Summer Series – andrea's galley

Genre: Young Adult, Coming-of-age
Actual Rating: 4.5 stars
Content Warnings: Mentions cheating, but it’s not a real troupe in this book tho.

“We’ll Always Have Summer” follows Belly as she starts college and delves into her relationship with Jeremiah—the relationship that Conrad, her ex boyfriend and forever crush (and Jeremiah’s brother), encouraged them to have. Told between the points of view of Conrad and Belly (but mostly Belly’s), this book is the perfect conclusion to the Summer trilogy.

In my humble opinion, his book was bs. What Jeremiah did that spring break? Bullshit. What Conrad did the day of the wedding? Bullshit. What Belly did to absolutely everyone in this book? You guessed it: bullshit. But yeah, I still loved it. This book hits too close to home this time around. I almost did what Belly almost do: get married ridiculously young. And even though, yeah, I’m still with the same partner I was back then, now, 6 years later, I can see how crazy that was. I think this book can easily be my favorite out of the series.

Grab these three books. They’re short and fast-paced and heartwarming and heartbreaking and funny and sweet and sad. This series has it all. It’s YA for sure, but it’s good YA.

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Genre: Young Adult, Coming-of-age
Actual Rating: 4 stars
Content Warnings: Discusses cancer and death.

“It’s Not Summer Without You” follows Belly and the Fisher brothers into the aftermath of sickness and heartache. It’s summer, they’re not at Cousins Beach, and Jeremiah calls in to let Belly know Conrad is gone and no one knows where he is. Nothing is how it’s supposed to be, but there’s still time for this summer to be turned around.

In the second book of this series we can finally get a closer look at Jeremiah and Belly’s friendship. We get to see how they bicker and care for each other. I know they implied at that the first time around, but we didn’t get to see it as much. Belly is still a child but at the same time we can see how she’s grown, and how her thinking has evolved. Maybe it was heartbreak, maybe it was grief, but she’s grown.

I felt like the ending was a bit rushed and slightly unrealistic, and that’s why I gave this book 4 stars, not because I didn’t love the writing and the characters and all the feelings they made me feel this time around. Well, that’s one key difference I can point out about this book: there was less fluff and much more true feelings in this one.

I would recommend this series without any hesitations, keeping in mind it’s directed to pre-teens and teens (and young adults like myself that just want to relive these things one more time around).

If you click here, you’ll be redirected to Goodreads, so you can add the book to your TBR list.

Or you could click here, and be redirected to Amazon, so you can order the book.