| Title | : | This Time Next Summer |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1736640836 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | - |
| Publication | : | Published April 5, 2022 |
She was beautifully broken. And his everything.
Hurt and scarred by every man in her life, Jasmine had vowed to never love again. Then she meets Avgust, and her broken heart resumes beating.
A romantic idealist who measures love by his poetry output, Avgust had given up on finding that elusive once-in-a-lifetime kind of love he’d always dreamed of. But the moment he spies Jasmine in a coffee shop, he knows unequivocally that she is his Her—the woman who will change his life.
It was the perfect love story.
Until the secrets and betrayals of the past threaten to break them apart.
Will their love be strong enough to save Jasmine from her past, and Avgust from his future?
This Time Next Summer Reviews
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I am around at 2.90-3.15 ⭐ for this one.
Featuring ~ dual 3rd person POV, dual timeline, characters in their 20’s, parental infidelity
Avgust & Jasmine drove me absolutely batty! They were back and forth, up and down and all over the place and in between.
Their story was told between the past and present following both of their lives. It was interesting to have the mini-chapters within the chapter.
I did find the day they met in the coffee shop sweet. Each talking to themselves about the other was kind of cute.
Avgust is the winner of compliment king 👑. Guess what? He thinks Jasmine is beautiful. Wanna know how i know? Cuz he told her like 472 times. Okay fine, 60, but it surely felt like 472. He was a little too romantic for me taste. And he was hard for me to picture too since he's a 6’6” half Russian, half Jewish nurse.
Jasmine has a hard time trusting people ~ especially men, since her father cheated on her mom and left her for a younger woman. She pulls and pushes and pulls and pushes and so on and so forth. I wish she treated Avgust better.
This was a quick and sad read.
*Thanks to BookSirens and the author for the ARC, I am voluntarily leaving my honest review* -
I'll be honest, I really did not enjoy this book. I thought it started out okay but the writing style just wasn't for me and I found both Avgust and Jasmine to be really frustrating to read. I think that if the book was much shorter and didn't have the same sequence of events occurring multiple times that it would have been a much nicer read however the repetition just got a bit too much, especially towards the end of the novel.
2/5 stars. Thank you to BookSirens and the author for this copy to review. -
A charming, albeit formulaic, tale of romance that thoughtfully pays homage to epic love stories of old.
In a departure from his typical darkly comic thrillers, Moses Yuriyvich Mikheyev presents an endearing, if at times stilted, romance in This Time Next Summer. Across the novel, Mikheyev compellingly charts the blossoming and strengthening of a young couple’s relationship in a style that is overly poetic at times.
Mikheyev begins by briefly illustrating the protagonists’, Avgust and Jasmine’s, future together and their lives prior to their relationship, before introducing the couple at a meet cute in the present day. The story alternates between Avgust and Jasmine’s perspectives while it simultaneously flits between past and present. Mikheyev adeptly narrates the course of the relationship while offering in-depth character studies when delving into each individual’s past, which has a great bearing on their present. This Time Next Summer is not only a meditation on falling in love but also a study of family trauma, mental and physical illness, and self-acceptance.
One of the novel’s triumphs is its fast-paced structure, which renders it incredibly readable. Mikheyev divides each chapter into short subsections to allow for frequent changes in perspective. The alternating viewpoints and recurrent depiction of inner monologues make for a fascinating psychological read. Despite its thriller-esque form, the novel is sweepingly romantic and indulges in grandeur. Jasmine becomes Avgust’s muse for writing poetry, of which he produces an abundance. Avgust’s poetic nature speaks to the literary heritage of writers like Pablo Neruda and F. Scott Fitzgerald; his references to such writers further augment the sense of romance central to the narrative.
