The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han
I´ve read just too many summer beach romances in my life that I always feel like I have read everything that I need to read in that category, but once again, I was swept off my feet by a gorgeous teenager. I have read To All the Boys I´ve Loved Before by the same author and I absolutely loved Peter! So, I was a little bit excited to start reading this series, but at the same time, I felt a little nervous because I tend to enjoy summer books, but never really love them as others.
The Summer I Turned Pretty tells the story of Belly, a soon-to-be sixteen-year-old that has been visiting Cousins every year of her life during summer. Her family always goes and stays with Sussanah, her mother´s best friend´s family, and they are like a big family. Belly is sure that this summer is probably going to be the same, but when she gets there, she realizes that there may be something different this time.
Belly has always had a crush on Conrad, one of Sussanah´s sons, and when she sees him again, she tries to convince herself that her feelings for him are over, but that may not be the case.
On the other hand, Belly and Jeremiah, Conrad´s brother, may have left some things unclear last year.
When summer starts with people mentioning that she is different now and with guys actually checking her out, she realizes that this summer is going to be completely different to others.
Eventually, she meets Cam, a very good-looking guy that seems to be Belly´s age, they eventually end up spending a lot of time together.
Who is going to steal Belly´s heart this summer? Is this going to be the summer that changes everything for her? Will there even be more summers after this one?
I think what I liked the most about this novel was the way its story. Okay, the plot is not that interesting and the things that happen aren´t that story-changing, but what I really liked was the story about their beach house, Conrad, Jeremiah, Steven, and Susannah, I just fell in love with the way Mr. Fisher always visits during summer and barbecues, I guess I just loved the way this novel gave us a look at what having traditions like this feels like. I think that almost everybody wants to be able to just leave the life that they are living for a couple of months and go to a small bubble with the people that you love being with and The Summer I Turned Pretty did that.
On the other hand, I really liked the characters and their relationships. I just loved the way Steven, Conrad, Jeremiah, and Belly had a unique bond that made them friends and almost siblings. I adored the way they had things that only they understood because that made them part of something that they were very emotionally attached to. I liked Steven, although he wasn´t part of the story a lot because he was just like the typical older brother that every sister should have and it was adorable to see how he protected her and how the other guys just automatically did the same when he left.
Furthermore, I believe that having a love triangle with two brothers was just so dramatic and intense, which I absolutely loved! I fell in love with Jeremiah almost immediately and although I liked him so much, I did believe that Jeremiah and Belly weren´t that compatible, so I actually found myself rooting for Belly and Conrad, so yes, I absolutely hated Cam and although I do love his name, I thought that he was a character that wasn´t that useful, he appeared through most of the novel, but he didn´t really impact Belly in any way and he seemed to be almost like her second plate, something that she only wanted when Conrad wasn´t talking to her.
On the other hand, I didn´t really like how Belly is always focusing on Conrad, I mean, yes, I adored them, but she was always talking about him that it got a little bit stressful. I wanted more of the story, I expected more character development from other characters as well, such as Jeremiah, who is a love interest in this novel.
Similarly, The Summer I Turned Pretty did have a pretty interesting story that kept me reading until the end, but nothing very essential seemed to happen, almost as if we were actually living that summer with her completely instead of only getting the juicy parts of it. I believe that the only story that I did like was the drama about Taylor, the girl that used to be Belly´s best friend. I liked how the author built an anticipation that made the readers eager to find out what Taylor, a 14-year-old had done, and honestly, I did enjoy the outcome of that.
Similarly, I really liked how the story had chapters from different time periods from Belly´s point of view because we are able to follow Belly´s family and friends throughout the summers and understand how summers always tend to be for these families.
Overall, The Summer I Turned Pretty is a very enjoyable summer tale of growing up and trying to continue traditions and a story that you will not want to see the end.
4 out of 5 stars
Love, Sua
Open Road Summer by Emery Lord
Imagine your best friend is America´s new sweetheart and suddenly, you are able to tour the country following her along a country tour, where Matt Finch, the new cute opening act of the tour, will be joining them for all sorts of adventures.
