Banana Heart Summer: A NovelIn her lush, luminous debut novel, Merlinda Bobis creates a dazzling feast for all the senses. Richly imagined, gloriously written, Banana Heart Summer is an incandescent tale of food, family, and longing—at once a love letter to mothers and daughters and a lively celebration of friendship and community. Twelve-year-old Nenita is hungry for everything: food, love, life. Growing up with five sisters and brothers, she searches for happiness in the magical smell of the deep-frying bananas of Nana Dora, who first tells Nenita the myth of the banana heart; in the tantalizing scent of Manolito, the heartthrob of Nenita and her friends; in the pungent aromas of the dishes she prepares for the most beautiful woman on Remedios Street. To Nenita, food is synonymous with love—the love she yearns to receive from her disappointed mother. But in this summer of broken hearts, new friendships, secrets, and discoveries, change will be as sudden and explosive as the monsoon that marks the end of the sweltering heat—and transforms Nenita’s young life in ways she could never imagine. |
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Common terms and phrases
adobo afternoon Alano asked banana heart Basilio Profundo Beatles Bebet began bittermelon Boy Hapon breath cake Calcium chest Chi-chi chicken chili Ching Claro coconut milk cook course devil dish door Dora's dreams Elvis eyes face Father felt fiesta fish fish sauce flavor girl green mangoes guava trees guavas hands heard hibiscus hunger Juanito Guwapito Junior kitchen Lab-yu leche flan looked Lydia Manolito Ching mansion meal Miling's Mills & Boon Miss VV Mother mouth Nana Dora Nenita never Nilo Nining palitaw Patsy Cline perhaps pili nuts plate pork Ralph rice Roy Orbison sauce Señora Señorita VV shrimp paste siblings sighed smell smile snacks soup sour spleen standby boys stared sticky sticky rice stomach stopped story street summer sure sweet taste tell things thought Tiya Miling Tiya Viring Tiya Viring's Tiyo tongue Valenzuela voice volcano walked