Thursday 2 February 2012

It's Not Summer Without You - Jenny Han


It’s Not Summer Without You – Jenny Han

Pages: 275
Publisher: Simon and Schuster (US)
Release Date: 27th April 2010

Other Books in the Series: The Summer I Turned Pretty, We’ll Always Have Summer

Is it really summer without the beach?
Or the boys?

After spending every single summer at Cousins Beach, Belly’s life is about to change. Since her brief relationship with Conrad fizzled out last winter, she’ll be staying home for the first time. Her best friend, Taylor, has lots of plans for them – boat parties and tanning by the pool and new boys to obsess over. But when Jeremiah calls and says that Conrad has disappeared, all roads seem to lead back to the beach house. Will Belly spend another summer chasing after Conrad, or will she finally be able to let him go?

I’ve fallen hard for this series. I thought I loved the first book until I read It’s Not Summer Without You. Why have I waited so long to read them?!

It’s Not Summer Without You had a big surprise in store for me: chapters from Jeremiah’s point of view! I was slightly worried that it’d bias me towards Jeremiah, but I still remain undecided between the Fisher brothers. This has never happened before – I usually pick teams very quickly. It was really good to see how the brothers are when Belly’s not around and to get a proper sense of their relationship. I’m now wondering if we’ll be treated to Conrad’s point of view in We’ll Always Have Summer...

There was a lot more emotional tension in It’s Not Summer Without You than the first book. The grief that Belly, her mother, Conrad and Jeremiah are suffering through is unimaginable but beautifully portrayed. It did occur to me though that the kids barely noticed that the adults would also be hurting, and perhaps even more so. It really cemented their age for me. There’s also lots of tension and angst between Belly and the boys. Her confusion over her feelings and Conrad’s indecision and general enigmatic persona that confused Belly even further really helped to capture how horrible it can be to be in love as a teenager.

I’ve got We’ll Always Have Summer paperback on pre-order so I’m counting down the days until it comes through the letter box.

I purchased a copy of this book myself.

Sophie 

1 comment:

  1. I ADORE this series. I loved the beach house and the brothers so much in the first book. And I had expectations in my head of what I thought this book would be like. And it's nothing at all like I thought. And it's so much better. I do have a favourite brother though and I'm DYING to read the third book. Dying, I tell you.

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