Novel Review: Five Summers by Una LaMarche

Rating (Out of 5): ~3

Genre: YA Contemporary Romance

Publisher: RazorBill (Penguin)

Release Date: 2013

Spoilers?: No.

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Book Depository. Powells.

Teaser Tuesday.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Bittersweet, funny, and achingly honest, Five Summersis a story of friendship, love, and growing up that is perfect for fans of Ann Brashare's The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Judy Blume's Summer Sisters.

Four best friends, five summers of camp memories

Emma, Skylar, Jo, and Maddie have all come back to camp for a weekend of tipsy canoe trips to the island, midnight skinny dipping in the lake, and an epic game of capture the flag—boys versus girls. But the weekend isn't quite as sunwashed as they'd imagined as the memories come flooding back. . . .

The summer we were nine: Emma was branded “Skylar’s friend Emma” by the infamous Adam Loring . . .
The summer we were ten: Maddie realized she was too far into her lies to think about telling the truth . . .
The summer we were eleven: Johanna totally freaked out during her first game of Spin the Bottle . . .
The summer we were twelve: Skylar’s love letters from her boyfriend back home were exciting to all of us—except Skylar . . .
Our last summer together: Emma and Adam almost kissed. Jo found out Maddie’s secret. Skylar did something unthinkable . . . and whether we knew it then or not, five summers of friendship began to fall apart.

A young adult book with a friendship story that will last long after the last s'more is gone.

The Cover:

I like this cover. It's a little simple, but pretty. There's more drama in the book than it portrays, perhaps, and not so much happy-go-lucky, but I do think that it shows a good idea of what you're getting. I like that it's showing them at camp, and there are four girls.

Quotes:

• "'You are my rose, never my thorn, and through these pledges, friendship is sworn.’” (Hardback, pg. 11)
• "Nothing left to the last minute ever turns out the way you want it to; that’s when the most mistakes get made.” (Pg. 15)

Review:

I expected to love this book. I found it cheap, but it was already on my radar. It sounded like a fun contemporary book, and I’d heard pretty good things.

About half of the book is in Emma’s point of view, and I just did not care for her. She was boring and normal, and I just didn’t care for her viewpoint much at all. Her biggest storyline was with Skylar, and how she was in love with Adam, and I didn’t care much for her either. Skylar's big problem was that her father was always putting her down and she was always fooling around with a lot of guys she didn’t love. She was mostly just forgettable, though.

The other half was about Jo and Maddie. Jo is a tomboy, her father runs the camp they’re at, and her mom wants her to like makeup. Jo likes boys, and she’s a bit insecure at times, but she likes herself and wants to have her friends back. I liked Jo a lot, especially near the end. Her father was super sweet, and I liked her romance a lot. I also liked her friendship with Maddie, and how even though Maddie had been lying, they were still close. Maddie as a character was all right, sweet and getting over a breakup, better than Emma.

The last quarter of the book was exciting, when everything had finally come out and the girls were fighting and arguing and then overcoming their issues. But the rest of the ending, and the whole beginning, I just didn’t care much for. I was bored a lot of the time, and then I didn’t like Emma, and at least half of the book was her. I could have done with the entire book being in Jo and Maddie’s point of view. Adam was a jerk, and I did like how the friendship message was pushed all the way through.

Overall an all right book; I liked some parts more than others.