“Every Summer After” follows Persephone (Percy) Fraser who is living, but not happy. She still is coming to grips that none of her relationships matter to her, and that the one boy she fell for, Sam, she hasn’t spoken to in about 12 years. When Percy gets a phone call letting her know that Sam’s mother has passed away, she decides to return to the lake she hasn’t been to in years. And with that trip back to the lake, she has to come to terms with what caused her to fall for Sam and what caused them to fall apart.
So, if you have followed me for a long time, you know that there are certain things I just don’t care to read about in romance books. No spoilers, but a big thing happened there. I guessed at what it was and then when it was revealed I was so over it. I just didn’t like the book much after that and was glad to get it over with.
Good things:
1) I got to eat this outside while having brunch and later on at my community pool. Since most of the book is about a lake and then swimming, it felt like a very good outside book/beach/pool book.
2) I thought that Fortune did a great job of showing young love between Percy and Sam and all the ways things change when you realize someone you have been best friends with is an actual human being you feel attracted to.
3) I thought that the book did a great job of showing how hard it is to hold onto young love when you move on finally and go off to college. And even harder when you go to different places.
That said, everything else was a mess. Percy at first, I liked. Give me a teen girl into horror movies and stories and sign me up. But Percy as she gets older starts to suck and as a 30 year old woman was a hot mess. And the one friend Percy even has an adult named Chantal, felt like a token Black character that never really appears on the page. Most of the book’s focus is on Sam and I didn’t like Sam. There was a lot of confusion and mess around Percy and Sam, but most of it was because Sam didn’t know what he wanted. And everything else felt very thin when it came to the plot and characters.
I read this book for CBR17bingo, “Review: A book you chose because a review intrigued you.” Everyone has been getting on me to read Carley Fortune and I was told this one was really good based on my local romance bookstore’s recommendation/review……so maybe we don’t like the same things. LOL.