The Summer Series – Book Review

I’ve always been a bit of a book hoarder. I like having choices when I’m in the mood to read. Sitting in my library for a long time was The Summer Series by Jenny Han.

Basically Goodreads was telling me for a really long time I’d like these books but with books like Significance and the More Than series it kept taking a back seat. Finally I felt like I was in the mood for a series like this.

As usual I read each book in a day, I can’t help myself. I knew it was a younger book than what I would like to be reading right now but I just wanted to read it and see what it was all about. I liked the first one, The Summer I Turned Pretty. It’s a coming of age book that also shows how Belly got there. I love the relationship between Susannah and Laurel and how over the years they still stayed close. Small things like that really make you want to put a little more work into your own relationships and friendships. I liked how the thoughts Belly has seem so realistic and not too much like a fairy tale. Some of the reactions yes were a bit out there but overall it was good. The ending completely surprised me, I kind of thought it was going down the “happily ever after” route but I’m glad it didn’t. In a way I found that some of the flashbacks gave more insight into Susannah than Belly. Looking back now I can see how some of them could be a send off of sorts.

The beginning of the second book, I’ts Not Summer Without You, really got my hopes up. I wished more than ever for it to be true and when it wasn’t, i fell right along with Belly. I didn’t really like how it jumped around in this one. In the first one it was easier to follow along but I found myself going back a couple pages or skipping ahead to figure out which timeline I was in. This book really showed a lot of ways people deal with grief which, again, is so relateable. There were parts where I found myself angry with particular characters and then really rooting for another. It had me invested in everything that was happening even if I didn’t know exactly what was going on or the reasoning behind some of the things characters did. At some parts I just wanted to scream into the book to just COMMUNICATE!! I don’t know if it’s the age thing but a lot of problems would have been solved if they just talked to each other but then there may not have been a third book if they resolved all their issues in this one.

The third book, We’ll Always Have Summer, had me half way angry for the entire book. It felt like I was watching a train crash in slow motion which I guess is a good thing. I was invested. I knew how it was going to end but to have to sit through everything was a bit painful to read, personally. It was like everyone was determined to pretend everything was fine and not communicate. I don’t usually finish books like this but after two books I felt like I owed it to myself to finish it. Unfortunately, it was a difficult read and like most books I don’t particularly like, I didn’t find myself wondering about the characters once I finished. That has nothing to do with the writing of the book but just the plot I guess. The book gave a slight fast forward to the future to show how it all turns out but I honestly was already checked out.

Overall it was an okay read. It’s not going to be one of those series I read over and over again but it was good in the sense that it tied me over until I find a new series to read. I still have to read her other book To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before.

This one is being made into a movie which is going to have in Janel Parrish from PLL so based off of that alone I think it’s a bit more promising than The Summer Series.