That is why it isn’t really a surprise that even Edith Wharton, the esteemed author of such classics as "The Age of Innocence" and "The House of Mirth", would have a novel tackling the same subject matter in her bibliography.

"Summer", written in 1917 while Wharton was "steeped in the tragic realities of war", is the story of a young woman who experiences a summer that changes her life forever.

The book’s heroine Charity Royall, is an orphan "taken down" from the mountain and into the small New England village of North Dormer, where she lives with her guardian Lawyer Royall. Her existence revolves around her duties as librarian until the arrival of handsome Lucius Harney, a young architect from the city whose sophistication awakens Charity’s sexual needs and, like other Wharton heroines, the desire to move up from her current station in life.

Of course, this being a Wharton novel, Charity never really gets what she wants, much less deserves. Harney is not the ticket to a better life that she initially envisioned, and like other Wharton heroines before her, Charity has to settle for a compromise that may not be agreeable to her but is acceptable to society at large.

When it was first published in 1917, "Summer" created a commotion because of its frank and honest depiction of the sexual needs of a young woman during the early 1900s. It is easy to understand what may have ruffled the sensibilities of society back then: "Summer" is easily Wharton’s most sensual and erotic book, filled with descriptions that crowd about and almost suffocate the reader with its lushness.

"This was all she saw; but she felt, above her and about her, the strong growth of the breeches clothing the ridge, the rounding of pale green cones on countless spruce branches, the push of myriads of sweet-fern fronds in the cracks of the stony slope below the wood, and the crowding shoots of meadowsweet and yellow flags in the pasture beyond. All this bubbling of sap and slipping of sheaths and bursting of calyxes was carried to her on mingled urrents of fragrance. Every leaf and bud and blade seemed to contribute its exhalation to the pervading sweetness in which the pungency of pine sap prevailed over the spice of thyme and the subtle perfume of fern, and all were merged in a moist earth-smell that was like the breath of some huge sun-warmed animal."

Readers need not worry that a story set in 1917 may not relate to them at all. The book’s heroine is certainly the archetypal teenager. Brash and impulsive one moment, and then stumbling upon some spectacular insight the next, Charity is certainly going to be familiar with parents struggling with their teenagers or with young people in their 20s looking back at the follies of their teenage years.

Whether she measures up to other Wharton heroines like The Age of Innocence’s Countess Olenska or The House of Mirth’s Lily Bart is another thing entirely. Both Olenska and Bart were aware of the forces that were working against them and yet were powerless to fight it, making their tragedy even more heartbreaking. It is here that Charity’s impulsiveness works against her: At some points in the novel one feels like she deserves whatever it is that is going to happen to her.

The novel itself also suffers from this same problem. While "Summer" is still relevant to the young people of today, some people may argue that it is not as strong a work as other Wharton novels. One can already feel a wince coming up with the now cliché storyline of the country girl falling for the city boy who is really just interested in one thing. The writing is still strong, but the characters and the plot are not as interesting or as engaging as those found in her other novels.

But faults aside, "Summer" is still head and shoulders above other possible books on summer flings that young people may pick up over the course of this hot season.You may love and treasure it or hate it by the time you reach its ending, but it will certainly be a book that you won’t easily forget.