It’s Not Summer Without You (Summer #2)

Being with Conrad was supposed to make everything better, but instead it\’s one more thing that\’s fallen apart in the aftermath of Susannah getting sick again. Belly doesn\’t know who she is without summers at Cousins Beach. She doesn\’t know what to make of Conrad\’s apathy or the distance that\’s grown between them since last summer. In a year where so many things have changed, Belly isn\’t sure if she can keep pining for Conrad. All she really knows is that when Jeremiah calls to tell her that Conrad has disappeared, she has to help find him in It\’s Not Summer Without You (2010) by Jenny Han. It\’s Not Summer Without You is the second book in Han\’s Summer trilogy which begins in The Summer I Turned Pretty. Belly narrates most of this book with a few chapters interspersed from Jeremiah\’s point of view. Belly spends so much of this series focused on Conrad that it was interesting to see more of Jeremiah\’s perspective. With the addition of Jeremiah\’s chapters and the story shifting away from Cousins, all of the characters are more developed here. The tension between Belly and both Fisher boys is palpable as all three try to reconcile themselves to the loss of the summer cocoon that used to bind them together. It\’s Not Summer Without You is a melancholy installment but the series is stronger because of it as another layer of depth is added to the story. Han takes the familiar elements from The Summer I Turned Pretty and inverts them to make this an entirely new reading experience. A must-read for fans of the series and as much of a page-turner as you\’re likely to find in a breezy contemporary–let\’s just say I gasped more than once as I made my way to the end of this book! Possible Pairings: Stay Sweet by Siobhan Vivian, Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum, Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo, Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen, I Believe in a Thing Called Love by Maurene Goo, Nantucket Blue by Leila Howland, The Museum of Heartbreak by Meg Leder, The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart, When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon,Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler

I loved this book. It is one of my favorites. The book started out crazy. You know by the end of the first book it is going to happen. I was in tears reading it, mostly because I lost someone recently to cancer. It was a sad time, so knew what the characters were going through. Belly’s love life is crazy – she loves one, then another. I don’t want to spoil too much to keep her love life short will have to do. At the end of the first book, she is with Conrad until something happens. It is told later in the book and it makes you wait it drove me crazy, making me read more. Conrad is one of Belly’s friends and at the end of book one, it is more. He is quiet and keeps to himself. He was had to figure out at first, unlike Jarimah. Jarimah in Conrad’s younger brother. He was closer to Belly, only because they talked a lot more and go along better. Everyone knew Belly like Conrad and when he goes missing she must find him to patch things up. Conrad ran away from summer school and everything else to save something he loved. This book will mess with you emotions drawing you in like crazy. This book we good, but I recommend reading the first book, The Summer I Turned Pretty that book was great as well.

*Review posted on Mundie Moms on 8/5/2016* Soooooooo, let me just say that keeping this review spoiler free is going to be so hard to do, because on page two (PAGE TWO, you guys!) something happens that sets the tension of this book to OMGNOWAY. Yes, you read it right PAGE TWO. The thing that happens (bear with me, I am trying here) is not entirely unexpected, but it sets the tone for the rest of the book. Okay, let me pause a second to say, that the love triangle will just never go away. In fact, it makes perfect sense. So as you turn pages you will find yourself loving Conrad, HATING CONRAD SO SO SO MUCH, and hoping (sometimes rather desperately) that Belly ends up with one or the other of the Fisher boys for reasons I can\’t even mention. GAH. I hate writing non-spoilery review when I have too much to discuss. I guarantee that your emotions will be tugged in all directions with this story. There will be tears or at least a fairly deep sadness (I suggest a sugar rush only Belly would approve of as a remedy) and a sense of relief that maybe, just maybe we will get the ending that we all want. What ending is that, you ask? I don\’t even know. At the start, I was hoping that she would date Conrad, but by the end, I was hoping that the sweetness of Jeremiah would win her over. Beyond the love triangle, Jenny writes a story of friendship between girls, Belly and Taylor and she documents the highs and lows all long standing friendships seem to experience. Their story makes you hope they will end up like Susannah and Laurel eventually. The friendships between the girls, the two moms and the boys and Belly are gorgeously written. They feel extremely real, and in Jenny\’s hands you will feel all the emotions the characters are going through. One refreshing moment is that this book contains Jeremiah\’s point-of-view, so we get to see a little bit of what he\’s thinking as well. We get to see Belly, in her junior year, go through loss and heartbreak. Will she ever get over her crush on Conrad? Will they even find him? Apply another layer of sunscreen, settle down on that beach towel, grab a Coke and cherry ICEE and enjoy a story about friendships, family and the crushes we can never quite leave behind. I\’m definitely moving on to book 3, It\’s Not Summer Without You.

I really enjoyed The Summer I Turned Pretty, the first book in this trilogy, and so when this book arrived in the post I was so annoyed that I had to save it for my holiday. It\’s been sitting on my bookshelf for a couple of months, staring at me and teasing me. But I was finally able to read it while I was sitting by the pool in Crete this July, and I\’m so glad I waited. There are a few differences between this book and the first. The main one is that this book is told from two points of view this time – Belly\’s and Jeremiah\’s. It\’s pretty obvious what is going to happen from early on in the book, but I won\’t spoil you. You must read this for yourself! Belly, on the other hand, hasn\’t changed much at all. Her main concern was Conrad, as usual, and it annoyed me. SO much. She had much bigger problems than chasing after him, but I guess that\’s just Belly for you. Conrad was also being annoying in this book. No, actually, not annoying, just frustrating. I hate it when people can\’t share their feelings and instead they shut off. That said, they were all going through a lot, so I can\’t really blame them. I can\’t blame Conrad, anyway. I absolutely LOVED Jeremiah in this book. He was adorable in the first, and in this one he\’s stepped up and matured and… Wow. I love him. And I really enjoyed reading things from his perspective, for example when he talks about how his dad has always favoured Conrad and left him out. I felt so sorry for him, I just wanted to hug him. This book also marks the beginning of a love triangle. Gah. We\’ll have to see where it goes, although I\’m pretty sure I know. But it\’s okay, because I like what happened at the end. I like it a lot. It\’s Not Summer Without You wasn\’t as good a read as the first book in the trilogy, but I think that\’s because it doesn\’t have such a summery feel to it. The first one was perfect for the beach, whereas this one could have been enjoyed just as much in the hotel room. Plus, look at the title. It\’s not supposed to be as summery. I really did enjoy it, though, and if you haven\’t picked up this trilogy yet then I highly recommend doing so. Especially if you\’re going on holiday this summer!

Read by my teenage daughter and me. It\’s a good series of books for teenage girls. This is the second book in the series. This is my fourteen-year-old daughter\’s comment about the book: I loved that there were flashbacks, but it detracted from the present too much, losing the excitement and tension. I would recommend people to read this second book, but be warned, it\’s not as good as the first!

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