Imagine A More Lyrical Jane Austen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                 "Three Summers" has turned out to be the surprise of my summer, so far, darlings,  Because of the pandemic, I am reading faster than I can post, so this is several books behind already.  What I admired most about it was the sense of language--the translation by Karen Van Dyck is gorgeous--and, best of all, in one volume, the author manages to encapsulate her story better and with more brevity than Elena Ferrante and her overrated Neapolitan Novels..

                                   The story is of three sisters--Katerina, the youngest, Maria, the oldest, and the middle sister, Infanta.  Family secrets abound, such as what really happened to a character referred to as "Polish Grandmother," Infanta, who fascinated me, evolves into an embittered spinster, while Maria, the oldest goes the other route, embracing marriage and sexuality, along with childbirth.

                                      Set in a lyrically depicted Greece, Liberaki writes in the voice of Katerina, the youngest sister, over the course of the novel's titular time.  Katerina is young, whimsical, and sort of reminds me of a well adjusted Merricat from Shirley Jackson's "We Have Always Lived In The Castle." At times, the descriptions of nature and the countryside, are comparable to that text.  But this is a story about three girls, grooving up, more in Jane Austen than Jackson territory.

                                        I did not expect to be as blown away as I was by this book.  I urge you to read it.  In this Summer of our discontent, it will transform the season into a magical experience, girls!

                                         Read it at once!