While I appreciate the novel’s intentions and its portrayal of numerous tender moments, I cannot award it higher than three stars as the writing style was not to my taste. I found the wording to be overly luxurious or embellished to the extent that it interfered with the storytelling. This was especially true of the dialogue, in which the characters often spoke in a stilted manner. Surprisingly, the novel is set in the late 2010s, yet I thought much of the dialogue appeared old-fashioned. Perhaps it was a stylistic choice to write a text overflowing with nostalgia and poetry; however, I would have preferred a prosaic, less descriptive novel.
If you enjoy opulent meditative novels with lashings of romance, then this would be a great addition to your to-be-read pile. Admirers of Romantic poetry, like that of Keats, may also find This Time Next Summer to be a linguistic delight. -
I can’t believe how beautiful this book is! I fell in love with every page. The way this story is written is so gorgeous and the poetry was exquisite (not something I’m normally a fan of but such a perfect addition to the book). I felt that the characters were very real and their inner monologues were so well constructed. This book broke my heart in two but I loved it so much! What else can I say. Just beautiful.
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I was initially unfamiliar with the works of Mikheyev before reading “This Time Next Summer” but I was hooked within the first few pages. Hence, this turned out to be a quick read for me. This story was brilliant and haunting. It resonated with me on many levels, especially with both Avgust and Jasmine’s inner thinking.
While the novel was shorter than what I’m used to, the story of Avgust and Jasmine came together beautifully regardless of page length. To stay away from spoilers, I will let it be known that the ending saddened me. Sigh.
As an added reaction: The way the words flowed on the pages, I could have sworn I was reading a novel by John Green, and I was pleasantly surprised to see The Fault in our Stars mentioned within Mikheyev’s novel.
I will be on the lookout for more novels by Mikheyev.
*I downloaded an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. -
Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for providing me with a digital copy of this book, in exchange for an honest review.
This book is not only a love story, it is a story of grief and fear, and tragedy when it comes to self-acceptance. Jasmine has been afraid of falling in love for as long as she can remember, due to times of despair in her childhood, and when poetic and caring Avgust comes into her life. They face many challenges and heartbreak in each other's presence, but their relationship causes Jasmine to internalize her fears and question: What is love?
I went into this book already knowing that I am not a huge fan of romance, so my standards were already unrealistically high from the start. The fact that the main premise of this relationship is "insta-love" made me already immediately wary of how much I would enjoy it. I understand how important and personal the writer's messages are, and I definitely do appreciate that; I just wasn't a fan of the way it was executed. The characters, especially Jasmine, were unlikeable and flat at times, and I had some major issues with the pacing and blunt writing style. It's just my personal opinion. and I applaud the author for writing such a dramatic love story, but sometimes it felt too repetitive and borderline frustrating, so it just didn't end up being something that I personally enjoyed.
Overall, I didn't really have any expectations going into this novel, so I wasn't disappointed in it, I was more disappointed in myself for not enjoying it. For people who have had a difficult time letting themselves fall in love, as well as lovers of the "love at first sight" trope, this novel is for you. I fit neither of those categories so I was unable to appreciate this author's work as much as I would like, but I am still grateful to Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book. -
This Time Next Summer was an absolutely enjoyable read and made me think a lot about life, loss and love, it's official description matches perfectly the vibe of the story. The author took a rather difficult romance topic and made it very fresh, interesting, swoon worthy, and heartbreaking.
What made this book really unique for me, was the poetry parts, poetry speaks to me, and the poems in this book matched the main characters.
The only reason I give four stars in my review is because I wanted "This Time Next Summer" to be longer read.
If you asked me if I would recommend this to a friend, the answer is absolutely yes. Not only I would reread this book, but I would definitely look into Moses Yuriyivch Mikheyev's other books as well. -
Avgust and Jasmine are two twenty somethings who happen to be at the same cafe one day. This is a story of two people with pasts caught up in their present trying to make a relationship work.
Thank you to Netgalley for providing a free e-copy for my honest review.
