The Last Summer of Us

I came across Maggie Harcourt’s second book, Unconventional, in January of this year and it was ONLY THE MOST ADORABLE THING EVER (and my first five star read of the year!) I immediately stalked Maggie, and found out she had another book – one about three best friends on a road trip and I knew I NEEDED to read it. And so, when the lovely team at Usbourne agreed to my review copy request, I was BEYOND overjoyed! Hello new Maggie Harcourt book! Since doing thoughts during a review is my new thing, here goes: · While I wasn’t EXPECTING this book to be a fluffy romance filled with fandom and cute authors like Unconventional, I did expect that I would/ wanted to like it just as much. · I could tell that this was a FIRST book. The writing and the characters were nowhere near as solid and real as they were in Unconventional. More than building of characters through dialogue, and the reader making their own inferences, the MC NARRATED the different personalities of her friends and herself, sort of giving you her opinions and not letting you get to know the characters yourselves. · To clarify what I meant above (^) OVER THREE QUARTERS OF THIS BOOK WAS FILLED WITH MUSINGS AND THOUGHTS. The dialogue was SPARSE at best, with about half a page of talking every three pages. I’m not kidding. · Hence, I got the feeling that I saw seeing a FILTERED version of these characters, from someone else’s point of view - one that was obviously not my own – because I BARELY HEAR FROM THEM IN A 300 PAGE BOOK. It was a strange experience, and I’m not entirely sure I liked it. · Moving on - I LOVED THE ROAD TRIP. It was a very different one – one with no real destination that really brought to life the “It’s the journey not the destination” quote. I loved the strange things they saw on the way like the Elephant and the Ostrich Camp and the Biker Gang wedding. It was a journey to find yourself and I loved it. · I also really liked how Maggie dealt with the “We are not the sum of our parent’s choices” theme, because it is VERY important. A lot of what we learn we learn from the people who raise us, and they face that your parent’s mistakes aren’t your fault was handled very well. And that’s it. I feel like I can’t properly form an opinion about this book because I NEVER REALLY GOT TO KNOW MY INTERPRETATION OF THE CHARACTERS. I felt like an unwanted outsider reading someone’s private story, and I don’t know what to make of that. If you’re into road trips and books on the bonds on friendship and family, I’d recommend this book! 3 stars.