Reagan joins Dee´s summer tour with a broken heart, but when she arrives at her best friend´s tour, she realizes that her heartbreak may not be as awful as Dee´s. Dee is soon surrounded by rumors and articles full of her ex-boyfriend, so her team decides to bring a new distraction for the media, a new opening act. That´s how Matt Finch, a total sweetheart that every girl has had a crush on in middle school, gets to join the tour. When Reagan meets Dee´s fake boyfriend, she knows that she won´t be falling for him, well, that´s until she gets to know him. Aside from all cute looks, what really captivates Reagan is his music. So, Reagan falls in love with his passion and his way of communicating with the world. On the other hand, Dee is trying to live her life as a teenager, even when she has certain rules to follow because she´s under the spotlight, so having her best friend with her will mend her heart and make everything better. This will be a summer they will NEVER forget!
I liked the plot a lot, although it seemed a little cliché, it was nice to read about the music world because I am a person that LOVES music! My favorite part of the whole writing of the novel was the fact that the author added Matt´s lyrics because it made it more real and it gave us an idea of the reason behind Reagan liking his music so much since having that piece of information kind of creates a better logic in your mind instead of just having a piece of information thrown at you.
Surprisingly, my favorite character in the book was Dee because she was a teenager that was eager to live life and that made her really special. Even though the story is focused on Reagan, especially because it is narrated from her point of view, we see a lot of Dee by her actions. It broke my heart to read about her heartbreak because it sounded so devastating, especially when she was living a very hard life surrounded by millions of people. Also, the whole articles about her ex-boyfriend were the key part that made me feel so bad for her because she had to deal with the horrible breakup and she also had to take care of her image and her reputation, it put her in a situation where she still had to care about her ex when the relationship was over.
On the other hand, Reagan was definitely not a favorite character of mine, she annoyed me a lot because she is one of those characters that knows what she wants, yet when she can have it, she just backs away and ends up hurting everyone. I could understand why she might have felt betrayed throughout the novel, but the reason why she was feeling that way was that she was so close-minded when someone hurt her, she just ran away without understanding the situation she was in. I do understand that when we are about to get hurt, humans tend to back up a little bit to protect ourselves from the heartbreak, but Reagan kind of took it to another level. She just didn´t want to hear about anything that had to do with it and that may have hurt her more than she expected.
Matt was a character that I liked but didn´t get obsessed with. He was very easy to let go as time passed by, he isn´t a character that stayed with me for a long amount of time like I did with other characters, yet I do admit that at the time of reading it, I really liked him and his personality. He is very funny and he´s passionate about his work and that seemed very beautiful to me.
For me, the story seemed more about friendship rather than romance because the whole meaning behind Reagan being on tour with Dee was to celebrate their friendship and to me, that seemed beautiful because there are things that you can ONLY do with your close friend, and Dee having her best friend with her made it easier to start living life the way she was eager to do so.
I believe that it is a perfect book to enjoy if you love music and if you want to read about a friendship that could melt your heart.
4 out of 5 stars
Love, Sua
Romancing the Throne by Nadine Joline Courtney
I am OBSESSED with Royal romances. It started a couple of years ago when I read The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan. I just fell in love with the whole concept of falling in love with princes and having friends that have always lived well because of the old money they have always lived surrounded by. But honestly, what I really like is all the drama that always surrounded these characters and these stories. I mean, everything that happened in the story was eventually going to cause drama. After completely falling in love with everyone in The Royal We and obsessing myself with the royal story, I was craving for more. So, I started researching books that were similar. Honestly, I had such a long journey, I read The Heair and the Spare by Emily Albright and that didn´t end well because I liked the story, but I thought that the story was just too similar in a lot of parts to my favorite royal-romance novel, but not really fun like The Royal We.
That´s why when I first knew about Romancing the Throne, I was hesitant to read it. I knew that the story was somewhat going to be different from The Royal We since in this novel two sisters want to date the prince, but there was also another part of me that wasn´t sure about reading that type of novel because I knew that I would feel uncomfortable reading the novel and rooting for a couple knowing that her sister was also in love with the same guy, but honestly, it somehow worked in this novel and I am going to explain how later.
