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Synopsis
Anna Lucia Bell believes in luck: bad luck. Bad luck made her best friend stop talking to her. Bad luck caused her parents’ divorce. Bad luck is forcing her mother, Miriam, to sell the family’s beloved bookstore. And it is definitely bad luck that Anna seems to be the only person in the world Miriam is unable to recommend a life-changing book.When Anna finds out that she and her mom are spending two months in a New England seaside town called Rockport, she expects a summer plagued with bad luck too. But Rockport has surprises in store for Anna, including a comet making its first appearance in over twenty years and two new—but familiar—friends.
In what will prove to be the most important summer of her life so far, Anna learns about love, herself, and the magic that an ordinary summer can bring.
Rating
My Thoughts
"You're an atlas moth. Because you're quiet and unassuming and you think you're not as good as a butterfly, but when you open your wings, you're so, so beautiful."
Sometime in Summer is a quietly magical book that encompasses all the moments in your life before you realise that, as much as you try, you can't control how things change. And that's a part of growing up. Anna has just turned fourteen and is struggling with her parents separation, her family's bookstore being sold and the news that she'll be spending the next two months in a small Massachusetts beach town. A comet appearing over the skies of Rockport brings Anna a chance to make new friendships, bring her parents back together and find herself along the way.
I've read one other Katrina Leno book - Horrid, and it was a perfectly creepy haunted house story so I was intrigued to see her upcoming release was lighter and more heartfelt. I jumped onto the blog tour ready to be transported to a New England summer.
Katrina Leno's writing has so much heart and nostalgia behind it. She paints a vivid picture of Rockport; I could smell the sea air, imagine myself walking down the quaint, charming main street, taste the delectable fudge. "The salt of this ocean made the air thick and almost blue and hazy and full. The salt of this ocean was something you could smell and walk through and bite." Leno captures that balmy summer feeling and puts it perfectly into words.
Whilst the character of Anna is on the younger end of the scale for YA, this book still manages to feel universal with it's themes of growing up and letting go of parts of your old life. Anna is an easy character to love and root for. She has a matureness about her but you could feel that she was still discovering her place in the world especially with the challenges that life has been throwing at her. I also found it interesting to read about this character with such an indifference to reading. Anna loves her family bookstore but didn't inherit her parent's love of reading but I loved that she came to the realisation that she can still write and put pen to paper as a way of expressing herself.
I loved how this book examines familial relationships, the Bell family unit is wonderful and it was really lovely to see her mum and dad acknowledging that they still have so much love for each other but that they not longer belong together. There's no bitterness here, it's just how life goes sometimes.
Whilst I enjoyed the magical element in here (I don't know how much I can say without giving away a major plot point), I'll just mention a few inconsistencies that irked me. Like her mum letting her go out in the evening in a strange town without her phone! And actively taking it away from her cause she wanted to listen to a meditation app, that's some careless parenting! Some other parts felt a little too convenient as well but on the larger scale they were minor blips.
When it comes to coming of age contemporaries this is up there with the best. This was a sincere look at how summer as a teenager can be the most magical time in your life, how relationships are ever evolving and change is inevitable. I think readers of a similar age will wholeheartedly relate to the lessons that Anna learns over the course of the novel and if you're older then it will give you that sentimental longing for past summers.
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