This is was a solid contemporary for me. It didn't blow me out of the park, but I also didn't hate it.

I am generally a sucker for summer novels anyways so this may have something to do with my enjoyment of the book. I love stories about friendship and first loves and I especially love them when they're during the summer. This book took a good hit at all of these things. We follow 4 different girls all dealing with different things who happen to be at the same place during the summer. Some of these characters felt a little flat compared to her counterparts, but they were enjoyable overall. The girls start off despising each other and by the end of the book are BFFs. Predictable, simple, and yet it still felt like it was missing something. Normally these types of books are very character driven. You FEEL with the characters. There doesn't need to be a high stakes plot involved as long as the characters are well developed. I think that is where this book lacked. The characters were a little relateable, but I didn't really connect with any of them. They first time they fell in love felt instant and not well thought out (and I understand that as a teenager it is much easier to fall in love than when they get older). The romance went up and down and then up again and then they were happy at the end as if nothing bad happened at all. It didn't feel real. Their fears didn't really seem big. They were concerned about their families or going to college or doing something great with their lives, and yet it all felt like a joke in some way. I also had a difficult time telling who was who towards the end which made the story less enjoyable overall.

I think the story was a saving grace. While predictable and easy to follow (nothing new), there is always something special about summertime and contemporaries that I am a sucker for. I don't know if its the late nights or the bonfires or the stars and camping or the lake and wilderness or friendships. But there is something I love about a summer story. And that is what kept me going forward. I liked the development of the friendships. I liked the Grandmother's story and how it was intertwined.

Overall, it was a decent read. Nothing specatacular and nothing truly despicable.

This print book review was prepared for and appears in School Library Journal.

Four very different teenage girls form an unlikely friendship while vacationing together in the Adirondacks. Spider and her grandmother Ruthie rent out their vacation home's extra rooms for the month of July via advertising on social media. The renters include Cuban American aspiring actress Britta, model student Meredith, and debutante politician's daughter Kate. Each of the girls seems to feel stuck in her life. Spider, a cynical cinephile, has juvenile idiopathic arthritis and feels alienated by her siblings and peers. Britta wants to get away from her mom's creepy boyfriend. Meredith feels pressured to be at the top of her class and get into an elite college, and she has been having panic attacks. Kate's family is embroiled in a political scandal in their small Georgia town. All four girls are forever changed as they encourage one another to make the necessary changes to improve their lives. Perhaps the most charming story is Ruthie's: Spider and Britta discover that she had a romantic relationship with another young woman decades ago, but they were driven apart by circumstances. Spider and Britta track down Ruthie's lost love, and they reconnect. With pop culture, film, and music references, this story will resonate with teens, who are likely to see themselves in the characters. Flinn tackles tough subjects that elevate this beach read; a solid purchase for most libraries serving teens.

This audiobook review was prepared for and appears in AudioFile Magazine.


Four teenage girls who are near strangers, each voiced by a different narrator, find themselves vacationing together in the Adirondacks and become friends. The pressure that model student Meredith feels to succeed is reflected in narrator Brittany Pressley's tone of caution and uncertainty. Lauren Ezzo uses soft and buttery tones for Southern belle Kate, who is coping with the fallout from her politician father's recent scandal. Characters in Kate's chapters come alive by virtue of Ezzo's careful vocal distinctions. Spider, an aspiring filmmaker, is markedly cynical, and narrator Tara Sands voices her with just the right snark and irascibility. Em Eldridge portrays Britta, a Cuban–American with a flair for drama, but Eldridge's gentle tone seems off the mark. The shifting narrators will keep listeners engaged.

2.75* I liked the story, but the first half was bland and it was too long, there was a lot of fluff. I usually really love multi perspective stories but it was weird that these were all told in third person?? I loved the setting though, and the ending was cute.

This was a sweet read about friendship. Not my typical reading, but the characters were well-developed, semi-stereotypical but not totally, and there was an attempt at diversity of characters (although most characters were white). It was a little lengthy for what felt like a beach read, but overall it was decent.

Overall: 3

Characters: 3
Story: 4
Plot: 3
Writing: 3
Setting: 4
Enjoyment: 3

This is so precious. It was exactly what I needed right now, just nice people being nice. I love reading about female friendships. I could have done without the YA romance and I'll admit I skimmed those parts, but everything else was adorable and it's not the book's fault I don't like YA romance. However, I loved the little snippet of adult sapphic romance in here and even teared up at the end (I'm not dead inside). It might be a bit too sweet and even cheesy in parts, but lately I've been reading so many ugly novels that this just felt like a breath of fresh air.

Four pages in and I'm already the MOST annoyed with the character who is currently our POV, and just read the words "Britta looked Meredith over, since Meredith was plainly oblivious. Meredith would be pretty if she'd lighten up." EXCUSE ME. That's some deep-seated, misogynistic nonsense if I've ever heard it. Anytime I read "she'd be pretty if," I reflexively throw up. Don't think this one is going to be for me, so I'm dnf'ing it before I waste too much time.

This book is 480 pages long...which is 180 pages too much.

I love contemporary summer-friendship reads as much as the next person...but not when they're almost 500 pages long ;_; It was just too much and the story could've been wrapped up sooner.

Things I liked:
-FRIENDSHIPS ♥ old, new, it doesn't matter, the friendships were very sweet and realistic



And what I especially liked is how they didn't exclude grandma, she was also their close friend and they did stuff together all the time :)

-family stuff - all of these girls had some family issues and I'm glad it was all discussed in detail
-the setting - a small house in the mountains, lots of animals, woods, clear skies = gorgeous
-it was not predictable AT ALL
-diversity - in characters and in their problems
-all of the characters had to get out of their comfort zone ->character development was ON POINT

Things I didn't like:
-eventually, the girls all started to sound the same...The chapters alternate between them but it seemed like all of them had similar thoughts, similar personalities
-the romance - it was so unnecessary and the only predictable thing about this story. It felt forced and I couldn't care less about them
-the length - I got to about 70% of the book and it seemed the story was coming to an end, lots of things happened and honestly, I got tired of the story, but then I realized I still had 30% left -.- The longest 30% of my life...



-everything got resolved perfectly. I mean, every girl got exactly what she wanted and it was too HEA for me. It was pretty realistic till that point, but then...ugh.

There are more prons than cons, but this was still too long of a book and I'm probably gonna forget most of it by next week.

Thank you to Edelweiss for providing me with an eArc of this book. It has not affected my opinions or my review.

Unfortunately, this book is one that fell flat for me. I feel like the storylines of the four girls turned out to be stereotypical and cliche without enough depth to bring them to life, and the story revolved around the messages (too obvious) instead of the characters taking me on a journey to discover them along the way. We had: the overly studious girl who needed to learn to have fun; the rich girl who needed to break away from high society's expectations; the very chatty, dramatic, annoying girl; and a bitter girl who needed to learn how to not make her disability define who she was.

Don't get me wrong. If done well, these can make compelling stories. In general, though? The writing felt shallow, their personalities felt shallow. They didn't seem as intelligent as I thought seniors (and one junior) can be, and the way exclamation points were often used to try to push a point out or make the reader excited didn't help.

I also thought, from the synopsis, that this would be a book without a romance. However, it was still added in, and I didn't enjoy it. All it served to do was take away attention from the four girls together, when I felt a big point of the book was to show their growing relationship. In fact, the girls didn't spend as much time together as I would have liked, instead embarking on their own storylines (with the exception of one pair) but somehow still ending up close.

I do wish I could rate this higher. The message, yeah, is good in theory—but it's not a groundbreaking one, and its execution didn't satisfy me.