A Summer's Lease

by Marilyn Sachs

The summer that Gloria spends with the family of her favorite teacher, Mrs. Horne, enables her to come to terms with her ambition to be the assistant editor of the high-school literary magazine as well as with painful human relationships

Genres: Young Adult

143 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

Reviews

[Danielle]

A Summer's Lease was published in 1979 and set in 1943. Fifteen-year-old Gloria knows she's the best, wants to be the assistant editor of the paper, on the way to being editor. But her teacher makes her share it with classmate Jerry, who writes poetry, blushes, and feels faint at the sight of blood. When the two of them spend the summer caring for their teacher's children, Gloria exalts in every way she is better than Jerry and feels angry and jealous every time she admits he's talented, too, and when someone seems to like him better. She's not very likeable, and honestly, she doesn't have a grand epiphany and metamorphosis. Her growth is more painful and subtle than that.

"[Hatred] hurts the hater much more than the hated."

"It's a better world, Gloria, if you let your compassion grow bigger than your jealousy. It's a bigger world too, you'll find, with lots of room for both you and Jerry."

[Charlotte]

Once again I'm disappointed by a Marilyn Sachs book. Gloria longs to be a writer, and desperately feels that she must be Best, jealous of anyone else who gets any sort of approval of their writing, especially Jerry, chosen to be her high school literary magazines co-editor. Their English teacher takes them both off for a summer at a house in the country to look after a passel of kids, and Gloria continues to be jealous, competitive, and utterly unlikable. She improves a bit, but not enough (not even a tragedy unsnarls her miserable character much), and the whole book left me with a slightly sour taste in my mind.

[Jobiska (Cindy)]

A little darker than a lot of Sachs' other books.

[An]

Gevonden bij Oxfam en dan meteen gelezen. Zo'n boek waar ik als veertienjarige van gehouden zou hebben. Als zesendertigjarige vind ik het opmerkelijk. Omdat het uit 1980 is en speelt in 1943. Maar veel meer nog omdat het hoofdpersonage tamelijk ronduit onuitstaanbaar is. Goeie vondst, dus.

[Ejayen]

The ending is so sad. It was a quick read, and it has a good reminder for dreaming authors.

[Louise]

Read this a zillion years ago, but I remember it being the first book that ever made me cry.