One Perfect Summer – Paige
Toon
Pages:
458
Publisher:
Simon &
Schuster
Release
Date: 10th
May 2012
Edition:
UK paperback,
purchased copy
Other
Titles by this Author: Lucy in the Sky, Johnny Be
Good, Chasing Daisy, Pictures
of Lily, Baby
Be Mine
Ever
wondered what happened to your first love?
Alice
is 18 and about to start university while Joe’s life is going nowhere. A Dorset
summer, a chance meeting, and the two of them fall in step as if they have
known each other forever.
But
their idyll is shattered unexpectedly, Alice heads off to Cambridge and slowly
picks up the pieces of her broken heart. When she catches the attention of
Lukas – gorgeous, gifted, rich boy Lukas – she is carried along by his charm,
swept up by his ambitious plans for a future together.
Years
later, at just the wrong time, Joe is back, but out of reach in a way that
Alice could never have imagined. Life has moved on, the divide between them is
now so great.
Surely
it is far too late to recapture that perfect summer of long ago?
I’ve been a steadfast fan of
Paige Toon’s since I picked up a copy of Lucy
in the Sky on a whim to keep read on my flight to Toronto years and years
ago and so far, One Perfect Summer is
the only one which hasn’t had me screaming from the rooftops about its
awesomeness.
I think that my main problem
with One Perfect Summer was that it
took me a strangely long time to connect with the characters and come to care
about them for several reasons: Joe and Alice’s relationship was so intense, so full-on that it lost me a
little bit; I didn’t fall in love with either Joe (until later on) or Lukas (at
all) which is very strange as Paige Toon’s heroes are usually delicious and
there was just a spark missing until the final hundred pages or so.
Alice was an interesting
character. When we meet her she’s eighteen, naive and ready to fall head over
heels in love and we just didn’t click. Her relationship with Joe didn't feel
completely authentic to me and I didn’t really like her until we were well into
her relationship with Lukas. When they were together, I found myself constantly
shouting at her (not always in my head, I have to admit...) for succumbing to
Lukas’s demands, whims and manipulations. I thought she needed to stand up for
herself a lot more.
Even though I had some issues
with One Perfect Summer, I still
ended up really enjoying it. There was the punting which I’d never heard of and
no desperately want to try, the setting of beautiful Cambridge, awesome
supporting characters and a reference to Johnny and Meg from Johnny Be Good and Baby Be Mine getting married which made me grin like an idiot.
Although it took about two thirds of the novel for me to settle into it, I came
to love Alice and be horrified on her behalf at certain points and I was
cheering her on in her search for Joe.
After the cruel ending of One Perfect Summer I’m hoping for a
sequel, but if not, just another novel by Paige Toon in my hand tomorrow would
be lovely, thank you.
Sophie
Wow, I rarely hear of people losing interest in a relationship because it was too intense! That's a really refreshing point of view, and I can imagine how the actual relationship could be lost in an overdose of sexual/emotional drama. I think I might try this out to see what you mean. :)
ReplyDeleteShame you didn't like this one as much as the others (like me with Sarra Manning!). My mum read this one and loved it though - think ill give it a go!
ReplyDelete