A long hot summer for two teenagers is beautifully elegized in this best-selling book from Sweden It’s going to be a blisteringly hot summer and fourteen-year-old Adam has managed to get the family house by the lake all to himself. But shortly before he is due to leave, he bumps into Mary-Lou and he can’t help but invite her to come with him. When they had both been younger, her parent’s marriage had collapsed. Mary-Lou’s reaction had been to jump out of a tree, and she was left with a crushed vertebra and confined to a wheelchair. No one was ever sure if it was attempted suicide or a tragic accident, and she has never been in a mood to tell. As Adam and Mary-Lou pick their way through this tangled and unpleasant heritage, they forge a beautiful and delicate relationship.