It was difficult for me to get into the story in the beginning. There were times where the dialogue made me cringe, other times it was the individual’s (mainly Avgust’s) thought processes. At first I did not enjoy seeing the story as a romance as the relationship evolved but I decided to change my approach to this book. I realized I saw a lot of my 20 year old self in these characters and their perceptions of relationships - both Avgust and Jasmine were both young adults still trying to understand what a romantic relationship entails. The story then became a study of a relationship, following its failures and successes.
The New Adult category was appropriate to categorize the story based on the way the two characters approached the relationship and each other. Avgust and Jasmine’s attraction was strongest at the physical level. They were both hurt in the past and sought to avoid reliving past pain. The big issue was that they really didn’t get to know each other as they often get lost in their own heads and programmed modes of thinking. The source of their conflicts was each of them being “stuck” so to say, lost in their own minds, making it difficult to understand how to communicate or surmise what the other person needs. They were lost in their idea somewhere along the way of what their relationship is supposed to look like, what it's supposed to feel, rather than actually being in the relationship. Despite what they’ve seen and what they've experienced, Avgust and Jasmine still needed to learn more coming into the relationship with each other. I found myself infuriated by their albeit naive narcissism and often narrow perspective
I wanted to give the story a chance to see what it has to offer. There was a lot of potential in the story, Mikheyev did expand some plot points and fell flat on others. Each of the characters' upbringing and personal issues was illustrated sufficiently enough to understand Avgusts and Jasmine's motivations. At times it became one-dimensional, especially in Jasmine’s case. I felt Mikheyev missed more opportunities incorporating Avgust’s background into the plot than he did with Jasmine’s. Through the course of the relationship, it didn’t seem like either characters truly got to know the other - their conversations seemed more superficial, filled with romantic declarations and light flirtations. Their dialogue could have had more dimension to them to match the emotional turmoil Avgust and Jasmine often went through. The story did get more depth towards the second half. I was able to see Avgust’s character beyond being the young man caught in his self perception of a hopeless, luckless romantic. I understand that the greater message of the story is to seize the day, but the execution sometimes felt flat or even bombastic at times.
The story read as vignettes pieced together, sometimes chapters read like a poem, and it made it an easy read. Some parts though could’ve been edited out or shortened. I would suggest this as a book club read for young adults to discuss the ins and outs of Avgust and Jasmine’s relationship. I feel many readers in the New Adult age group can relate to the misgivings and feelings of both Avgust and Jasmine along the way, hopefully learning from the two to have their own meaningful relationships.
Rating: 3 stars - An easy read studying two humans trying to maintain a relationship. -
Thank you Moses Yuriyvich Mikheyev for contacting me personally with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review since I enjoyed Bodies: A Romantic Bloodbath so much last year.
First off, This Time Next Summer IMO, is the complete opposite of Bodies. The prior book was about obsession and revenge. This was about love and heartbreak. And man, did my heartbreak for Agvust and Jazmine! Her outlook on love and relationships is negative because a father that was unfaithful and a cheater. Agvust was a romantic wanting a long-term relationship.
I enjoyed the dual timeline and getting to know Agvust and Jazmine then and a current relationship. The ending of this book just wrecked me! Oh my Lawd ham mercy!
I know there a lot of opinions about this book and author but I loved this book and look forward to continue reading more from him. I highly recommend this book!
Thank you Moses for emailing me personally about a reading and reviewing this book. I really appreciate it!
Thanks to NetGalley, Moses Yuriyvich Mikkeyev and Books Go Social for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Already Available: 4/6/22 -
I had a very hard time getting through this book.
Part of it was the writing style. It was too descriptive, too much 'he did this, she thought that' - but that was only part of it.
A bigger part of why I did not like this book at all were the characters, especially Avgust. I have seen people say that Jasmine did him dirty. I saw another picture. For a lot of the book Avgust came across to me as a Nice Guy(tm). There was too much of 'she's my whole world', obsession over a succession of women leading up to Jasmine, then there was some kind of Instalove, and whole mental rants that could be summarized as 'I'm not a Chad, so she won't like me'. As his first section started telling all about what a Nice Guy(tm) Avgust was and this obsessive behavior over women, I simply couldn't like him as a character. For way too long he came across as a total creep, plain and simple. For that reason I also couldn't root for or be invested in their relationship. I hoped it would end all the time.
