THREE SUMMERS

In this memoir, a young Bosniak Muslim girl comes of age with her larger-than-life cousin over three summers leading up to the Bosnian genocide.

Amra’s beloved older brother died from complications of Marfan syndrome, leaving a gaping hole in her family members’ lives. Amra’s mom tried in vain to help her make friends who might pull her out of her deep depression, but it was only when Amra connected with Žana, her estranged aunt’s daughter, that she again felt a zest for life. Over the next three summers, Amra and Žana are inseparable, spending time with family and friends on the banks of the glistening emerald waters of the River Una. Žana truly lives out loud, and she inspires a confidence in Amra that she never knew she had. But their seemingly unbreakable bond of sisterhood is threatened by ethnic tensions and looming war: Žana’s father is a Serb from a Chetnik family, a nationalist group who killed Muslims in Kosovo during World War II. Sabic-El-Rayess shared later parts of her story in her YA memoir, The Cat I Never Named (2020). This compelling volume runs the gamut of emotions—grief, humiliation at the hands of bullies, the rush of a first crush, and the devastation of being treated with hate. This moving and deeply personal story is framed in a way that makes the larger political, religious, and ethnic complexities accessible.

Simultaneously candid and heartbreaking yet warm and engaging.