Review: The Summer After You and Me by Jennifer Salvato Doktorski

The Summer After You and Me

by Jennifer Salvato Doktorski

May 5, 2015

320 pages

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Goodreads Summary:

Sunbathing, surfing, eating funnel cake on the boardwalk—Lucy loves living on the Jersey Shore. For her, it's not just the perfect summer escape, it is home. And as a local girl, she knows not to get attached to the tourists. They breeze in over Memorial Day weekend, crowding the shore and stealing moonlit kisses, only to pack up their beach umbrellas and empty promises on Labor Day. Lucy wants more from love than a fleeting romance, even if that means keeping her distance from her summertime neighbor and crush, Connor.

Then Superstorm Sandy tears apart her barrier island, briefly bringing together a local girl like herself and a vacationer like Connor. Except nothing is the same in the wake of the storm. And day after day, week after week, Lucy is left to pick up the pieces of her broken heart and broken home. Now with Memorial Day approaching and Connor returning, will it be a summer of fresh starts or second chances?

Review

I want to thank J at The Reading Nook Reviews for introducing me to this beautiful book. She's super wonderful and has really great taste! The Summer After You and Me is my first Jennifer Salvato Doktorski book and it certainly will not be the last.

The Summer After You and Me is a compelling love story about a girl dealing with the aftermath of her actions before and after a storm tears through her life. Literally, a storm. Lucy aka Luce has always had feelings for Connor, the-gorgeous-vacationer-next-door. She puts up a carefree front towards everything relating to him but deep down she's ecstatic when something happens between them. Clearly the feeling was mutual yet somehow no happy reunion awaited them after Superstorm Sandy. The story follows Luce's struggle to figure out what happened and deal with her choices afterwards. Not to forget, she's doing all that while piecing her home back together. A home she loves very very much.

I so adored Luce with her slightly nerdy personality. "Love, like chemistry, has too many moving parts and unknowns." (eARC, Loc 1066). Isn't that the truth! The girl also knows her marine biology! The snippets of her thesis at the beginning of each chapter were simple yet so fascinating. Marine life isn't all that different from ours. Now as much as I loved Lucy's caring nature, I also wanted to give her a good shake. Her decision to hide 'that' event and her feelings for Connor snowballed into constant fighting with her brother and estrangement from her friends. "Not telling isn't a lie, but it is a betrayal." (eARC, Loc 2410). After too much drama, I'm still pleased she managed to figure that one out on her own.

I'm pretty sure I have a weakness for love interests named Connor. I definitely loved the Connor in this story. He was a player with the key word being 'was'. Without a doubt, he had strong feelings for Luce and it definitely showed in his actions. He even admitted to wanting her to be 'the one'. A little premature since they weren't even in a relationship but hey, it's the thought that counts. Especially after what happened between them. At first I was really baffled by what the big deal was. Colour me surprised when Luce revealed it in one simple sentence. I found myself going 'ohhhh, yep, there it is". I love the way the flashbacks were done to lead up to that point.

One thing I didn't expect from the story was the love triangle. It threw me off however, I could see why it was present. Sometimes things out of our control happen and under those circumstances, I think Luce handled it rather well. Nearing the end of the book, I found myself thinking the story could've ended by now but it kept going. It doesn't really bother me just that I had that particular feeling at one point. The ending was perfect though so I wouldn't trade it for anything else.

With genuine characters, swoony romance, realistic conflicts, what's not to love about The Summer After You and Me? Just go read it already! I'm off to go catch up on Jennifer's previous works~

*I received an eARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinion are my own and not affected in any way. All quotes were taken from the Advance Review Copy I received.