Beware of adult themes and abundant slang in ‘Rusty Summer’

It’s summer, the weather’s fine, there are things to do and people to meet. A concert’s being held somewhere nearby. A rally is being held somewhere else. You need to be a part of the scene, to see and be seen. Or, as in “Rusty Summer” by Mary McKinley, you need to find something — or someone.

It had been a long senior year.

After a last-minute trip to San Francisco, Rylee Winters (aka Rusty) and her friends finally made it to graduation. Beau successfully sued the school, not just for himself but to keep other gay students from being bullied, and he was planning on studying nursing after graduation. Beautiful, fragile Leonie was looking forward to being a model, and Rusty had plans to join a local roller derby team until she could decide what next. The upcoming months would be packed, for sure — but first, what Rusty wanted more than anything was for her father to come to graduation.

Was he ignoring her invitation? It sure seemed like it; all she heard were crickets coming from his home in Alaska, so Rusty took a hard look at the calendar and called her friends again. There was time before commencement to get from Seattle to her dad’s place and back, which meant that there was time for another road trip!

And it might have been a lot of fun, too, if there hadn’t been an accident, which led to a dead deer and a damaged van near a small village in British Columbia. That might have meant days in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do, until a handsome brush pilot who was up for adventure offered to fly them north. No coincidence that he had a mad crush on Leonie, right?

Yeah, right, and that made Rusty jealous. What’s worse: when they reached Rusty’s grandmother’s house, it became immediately apparent that there were things the family wasn’t saying.

Rusty had found her father. YAY! But he had a little surprise for her, and she wasn’t going to like it…

Let’s get this out in the open: “Rusty Summer” is OK. A six out of 10, just slightly better than middling.

In its favor, I liked the characters in this book; they’re all decent people, the kind you’d want in your corner. I was truly drawn to their good hearts.

What I didn’t like was the overabundance of slang here. Wow, it never lets up and it rushes in breathlessly; cut in half, it would’ve been more tolerable. I also had a real problem with overly-graphic scenes of animal bloodshed and lengthy pages in which adults and teens got “high” together. In adult novel, those scenes are one thing — in a book for 14- to 17-year-olds, they’re quite another.

Overall, beware of who will read this book before you look for it; it’s not bad, but it does have its issues. Just know that, prior to bringing “Rusty Summer” around; you may not want it in your home for one minute.

View publishes Terri Schlichenmeyer’s reviews of books for children weekly.