Tl;dr: Avgust was a creep. Jasmine wasn't ready for a relationship. They should never have instaloved. I found no reason to be invested into their relationship written down in a way that needed a lot of edits before it was published. -
How I could relate with the way the protagonists were thinking. Such a sad story but I enjoyed it.
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Oh my. Agvust and Jasmine. Where do I begin? A tumultuous love story between a romantic idealist and a beautiful Spanish “Koroleva”, at least that’s what she is to Agvust anyway. The journey that these two go on is a vexatious adventure. I loved how the author assimilated childhood trauma with deep vigorous feelings in being in love. How debilitating it can be. The physical feeling of being ignored, the fear of being abandoned, the transient love that we get possessed by. How loving someone so intensely feels demented and incurable. Jasmine is a brown eyed beauteous girl that is abandoned by her father at a young age. Leaving her mother devastated and forced to raise Jasmine alone. Jasmine lives with the belief that she will always be forsaken, a belief she doesn’t deserve love. She doesn’t allow herself to believe in long lasting love as she is paralyzed by her past experiences. It’s heartrending to see her inner dialogue. Agvust is a handsome, tall hopeless, idealistic romantic. He longs for a world where love is infinitely never ending. His inflamed love for Jasmine is enticing and vanquishing. Agvust is ready to never love another woman again. He cannot imagine a life without Jasmine. Yet Jasmine is maimed by the men in her life. Jasmine is entangled in feelings of dubiety and passion for Avgust. The chemistry between these two, is a vibrating energy that you can feel while reading. The author melted my heart with the poetry. I found it to be lovely. In my view, I yearned for more creativity when it came to Agvusts verbal expression for Jasmine. The dialect between the couple needed less monotonous phrases. Additionally, I would have liked to discover more personal history on Agvust. Jasmine’s history is perceivable but I felt that we were left in the dark about Agvust. The ending like many great love stories, was fragmented. I was anticipating for more apprehension towards the end. I felt it was rushed. Notwithstanding , the story was beautiful to unveil and be apart of. I will be on the look out for more stories by Moses Mikheyev.
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This one was a bit more difficult to write due to its semi-autobiographical nature. But I did manage to survive writing it! If you like an intelligent romance, pick up a copy!
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This was a hard book for me to get through. This is a dual POV that changes between characters suddenly, so you have to pay attention to that, and then it’s a love story, but also talks about personal issues that each character has. They both seem to be looking for “the one” but also are not necessarily looking. This book is also told between two timelines, both of their pasts and then present time. You learn a lot about each of them and how different their upbringing was and how different their parents were and how that has effected each of their views on marriage or finding that one person.
Jasmine was not my favorite, well, to be honest, I didn’t like her at all 😅 She was aware of abandonment issues she had thanks to her father, and she’s fully aware of these issues and yet who abandons the other may I ask? Instead of doing something about her issues and concerns, she just allowed them to take over her life and drag Avgust through it all which really wasn’t fair to him at all.
Avgust I liked. He’s a romantic and loves writing poetry which I found sweet when he wrote for Jasmine. He wasn’t an exciting character by any means and had quite the patience for Jasmine which I didn’t understand.
The romance is instalove, and is not handled well by Jasmine. I didn’t enjoy the romance at all which is a bummer since that’s primarily what the book was about.
The way this book is written was also a bit too philosophical and deep for me. Some of the subjects and things they talked about I got bored or I wasn’t interested in so I did skim some of the dialogue 😅
And then the ending, I have mixed feelings about. It’s a bit abrupt and the way it ended I think is silly, which would make sense if you read it and I’m not going to spoil it.
