even when they cause harm. After discovering the extent of Amber’s dishonesty and disregard for her, Emma realizes that she cannot continue having contact with her. Through therapy and self-reflection, she learns that forgiveness and empathy can co-exist with the boundaries she needs to stay safe. She learns that having empathy for her mother doesn’t mean she has to allow herself to keep being hurt.

Unresolved Trauma’s Impact on Relationships

Emma’s unresolved childhood trauma drastically impacts her relationships throughout adolescence and adulthood. Abby Jimenez symbolizes this impact through the way Emma builds her adult life around impermanence. Everything she owns can fit into two suitcases, and all of it is easily replaceable. As a travel nurse, she never stays in one place for more than a couple of months at a time. As a result, she never cultivates any lasting romantic relationships. Emma admits early on that “there were very few things that [she] cherished. [She] wasn’t a sentimental person, at all” (67). The only sentimental item she owns is Stuffie, a stuffed unicorn she believed was lost until Amber returns it to her when she comes to Minneapolis. Emma’s lack of belongings, nomadic lifestyle, and causal no-strings-attached dating are all signs of her preference for impermanence. She views it as protection: If she leaves first, she will never be left, and if she doesn’t get attached, losing a person won’t hurt.

Emma’s trauma is directly related to her mother’s abuse. Because Amber neglected and ultimately abandoned Emma as a child, Emma does not feel safe letting herself become emotionally attached to other people. Nevertheless, she still craves her mother’s attention and love, always hoping that Amber will eventually return for good. When Amber arrives in Minneapolis, Emma struggles with concentrating on anyone else, despite realizing that Amber “was not focused on [her]” (105). Emma’s tendency to look at the positive side of every situation prompts her to make excuses for Amber and remain hopeful that someday her mother’s chaos will stabilize, and she’ll show Emma the unconditional love she’s always needed. However, Amber’s presence in Emma’s life is detrimental. Emma has a habit of shrinking into herself, or “getting small,” when confronted with stressful or awful situations. In this small state, Emma doesn’t “want to see anyone or talk to anyone […] cut off everyone until [she feels] safe enough to start to let them in again” (140). This coping mechanism creates the metaphorical island Emma speaks about—an island so small that only Maddy and Amber are tenants.

Not even Emma’s foster parents, Maddy’s moms, who raised her from age 14, have been granted a space in Emma’s heart, thanks to the wound Amber’s abandonment caused. Despite Maddy’s moms sending Emma to therapy, putting her through high school, paying for her college, and loving her enough to attempt adoption, Emma has never viewed them as parents. Emma “[feels] bad that [she doesn’t] feel bad” about not giving the people who “had saved her” a larger place in her life (149). She believes she’s lost the ability to love because of her childhood: While Emma is aloof to a fault with everyone else, she feels “everything, all the time” with her mother (149). Emma even suspects that her mother takes so much out of her emotionally that there’s nothing left for anyone else.

This unresolved trauma makes it nearly impossible for Justin to gain entrance to Emma’s metaphorical island—and even when he does, he’s only a temporary tenant. Because Emma’s childhood trauma was never resolved, Amber’s latest torrent of chaos results in a relapse for Emma, who resorts back to her coping mechanisms of becoming small, cutting off emotional attachments, and fleeing to a new location. It isn’t until Emma works with a therapist to acknowledge and overcome this trauma that she is able to return to Justin and lay the foundation for a successful long-term relationship. Emma’s journey thus demonstrates the ways that unresolved childhood trauma can shape adults but also demonstrates that through therapy, support, and introspection, a traumatized individual can heal and build healthy relationships.

Destigmatizing Mental Health

Destigmatization of mental health is not only a major theme in Just for the Summer—and the Part of Your World series as a whole—but also a major aspect of Abby Jimenez’s life and career. Jimenez often talks publicly about her own struggles with mental health, and her novels always include themes pertaining to mental health such as discussion of trauma, PTSD, narcissistic emotional abuse, physical or domestic abuse, anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder. Just for the Summer touches on the subjects of parental neglect, complex trauma and PTSD, anxiety and depression, undiagnosed mental health issues, and invisible illness.

Just for the Summer helps destigmatize mental health by showing that mental illness is treatable, encouraging open conversation about mental health, and advocating for safe spaces free of judgment and discrimination. Nevertheless, its depictions of mental health and mental health treatments are nuanced and complex. Two characters in particular provide contrasting examples of attitudes toward and outcomes of mental health treatment: Amber and Neil. Introduced as a narcissistic abuser in Part of Your World, Neil has gone to therapy in the years since his ex-girlfriend Alexis left him. Though his narcissistic tendencies are still present—evident in the way he basks in Amber’s obsessive attention—his behavior has significantly improved. His past self is alluded to many times, such as in the fact that his fellow doctors fear him and Briana’s warning to Emma about his toxicity. Yet the harmful side of Neil is not seen in this novel, which represents the change he has undergone. The depth of his transformation is apparent when he reacts to Amber vandalizing his car with a hug rather than anger or violence. When she wrongfully accuses Neil of cheating, he says to Justin: “There was a time when I would have gotten in my car, driven to the nearest five-star hotel, and picked up the first woman who would have me just to teach Amber a lesson. But I’m trying. I’m really trying to be the best version of myself” (258). Neil’s openness to therapy and willingness to put it into practice depict therapy as a useful and non-shameful method of working through life’s struggles. It is not a panacea—Neil still struggles with his more harmful impulses—but it has improved his life and relationships.

Like Neil, Amber has a history of narcissistic abuse and mental health problems that have harmed herself and others, particularly her daughter Emma. Unlike Neil, Amber resists mental health treatment. Emma is encouraged upon learning Amber has been seeing a therapist, only to later learn that she had lied. When Amber has an emotional outburst and trashes Neil’s house, Neil offers to pay for her to go the therapy, believing wholeheartedly that it will do her as much good as it did for him. Amber declines his offer and remains resistant to accepting help, much to the frustration of Emma and Neil. She is unwilling to confront her behavior and its consequences, and as a result, she loses both of them. The narrative implies that the core problem is not the fact that Amber struggles with mental illness, but rather her unwillingness to seek help or address the harm she has done.

Emma’s core values also strengthen the theme of destigmatizing mental health, whether it be her philosophy of always choosing empathy or her belief that no person or situation is purely black or white. She applies these beliefs most often to Amber, often positing potential factors that could explain her problematic behavior, whether it be undiagnosed mental disorders or illness, family issues, or childhood trauma. Emma can’t “begin to guess the demons [Amber] fought. [She] just knew that she did” (29). Emma brings this same perspective to Justin’s relationship with his mother. He’s overcome with anger toward Christine after her embezzlement of company funds leads to a six-year prison sentence and saddles Justin with taking responsibility for his three younger siblings. This anger and resentment is too strong for Justin to overcome, tainting his interactions with his mother in the months leading up to her imprisonment. Emma helps Justin broaden his perspective by mentioning that “she could have been dealing with postpartum depression, PTSD, complicated grief. Any of those things can make you impulsive and reckless. She might have been self-medicating to deal with it, taking things [Justin] didn’t know about. Trauma changes [people]” (155). Christine had no history of criminal behavior before her embezzlement period, which leads Emma to believe she could have been suffering after the sudden death of Justin’s father, which occurred not long after she gave birth to her youngest child, Chelsea. Emma does not propose that these issues absolve Christine of responsibility for her actions, but rather that they can help Justin understand why she made such choices and why her choices do not necessarily make her a “bad” person. These empathetic discussions about grief, PTSD, post-partum depression, and other mental struggles strengthen the novel’s theme of destigmatizing mental health.