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A Summer Read Gone Wrong
- Riana Fuentes
- Jul 16, 2022
- 9 min read
Updated: Jul 23, 2022
"Betrayals don't cancel out each other. They just hurt more." – Sam Florek
Every Summer After
Carley Fortune
Amazon Kindle, Audible
May 10, 2022
320 of Pages
Synopsis:
Six summers to fall in love. One moment to fall apart. A weekend to get it right.
They say you can never go home again, and for Persephone Fraser, ever since she made the biggest mistake of her life a decade ago, that has felt too true. Instead of glittering summers on the lakeshore of her childhood, she spends them in a stylish apartment in the city, going out with friends, and keeping everyone a safe distance from her heart.
Until she receives the call that sends her racing back to Barry’s Bay and into the orbit of Sam Florek—the man she never thought she’d have to live without.
For six summers, through hazy afternoons on the water and warm summer nights working in his family’s restaurant and curling up together with books—medical textbooks for him and work-in-progress horror short stories for her—Percy and Sam had been inseparable. Eventually that friendship turned into something breathtakingly more before it fell spectacularly apart.
When Percy returns to the lake for Sam’s mother’s funeral, their connection is as undeniable as it had always been. But until Percy can confront the decisions she made and the years she’s spent punishing herself for them, they’ll never know whether their love might be bigger than the biggest mistakes of their past.
Told over the course of six years and one weekend, Every Summer After is a big, sweeping nostalgic look at love and the people and choices that mark us forever.
cw: sexual content, panic attacks, death of parent, grief
This review contains spoilers.
Table of Contents:
First Impressions
Ria: I had high hopes for this because I saw this book all over Instagram and so much people were recommending it and saying this was the perfect summer read and how much they loved this book. A lot had also said that this book was super similar to Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren and that if you liked that book, you’ll like this one too. And since I did quite like that book, I had high hopes for this. Needless to say, this was the very very very lesser Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren book. And this is my warning for the rant I’ll be doing in the next paragraphs.
Jhanya: Every Summer After is a good debut novel. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a solid YA novel and I can see why a lot of people loved it and why it’s 4.4 on Goodreads. But the story just wasn’t it for me. From the beginning, everything felt like a better-written Wattpad book and I knew what to expect in every chapter already. Yes. I’m going there. I’ll explain more in the review below.
Story + Pacing
Ria: 0.5 for effort lol. Similar to Love and Other Words, this book follows the then and now chapter format. We get flashbacks of when they were younger between the current happenings. This was done nearly to perfection in Love and Other Words, and in Every Summer After, it was okay. There were parts where past events didn’t fit perfectly with the current events, but it did give a more-or-less understandable plot.
Jhanya: The plot wasn’t anything new I’m gonna be honest. I’ve read dozens of books (esp in wattpad) with a similar idea and/or format. It isn’t really a bad thing. And I guessed what would happen every single chapter, and with other books, I find them fun when they do happen, but for Every Summer After I was bothered at how predictable everything was. The plot flowed smoothly, sure. But the issue is that it wasn’t satisfying when you think about it. In the almost 4 hrs that it took for me to read the book, my mood was basically the same the whole time. There was no rollercoaster of emotions. There was barely any emotion at all, and that didn’t really bode well with me.
What I didn’t like the most, however, was how fleshed out and better written the “then” chapters were compared to the “now” ones. The way the past years were written and told was pretty interesting and had me interested the whole time. But the present chapters were very underwhelming and barely had anything happening in some of them. The fact that Fortune also basically crammed the confrontation, reconciliation, and the whole present drama into a few pages (not even a chapter ffs) doesn’t really do the characters any justice. The build-up was so anticlimactic and the fact that I saw it coming even before the 5th chapter made it even worse. There wasn’t enough payoff for everything that the characters and the readers went through.
Ria: For me, my main issue with this is definitely the relationship itself. I was already pretty iffy with the huge event that led to the ultimate break-up with the hints I had gotten from the current events and the “burning to the ground” relationship of young Percy and Sam. Let me just straight up say, their romantic relationship was so toxic. I want to highlight “romantic relationship” because all things went to hell when they got together. Their friendship was actually something that I treasured. I loved their dynamic and seeking comfort and having that safe space between them that they both needed. It’s something everyone should actually have. But, when they got together, all that’s been built up was just shattered.
To be honest, I was willing to see past the toxicity in their relationship since I understand that they were young, dumb, and immature and that they still have a lot of character development and growth to go through. //spoiler alert// My breaking point is definitely the cheating. I do not condone any kind of cheating and it just hurts a lot more if the person you loved cheated on you with your brother, another person who you’re supposed to trust. (It’s not to say Sam is completely without fault). //spoiler ends//
Jhanya: Same thoughts on the willingness to look past the toxicity in their relationship part, but as I’ve mentioned earlier, the payoff wasn’t worth it. ugh. I like how realistic the whole story and relationship are. There really are people like that. But how it was handled in the book was underwhelming and seriously lacking. Like, they barely talked about the reason they broke up in the first place (it was all miscommunication btw) and just decided to get back together in the end because they loved each other so much. It would’ve also been a bit better if we got a glimpse of them during their 20s or at least talked a bit more in-depth abt it, but we can’t have it all huhu.
