Name: Not Our Summer
ISBN: 9780762472291

Casie Bazay

Estranged cousins K. J. and Becka must complete their deceased grandfather's strange bucket list in order to earn the inheritance they both need, but Grandpa's real motive makes it a challenge.

Not Our Summer

KADY BURNS

Thank you to NetGally and the publisher for this ARC

A book about two cousins who don't get along who are forced to take trips around the country in order to get their grandfather's inheritance. The plot is not really all that believable, but the characters are realistic and I enjoyed tagging along on their trips. 

This book reads very quickly and is rather enjoyable. I don't think I will remember it a few months from now, but I was entertained while reading it.

Caitlyn DeRouin

3-3.5 stars

Not Our Summer is a solid debut novel! I thought that the story flowed nicely, the writing was descriptive, and the two main characters, cousins Becka and K.J. had some really nice character growth and I loved watching their friendship grow and change as the story went on. I loved reading about their bucket list adventure that their grandfather planned for them, as well as the letters he left behind that explained why he had planned all of this for them. I'll be honest, I didn't actually see the twist coming but once it was revealed it made complete sense as to why they were estranged from each other for so long. I thought that the ending was satisfactory and ended on a hopeful and realistic note, which I enjoyed.

Though I had wished that there was more diversity within the cast. While we had diversity in social class between Becka and K.J., there was not any racial or sexuality diversity. Not to say that I want characters of color or LGBTQ+ characters just thrown into stories and either used as token characters or stereotypes, but some diversity would've been nice.

It was easy to stay focused and engaged in the story, I read it in mostly one sitting. I'll definitely be checking out Casie Bazay's work in the future.

laura

* I got this book for review from the publisher*

I read this book in one sitting. I really was captured by the cousin based adventure and all the sighting elements that were at the hear of this read. I also liked how this book really focused on the complicity of extended family realtionships. It was fun being in both girls heads as well. I def was more invested in the travel elements and was more engaged bye Beka Character. Small content warning smoking is a very prevalent in this read as well!! It did have some subtle romances plot that were present but did not wow me. Would def read more by this author in the future.

Jelke Lenaerts

I received a galley of this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. 

This book has content warnings for death of a loved one and mentions of agoraphobia and panic attacks.

My thoughts on this book are a bit mixed. The first half was very though to get through for me. I just wasn't enjoying either of our characters and I got frustrated by the fact that we just didn't know why they hated each other so much. That kept me from being able to sympathize with them. The second half went much better though. I do think the two characters going from hating each other to liking each other was kind of quick and wasn't really developed well. However, in the second half we also got the reason why they hate each other and I didn't get it. I mean, I totally understood why their moms don't like each other anymore but why their children hated each other so much that they each thought the other was the absolute scum of the earth just didn't make sense to me at all. The ending I actually liked quite a bit and the traveling aspect was also a lot of fun. So yeah, all of that combined comes to a three star for me.

Krystal Pollock

I love how full of adventure this story was and how amazing it would be to travel and do all the things these characters did but of course under better circumstances. This is definitely a story with lots of love, hate, emotions that run deep and lots of trying to understand why people male the decisions that they do. Loved it!

Not Our Summer

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