Jolene Perry

I have very mixed feelings about this book.

On one hand - I could feel the grief. Good development of father-son bond. The rocky beginning of a beautiful friendship strong relationship.

On the other - There is a clear split in the book.
Part 1 aka Before
- Solid and interesting. Somewhat predictable drama to set the plot moving (I knew right away what goes down, not many options there really).
Part 2 aka After, aka In comes Helena
- Also known as The Great Divide. I had a What happened? moment - and my suspension of disbelief came to a grinding halt. Was it the looming deadline? Some life crisis? Something else?

Before was enjoyable. After turned out to be a terrible disappointment. There's NO WAY a single talk could revamp a person so completely. NO WAY.

Not to mention that the ending was terribly rushed. And had a sleazy feel of a horrible Happily Ever After.
(Not that I'm terribly against HEA. But one has to draw a line somewhere. It's one thing when there's a feeling of Possibility lurking on the horizon. And quite another matter when HEA is sugary sweet to the point of inducing nausea or so detailed there's no space for Possibility or -heaven forbid!- Imagination.)

FINAL VERDICT: A LET-DOWN… (more)

Rating: 4.5/5

*dab her eyes with a Kleenex*

Second chances are a beautiful thing, indeed.

From the beginning of the book, sorrow and sadness clenched my heart in a iron grasp and didn't let go until I turned the last pages and breathed a sigh of relief at seeing the two lovers getting finally their happy ending. It was the least they could have after all the hurt and heartaches they've been subjected to in one year.

A whirl of misunderstanding, pain, grief, loss, bitterness, love, heartbreak, a messy break-up and Tobin and Delia in the middle of it all, how can anyone stay stoic and unmoved by what they have been through?

I cried and cried and stayed until 2am reading in a frenzy, aching for a small flicker of happiness, to see them get past all their mistakes, overcome their fears and obstacles and be in each other arms again.

I cried for Tobin who just lost his older brother but couldn't understand why he did that to himself.

And I cried for Delia, who had been bullied her whole life by her control-freak father but then had enough of it and stood up for herself and her happiness against him.

Beautiful, emotional and hazardous for mushy hearts (like myself); Mrs. Perry and Mrs. Campbell are two authors I'm adding to watch-out-for list.… (more)

Some thoughts:
It's not summer when this story takes place, more like late spring, early May. So a different title would be appropriate.

Kate reminds me of one of my family members who hoped her diabetes diagnosis would go away, if she ignored it.

I was reminded of Something Like Normal as I was reading this book. I'll buy it for my students who liked that one and want something similar to read next.

I would be willing to pay $5.00 for this on my kindle, but not $10.

I hope the spelling errors are corrected in the final draft. Aiden or Aidan?… (more)

When I finished The Summer I Found You, my very first thought was something like this: “Why the hell is it titled something with summer, when the entire book takes place during spring?” It may not be such a big deal, but it bothered me. (Still does, by the way!)

Of the two MCs, I liked Kate the best. I understand her reaction to the sickness and why she tries so hard to continue on with a normal life. She makes some stupid mistakes, but to me it just seemed like teenage-rebellion. Too bad that it could actually kill her!

Aidan I don’t really get. He never got under my skin and his chapters were a bit boring to me. I understand his frustrations and he is actually a very interesting character, but he just lacked something to make me really care for him.

The different POV’s would have been great if it was possible for me to differ between the two. I was unable to tell just from the writing who I was reading about and I needed the character’s name at the beginning. In general, the writing isn’t amazing and there are a lot of mistakes both in the writing and in the setup of the Kindle version. It’s too bad, because it disturbed my reading-flow a lot!

It’s a cute story, but it could have been longer. The romance between Kate and Aidan would have been more realistic and they would both have had more time to work on their problems and thereby make the story more plausible.… (more)