Romancing the Throne by Nadine Joline Courtney tells the story of Charlotte and Libby. Charlotte attends a private school with some of the teenagers that will become the most important people on Earth, including Edward, the prince. On the other hand, Libby attends an all-girl school that is the most competitive academically.
During summer break, Charlotte is invited to a party at India´s, one of Edward´s close friend, house. When Charlotte gets there, she sparks a conversation with Edward and they end up together the whole night and Charlotte goes home thinking that her chance to be Edward´s girlfriend has finally come.
But suddenly, Libby´s school is involved in a scandal, so she decides to transfer into Charlotte´s school in order to be able to get into a university and suddenly, Libby´s life changes completely. She is part of the group of people that will someday become the most influential and now that she is finally living with Charlotte, she is eager to meet Edward, Charlotte´s boyfriend.
Charlotte tries really hard to make Edward and Libby get along since they are the two people that she likes the most, but every time that the two are together, they seem to be getting closer that at some point, everyone in the group starts doubting that the two are only being friends since they are always acting very close to each other and they seem to be enjoying themselves.
Now, Charlotte and Libby seem to be fighting for the prince, while trying to keep the sister code.
So, I did enjoy Romancing the Throne, but it isn´t my favorite novel. There were too many things that I didn´t enjoy, but I found Edward to be super cute that I decided to keep reading.
I want to start by talking about the characters because I believe that this is going to be the longest part of the review.
So, I want to start by talking about Charlotte since she is the main character. I didn´t like her voice AT AT ALL! I found her extremely annoying because she was trying too hard to be something that she wasn´t and I know that if she wasn´t like that, the story would be completely pointless, but this made her look very immature. Also, her reactions made her very immature because she reacted very dramatically to everything!
On the other hand, I actually liked Libby a lot, but her character was rather plain because Charlotte was just too focused on herself that she wasn´t able to tell us how her sister was! But from the little personality that I got to see, I thought she was very nice and I really liked her. Yet, from what Charlotte explained about her sister, Libby was just a walking stereotype because the only thing that described her was that she attended an all-girls school and she only liked to study, so much that she didn´t even have friends. I was annoyed to see how Libby was just described as a stereotype because she wasn´t the main character. Similarly, Charlotte is portrayed as a stereotype as well. She liked to party and have fun with wealthy people and she just liked sports, which makes her the exact opposite of her sister, which makes them compete with each other continuously.
Now, Edward is a completely different story because I found him to be super adorable! The way Edward was portrayed was weird because he seemed to be a very typical YA male character, but at the same time, I found him to be very mature and act differently and entirely like a prince, he reminded me a lot of Nick from The Royal We, but in his youth since Nick is a college student when we meet him.
Similarly, I liked the way the main characters were surrounded by other supporting characters because they helped us understand the type of characters that they were, yet, on the other hand, I believe that the characters that were chosen to be part of the group were a bit similar to the group of friends from The Royal We. Also, I wanted them to have more personality and be actual characters rather than just names that were mentioned throughout the novel.
I want to take the time to talk about how much I loved Libby and Edward. They were just SO cute! I mean, after immediately falling in love with Edward from the very first scene in which he was introduced, I still didn´t believe that he was the perfect guy for Charlotte because they felt more a fling rather than them actually dating. So, when Libby and Edward were finally together, I actually think that they were good together because they seemed to fit together very well and her story was going to be much more fun because she was new to the school and she was trying to adjust being part of a group of friends and having classes with different people, that´s why I would have liked to have the story narrated from her point of view or at least have the opportunity to know more about her relationship with Libby. So, in my opinion, approaching this novel from Charlotte´s point of view was a bad idea.
Similarly, I didn´t like the way the dialogues were because they made me roll my eyes and I found them very annoying and like I mentioned before, Edward was the only thing from this novel that made me keep reading.
Additionally, I was confused throughout the novel because it wasn´t specified that the story was in England. I mean, they only talked about Sussex Park, but they never said that it was in England, especially because they played hockey and they talked like Americans.
Overall, I did not enjoy Romancing the Throne as much as I thought I would.
3 out of 5 stars
Love, Sua
