Honestly it wasn’t a bad book, just beyond boring. I think I would have liked this more if Fortune had dealt with the insane amount of codependency the lead character (Lucy) had with her best friend (Bridget). I also won’t lie, with how Lucy and Bridget were both acting, I kept thinking we may get best friends declaring they were in love with each other at some point. It just felt off-putting that Lucy really seemed to have no idea how to live her life without Bridget, and the whole secret whatever with Felix was beyond dumb. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry about the reveals we get about this whole messiness since it was so important for 5 years.
This Summer Will Be Different follows florist Lucy traveling to Prince Edward Island. Her best friend Bridget’s family lives there, and now Lucy gets to see where Anne of Green Gables was inspired by and all of the little things that she fell in love with while reading the books. Things take a turn though when she meets a hot man at a restaurant and goes home with him. She thinks that there could be something more there until she finds out who the man is (Bridget’s younger brother) and both say they won’t do it again. The book follows Lucy through 5 turbulent years which leads up to Bridget’s wedding.
Honestly, Lucy was kind of meh. I know I was supposed to see shades of Anne and Diana with the friendship, but honestly, Anne and Diana were not dependent on each other like this. Anne also went away to be a teacher and writer and I recall that Diana stayed in Avonlea. I just didn’t get why Lucy got so tied up (and at times got very obsessive with Bridget). We also quickly realize that she lost touch with all of her friends and seems wrapped up in her business and Bridget. I also have to say her I am not into Felix, but going to keep thinking about him and her repetition of saying “him and more” all the time drove me up the wall. The main reason why I did give this 3 stars is that I think as I said earlier, Fortune maybe clocked on that the whole book was a mess and that the HEA she was going for was not going to work if she didn’t try to at least fix the problem with Lucy.
The whole book was just okay though. We go back and forth between the present day leading up to Bridget’s wedding and her “secret” and then the times that Lucy was back on the island and seeing Felix. And then the one time he came to Toronto. Lucy and Felix I thought had great chemistry in the the initial pages of the book, but I just got bored by both of them by the time we got to the end.
I also don’t know about the ending, it just didn’t work for me.