The Summer of Her Life

Gerda stands at the window of her nursing home, looking up at the stars. A question has been haunting her for years, but until now she’s managed to avoid it: Has her life been a happy one?

As she negotiates the degradations of old age and the indignity of being cared for by strangers, the past begins to seep into the present. Gerda remembers her life as a bespectacled schoolgirl, bullied for being smart. She remembers the time she spent as an aspiring astrophysicist. And she remembers, most powerfully, that one summer—the summer of her life—when she was forced to make the most difficult decision of all: between her career and her relationship.

The Summer of Her Lifeis a poetic, touching, and profound graphic novel that grapples with life’s big questions. How do you know whether you’ve made the right choices? And what does it mean, in the end, to be happy?