Writing Style
Ria: The writing wasn’t bad. It’s the only aspect of the book that I actually liked. It was engaging and it explained what was going on well, in a not filler or dragging kind of way. I would also say that the descriptives were done quite well.
Jhanya: As I’ve mentioned, this was a solid debut novel. The writing was good and I don’t really have any complaints about it. The flow of the book was also smooth and the alternating timelines didn’t confuse me at all. How Carley Fortune captured the (sometimes annoying) voice of Percy kept me going and the whole thing was easy to read. How the story was executed is really what bothered me so not too many comments on the writing. Carley Fortune knows how to tell her stories.
Characters
Jhanya: In what world was this a coming of age novel? Sure, the story showed them from kids to adults and they did become of age LOL, but there was a serious lack of development and actual growing up throughout the story, especially with the lead couple.
Ria: I give this a 0.5 because Sue deserves respect. I have so many complaints with ALL characters. (probably except sue!)
Anyway, starting with adult Persephone, I actually was okay with her. She acknowledged the mistake she has done for herself and actually looked for help and I deem that to be very mature of her. I also like the portrayal of her lack of trust because of both what she experienced and what she did. I don’t totally love her, though.
With young Persephone, she was okay until that point. I feel bad for her actually, because her actions were a result also of how she was feeling – neglected and unloved. Personally, I don’t think she has that much of a good relationship (or actually, existent relationship) with her parents and the first actual relationship which was a friendship she had that lasted was with Sam which was dwindling down so much because Sam, essentially, ghosted her. So while I do not condone her actions, she isn’t entirely at fault, as well.
Jhanya: To be honest, I found Percy immature throughout the book. From the moment she mentioned how her love life works in the first chapter, I knew there would already be loads of moments where the characters are young and dumb. And as Ria mentioned, her current mental state was also understandable given the past and the way she acted. She really owned up to her attitude and mistakes which was nice to see. But there was a serious lack of taking proper action for the things she’s done. Acknowledging and accepting is only the first step. What also really bothered me other than THE THING, was that Sam didn’t even cross her mind at all????
As for Sam, however, he needed a proper dose of reality outside the usual overachieving student life in the “then” chapters and he did, in college, and everything just went downwards from there. Sam’s character just didn’t click with me. He was stuck in his own world throughout the whole story and was pretty selfish if I’m being completely honest. I loved his friendship with Percy a lot and it’s cute how his feeling developed. The way he acted on those feelings, however, wasn’t it. I expected more from him as an adult and the fact that he suffered through med school, but I don’t think he learned much at all outside of the textbook knowledge. I mean, his character had potential, being a sweet, hot nerd and a clean-freak, but how his personality was executed really wasn’t it.
Also, the fact that he was the one that had to properly apologize in the end didn’t sit right with me. Like, sure he’s also at fault for the serious lack of communication, but to have to be the one with the serious apology felt so wrong. I know he isn’t the best person in the world, but he was the one who got betrayed, not the other way around…….
Ria: Both young and adult Sam isn’t good in my book.
Jhanya: And now we go to Charles, the only person with proper character development through adulthood in this book. I love Sue, but she had better development during their high school days. The fact that he also didn’t beat around the bush and was always upfront with his thoughts is something I respect.
Ria: Adult Charlie >>>>> Young Charlie. There’s no other answer for this. I saw the growth and development that Charlie had and I really appreciate that. I saw how he grew out of his immaturity and strived to be a better person. It’s just disappointing that to be able to grow into that, he had to do that first. This just really shows how experiences change certain people.
Overall, the only redeeming quality of the characters was the explanation of why the author wrote these characters in the acknowledgments. She emphasized the flaws of each character and how these people deal with them. And I do agree. People do grow from their mistakes, but I only actually saw that in Charlie. There was an immense lack of actual character development and more toxicity. I would’ve liked to see more on how Sam and Percy continued and dealt with their relationship. How did they deal with trust issues? How did they come to trust each other not to cheat or not to just leave one hanging?
Jhanya: It was nice to see how realistic the characters were, but the whole fiasco at the end just didn’t justify what we’ve seen in the past 15 or so chapters.
Ria: I guess my biggest disappointment is that this book could have been the book that I would love but was just really, definitely, not.
Final Thoughts
Ria: The immense regret that I have for reading this book is something that I’ll never let go of. I hate this book, I’m not rereading it EVER, and I don't recommend this book.
Jhanya: It took some convincing myself to get me to read this amidst my book slump and I’m just happy that I didn’t take too long a time to actually finish the whole thing (3 ½ hrs total) because it wasn’t really worth it. The start of the book was actually great and kept me reading, but the trainwreck at the end just turned me off from it completely. I wouldn’t really recommend this book, but I also won’t stop you from reading it. A lot of people liked it, the story just didn’t work for me, so maybe it will for you. Still, a pretty good summer read as a whole, especially with the writing.
Rating
Criteria | Jhanya | Ria |
|---|---|---|
Story / Plot (2) | 0.5 | 0.5 |
Characters (2) | 0.5 | 0.5 |
Writing (2) | 1.75 | 1.5 |
Morale (1) | 0.25 | 0 |
Originality (1) | 0.25 | 0.5 |
Relevance (1) | 0.25 | 0.25 |
Reread Value (1) | 0 | 0 |
TOTAL | 3.5 | 3.25 |
Final Score | 3.38 | |
FINAL RATING:
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