Overall, this book wasn’t for me. That doesn’t mean someone else wouldn’t enjoy it! 2.5 ⭐️
I received a free gifted copy from the author. All thoughts and opinions are my own. -
I received this book as an ARC one day before it was published. Obviously I was not going to be able to read it before the book being published, but anyway I wanted to give it a try.
Being honest, I am not sure what to think about this book.
On the one hand, I enjoyed all the philosophical atmosphere in it and all the thoughts and opinions about human behaviors, specially those related to love. The story was sweet, warm and very romantic. I do not think it is a bad story or it is poorly written, at all. A story with a strong potential.
The thing is, on the other hand, that I found myself very frustrated with Jasmine behavior and some sequences of events getting repeated several times. Like exactly the same. It is a story that intents to go super deep but it gets on the surface because everything happens so fast that could lack even lack of credibility. Deep love at first sigh must be super super super well done to be credible.
Recommended as a quick story to read in between others. -
3, slightly generous, stars for Moses Yuriyvich Mikheyev's novel, This Time Next Summer.
I didn't fall in love with this book, but I didn't flat out dislike it either. The writing style had a lot to do with what didn't make it work better for me as a reader.
The characters' motivations were kind of rough and I had trouble identifying with and/or supporting them. Perhaps if this were a series and the reader could see the character development as time goes on for Jasmine, I might enjoy that more.
It was a little predictable and a bit repetitive, but over all, it was a nice story. I just felt like it needed a stronger foundation for such heavy topics. This would help the story earn a higher rating from me as a reader.
That said, moving forward I would definitely read another book from this author. Thank you to Book Sirens and the author, Moses Yuriyvich Mikheyev, for allowing me the opportunity to read and review This Time Next Summer. -
A relaxing meander about the fragility of relationships
While I read a lot of fantasy & other non-fiction, I appreciate authors who offer educational tidbits in their works. In this book, I got introduced to Søren Kierkegaard’s term “people bath” and poets Pablo Neruda & Jack Gilbert. I also tend to use Google Maps to explore areas new to me. I’ve never been to Washington, so I saw the Seattle metro through someone else’s eyes.
I found it refreshing that Avgust’s and Jasmine’s dating had such an intellectual element to it.
Fave quotes:
‘The kindest souls in this world have the most difficult time.’
‘If you don’t heal what hurt you, you’ll bleed on people that didn’t cut you.’
And I’ll end with Avgust’s blessing:
‘May the promises made on our ever-hopeful lips be kept, and may the summers we wish for be granted to us.’ -
DNF
It’s honestly very rare that I’ll not finish a book. It’s hard to explain what the real issue was for me, but I just couldn’t invest in the story. Both main characters were slightly bizarre, no real description of what they look like or much background, but the fact that it’s an iPhone they’re holding is mentioned repetitively..
I think in the end that was my main issue; not a huge amount of description or investment in the characters but incredibly mundane repetition of other things.
Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and author for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. -
To start I am not the biggest fan of just plain romance, I love romantasy and added elements. I knew after reading the blurb, it was romance driven and I didn’t have great expectations. Overall it’s a good book for lovers of romance and romance through loss and struggle, it just wasn’t my cup of tea. It was an easy and quick read and was okay in some parts but just a lot of romance to the point it was sickeningly romantic lol.
Thank you to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review! -
Conflicted review
I am conflicted. I started this book and then paused for the night. It wasn't a story I just had to pick up again but I did pick it up again. I read sporadically over two days. It was "okay" and there were times I thought about moving to another book but I held on. I liked the characters okay but was often frustrated by them as well. With all that being said, the ending brought me to tears. The emotions raised this from a two-star to a three-star review. -
I struggled with this one... although I've read one other of his books, I struggled with his writing style for this genre. Things just felt choppy and did not have a natural flow for me.
I still enjoy this author, though, and will try out for of his books as I did really enjoy "All Things Sacred" by him. It may be just me, so give it a try and see if it works for you. -
I liked the concept, but the writing was so broken up it was difficult to read. I did love the poetic portions. The author can definitely write poetry
